Simpsons Fans Discovered Another Crazy Prediction From A Past Episode

A 2015 Simpsons short predicted Donald Trump running for the White House in 2024.

By Matthew Creith | Published

Ever since The Simpsons debuted on the Fox network in 1989, the writers of the popular animated comedy have been known to predict the future often. Depicting certain occurrences in real life that also happened previously in an episode of the long-running television show has become a staple of The Simpsons, and fans are quick to point them out. Now, it appears the writers might have done it again; this time, a 2015 snip-it from the series reflected a “Trump 2024” sign with Homer Simpson in the scene, referencing a real-life situation from yesterday when Donald Trump announced he will be running for President of the United States in the 2024 election.

A picture of the scene in question from the television short entitled “Trumptastic Voyage” which was uploaded in 2015 on YouTube has made its way to Twitter via Al Jean. Jean is a writer on The Simpsons and posted the picture to social media to highlight how the writers of the series tend to predict what will actually happen to high-profile celebrities and politicians featured in the show.

With Donald Trump’s announcement that he will run for President for the third time in his political career, it seems that The Simpsons have another notch to add to their prediction belt of wild occurrences that appear on the show before they happen in reality.

The most well-known time when The Simpsons predicted the future was in a season 11 episode entitled “Bart to the Future.” In the episode, Lisa Simpson is President of the United States and she references a budget issue that she inherited from President Trump, a slight nod to his first presidential election run in 2016 when he eventually beat Hillary Clinton to claim the White House. A gag at the time when it aired in March 2000, the episode gained renewed traction 16 years later when Donald Trump actually ran for President and won.

Earlier this year, Entertainment Weekly reported on several other instances that took place on The Simpsons prior to the events actually unfolding in real-time. Onc example of note is in the 1993 episode “$pringfield (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling),” where Las Vegas magicians Siegfried and Roy perform their act and one of their white Bengal tigers attacks them on stage. Unfortunately, this actually happened a decade later in 2003 when one of the famous magicians’ tigers attacked Roy Horn in a horrific accident, and Horn suffered major injuries as a result.

The ability of the writers and voice actors to eerily predict the future via The Simpsons has been studied for years at this point. Several podcasts and notable celebrities have discussed the odd way in which many of the series’ writers are able to come up with plausible storylines and sequences they believe might end up happening later in real-life. However, some of these are just plain coincidences, and many experts at Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC all predicted that Donald Trump would attempt another chance at securing the White House, so The Simpsons writers seem to just be good at their jobs.