Times The Simpsons Accurately Predicted the Future

By: Kate Row | Published: Sep 21, 2023

The Simpsons is one of the longest running adult animated series, first airing in 1989. In addition to being hysterical the show has a way of predicting the future that no one can explain. 

Many scenes in the show happened later in the real world! They do say life imitates art, right? Here are some of the most insane and haunting predictions that The Simpsons has made that ended up coming true.

Khaleesi Goes Crazy

Sorry for the spoiler alert but if you haven’t already watched the Game of Thrones finale, you’re a little late to the game. In 2017, the Simpsons did a parody of the show where the dragons burn down an entire village.

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Two years later, when the final season of Game of Thrones aired, almost the exact scene took place. Daenerys Targaryen’s dragons scorch an entire village of innocent people as she descends into madness.

Ferrets Dressed as Poodles

This one is so weird it feels like it couldn’t possibly be true. Who could think this up as a show idea and how could it possibly have also happened in real life? In 2002, an episode of The Simpsons revolved around a criminal who glues cotton calls to ferrets.

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He was then selling them as expensive toy poodles. In an unbelievable turn of events, in 2013 the same thing happened! Perhaps the man selling the ferrets got the idea from watching the show.

3-Eyed Fish

In one of the oldest episodes, Lisa and Bart go fishing near a nuclear power plant. They catch an unusual fish that seems to have been affected by the radiation. The bizarre catch has three eyes.

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You’ll never guess what happened about 20 years later. An actual three-eyed fish was found and caught in Argentina. Plus, it was found right next to a nuclear power plant!

A Shocking Olympic Win

Whoever writes this show should get a gig as a psychic or start placing bets on games because their ability to basically tell the future is astonishing! An episode from 2010 stars Marge and Homer on the U.S. Olympic Team for an unlikely sport: Curling.

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To the surprise of most people, the U.S. curling teams actually won the gold in 2018. It was their first gold and they even won against Sweden, which is the country the Simpsons competed against in the episode. Eerie!

Fox Being Sold to Disney

Somehow, the show even managed to predict an enormous corporate merge between two of the biggest media companies of all time. In the episode, Homer writes a script that gets picked up by 20th Century Fox.

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For whatever reason, they made Fox be a division of Disney without explanation. Sure enough, in 2017 20th Century Fox was sold to Disney for a whopping $52.4 billion!

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Predicting a Nobel Prize Winner

The kids in The Simpsons have betting pools for who will be the next Nobel Prize Winner instead of betting pools for sports teams. In some inexplicable way, they predicted a future winner and the category he would win in!

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6 years after the episode aired, Bengt Holmstrom won the prize in the category of Economics. You can see that he was on the card in that exact category in the show.

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The Shard Skyscraper

A 1995 episode took place 15 years in the future in London. The London skyline features the famed Big Ben but it also displays something that wasn’t built until many years later. That pointy black building was certainly not there in the 90s.

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In fact, the Shard, which is the black pointed building featured in the 1995 episode, was not built until 2013. Not only does it look exactly like the one in The Simpsons but it’s in the same exact spot as well.

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The Baby Translator

The show has predicted more than events and discoveries. They have also predicted technological advancements. A 1992 episode features a “baby translator” device to understand Maggie.

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In 2015 an eerily similar device came out in the form of an app. Apparently, it could help translate babies’ cries to understand what they needed: food, diaper change, sleep, etc.

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Richard Branson’s Space Exploration

In a 2014 episode an art forger tells Lisa stories about the famous people who have enjoyed his art. One of which was Richard Branson. In the clip, Branson is floating in his spaceship admiring the art piece. 

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Oddly enough, the billionaire did actually partake in a space trip in 2021 on his very own test flight. When will the predictions cease?

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Sequels Prediction

The Simpsons made a spoof episode about the crazy amounts of sequels that are coming to theaters. In the episode, they display a Star Wars 7 poster alongside a Alvin and the Chipmunks 3 movie poster.

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In a hysterical turn of events, similar sequels came out at the exact same time in 2015. The only difference was, of course, the titles.

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JCPenny Failing

The show was able to predict many moments that we can laugh at but they also predicted some rather sad things as well. While all their jokes were in the name of parody and comedy, some of the predictions that came true were harsh.

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JCPenny did actually somewhat collapse and declare bankruptcy in 2020. In the episode, Marge notices that a place where a man is selling Persian CDs used to be a JCPenny store.

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The Soccer Corruption Controversy + A Soccer Win

In this 2014 episode, The Simpsons hit us with a double whammy prediction that is really hard to believe. The episode follows Homer who is trying to help the World Football Federation recover from the many scandals that had fallen on the league due to corruption rumors.

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Only 1 year later, FIFA gained lots of negative publicity for all the same reasons. If that weren’t enough, they also predicted that Germany would beat Brazil in the 2014 World Cup. Unbelievable!

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Lots and Lots of Super Bowl Winners

Perhaps Lisa is the one behind all of these amazing future predictions because in a 1992 episode, they reveal that she has a special ability to guess NFL game winners. Naturally, Homer started using her to win games. 

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One of her predictions was that the Washington Redskins would win the Super Bowl, which they did in real life. Then, they remixed the episode to say that the Dallas Cowboys would win before another Super Bowl game, which they also did.

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The Censoring of Michelangelo's David

A 1990 episode of the show was all about censorship in which Marge tries to get a cartoon censored. While this is happening, the other citizens are working to get Muchaelangelo’s David statue covered up.

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Much later, in 2016 this became true in real life as well. Residents of Saint Petersburg, Russia took a vote to establish whether David should be more covered up than he is.

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The “Tomacco” Plant

In an earlier episode Homer uses nuclear energy to breed a new plant hybrid called “tomacco” which was naturally a tobacco and tomato hybrid. The plant ended up making him a fortune.

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A fan decided to make this plant that was the exact same hybrid. We must admit this isn’t as much of a prediction as it is a dedicated fan making the animated show come to life. But, it’s fascinating to see the show’s influence nonetheless.

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Siegfried and Roy Being Attacked By Their Own Animal

This sinister moment between Siegfried and Roy and their own trained animal actually happened in real life. In a 1993 episode, Homer goes to Vegas with a friend to see a performance of two Germans and a white tiger.

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One of the performers gets injured by the tiger in an eerily similar way to Roy and Siegfried in real life. Apparently, the producers thought the accident was “bound to happen” at one point.

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The Name Change and Location Change of a Baseball Team

This is one of those “life imitates art” moments. In a The Simpsons episode aired in 2001, Homer goes on a hunger strike to protest his favorite minor league baseball team, The Isotopes, moving to New Mexico.

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The Calgary Cannons moved to the same city in New Mexico and changed their name to The Isotopes. You will find statues of the lead characters from The Simpsons in the stadium.

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Wrong Beatles Member

The show made an interesting prediction about a Beatles member answering fan mail 50 years after the fact. In the show it was Ringo Starr who is sifting through tons of fan mail and promising to answer each one even if it takes him 20 years.

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They got part of this right in that a member of the band did start answering mail, but it was Sir Paul McCartney, not Ringo Starr. 

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Predicting Lady Gaga’s Performance

Lady Gaga actually voiced herself on a 2012 episode of the show where she visits Springfield to perform. They had the animated singer suspended above the ground in an animated version of one of her famous ensembles. 

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Then later, in 2017 the singer performed at the Super Bowl halftime show attached to cables that looked exactly like the ones in the show. Coincidence? I think not. It was the first time she had done this kind of performance.

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Pushing Limits at the All-You-Can-Eat Buffet

Conan O’Brien wrote an episode in season four revolving around Homer and his seemingly bottomless pit of a stomach. He gets kicked out of the restaurant for literally eating everything there and then sues the “all-you-can-eat buffet” for false advertising.

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This same thing happened twice in real life where people took buffest like the one in the show to court for not satisfying their needs.

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FaceTime in 1995

In an episode filmed way back in the mid 90s, Lisa and Marge are talking on what they called a “picture phone”. It looked an awful lot like something that we all are familiar with using today.

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Little did the show know that they had predicted the earliest versions of “Facetime” with this episode. Or, maybe Steve Jobs and the other moguls all got their business ideas from the show.

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The Apple Watch

The Simpsons weren’t the only show to think of smart watches before they were actually invented, but they were able to predict specific features of these devices. In an episode from 1995, the show flashes forward to 2010.

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Lisa’s boyfriend proposes to her by speaking into a watch that appears to be an awful lot like the apple watches we see all around us today. In 2014 the first smartwatch with a voice commands feature was released.

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Civilians in Space

Today, people going up into space are becoming almost normalized! It seems like we hear about a new space journey funded by a new billionaire almost everyday. But, when this episode where Homer is sent into space came out, civilians being able to go to space was nothing but a hopeful notion.

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After the episode aired where Homer takes his outer space adventure, NASA sent their first civilian up into space. At this point we shouldn’t even be surprised.

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Autocorrect Before Autocorrect Was a Thing

In 1994, characters Kearney and Dolph tried to write a memo saying “bear up Martin” but it was changed to say “Eat up Martha”. This was before we had the autocorrect feature that we all use today.

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The former director of engineering at Apple even said that they were going to use the phrase “Eat up Martha” as a nod to the show’s prediction of autocorrection. The Simpsons influence is unmatched!

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They Predicted the Queen’s Passing (Or Did They?)

In this special instance, fans of The Simpsons pulled one over on all of us. At this point, many people are aware of their seemingly psychic abilities. When Queen Elizabeth II passed away in September of 2022, images started to make their way across the internet that suggested the show had predicted her passing.

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Some of these images even claimed that the show predicted the date of her passing. While The Simpsons show creatives obviously have a special way of seeing into the future but in this case all of these claims regarding the Queen were actually false.

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Don Mattingly’s Hair

Mr. Burns creates a softball team in a 1992 episode. He recruits the Yankees first baseman, Don Mattingly to the team but the two run into issues. Mr. Burns demands that Mattingly shave his sideburns but when he does, he is still kicked off the team.

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In real life, the same kind of situation happened in which Mattingly was benched due to his refusal to follow the “hair policy”. The episode came out after the real life incident but it was produced before Mattingly was actually benched.

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The Donut Theory

A 1999 episode follows Homer and Stephen Hawking in which the character is voiced by the real life theoretical physicist. Homer shares his donut-shaped universe theory with Hawking.

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Stephen Hawking says that he supports Homer’s theory in the episode and that he might actually steal it. Oddly enough, there is actually a conspiracy theory that the earth is shaped like a donut.

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How a Boring Game Became Real Life Successful

An episode all the way back in 1998 Lisa and Bart beg their parents to let them play this new yard work simulation game. In the show it was just about as boring as it sounds.

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But, in 2009 the game FarmVille launched and it quickly became one of the most popular games on social media. It seemed unlikely that a game with this premise would be so popular, but The Simpsons had it right once again.

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Homer Predicts a Complicated Equation

This one leaves us speechless as to how the creators made this wild prediction. Homer becomes an inventor and writes a complicated equation on the blackboard. This equation might look like nothing special to us.

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But, it turns out this equation is very close to the Higgs boson particle mass, which was not discovered until 2012. This equation explains how everything in the universe has mass. We can’t explain how they made this one happen.

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