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When it comes to television shows and accurate predictions, The Simpsons has a great track record. There’s a huge rabbit hole of articles, essays, and videos on the subject. The seemingly consistent accuracy behind The Simpsons predicting so many pop culture events leads many to wonder, how do they do it? The truth of the matter is that there is no magic potion or spell being made that makes The Simpsons writers know what is going to happen next. Instead, these predictions come from the team’s meticulous writing process, as well as statistics.
Predicting The Future By Writing Cartoons
Good writers are the reason why The Simpsons appears to predict the future. Many of the writers on The Simpsons are veteran comedians. These comedians have a firm grasp on current events and know how to comically tell viewers what is going on in the world. Some well-known alumni who’ve written on the show include Conan O’Brien; Greg Daniels, known for his work on The Office, Parks and Recreation, King of the Hill; and Mike Scully, known for his work on SNL and numerous other shows.
The show’s writer’s room goes through a rigorous process when it comes to choosing what goes into each episode. Joel Cohen, long-time Simpsons writer, wrote in his book, How to Lose a Marathon, about the writing process involving pitching a lot of jokes. How many? About a thousand, with only fifty going into the actual script.
Along with picking only the best jokes, Simpsons episodes are also written a year prior to when they go on air, meaning the writers develop jokes that are intended to be relevant even with that gap in between. Having a team of experts is what helps make The Simpsons ahead of its time… and sometimes, a little prophetic.
One To Lie, One To Listen
One example that refutes the idea of writers being psychics is the debunked theory that the show predicted the Trump presidency. In the eleventh season episode “Bart to the Future,” it’s revealed in a vision that Lisa has become the first “straight female president.” Lisa speaks with her staff as she discusses the budget crisis started by former president Donald Trump.
This episode took place sixteen years prior to when Trump was elected, and many outlets took this as a definite sign that The Simpsons had some insight into knowing future events. But as previously stated, the writer’s room looks at current information in order to develop jokes that will still seem fresh years later. In this specific scene, the episode hit television screens in 2000. Back in 1999, Trump announced on national television he would run for president as part of the Reform Party. Back in 1988, he had also mentioned wanting to run for president as part of the Republican Party.
In an article by the New York Times, Al Jean, a writer for the show for sixteen years, verifies this being the inspiration for the joke.
“People have somewhat forgotten, but he was talking about running for president then. So, it wasn’t totally out of the blue. It was just a guy who was a punch-line name and had presidential aspirations.”
Owned By Disney
Another big prediction that caught the attention of many outlets was Disney’s 52 billion dollar deal for 21st Century Fox in December 2017. Many outlets reported The Simpsons predicted this deal would happen back in 1998, when a sign in the episode “When You Wish Upon a Star” showed 20th Century Fox was a part of Walt Disney Co.
While many people interpreted this as a prediction come true, it wasn’t. Al Jean, in the same New York Times article, was ready to discredit it, “It happens. There’s always merger. It seemed logical…”
Given Disney is one of the largest companies in the world, it’s no surprise it wanted to buy out its competition especially since they were releasing a new streaming platform. Similar to the Donald Trump theory, many of these predictions are actually jokes developed through research.
The Numbers Game
While a lot of these guesses can be explained by really good writing, there’s some predictions The Simpsons have made that don’t have simple answers. One example is the show consecutively predicting the Super Bowl results for 1992, 1993, and 1994. But as much as this doesn’t align with the previous theory of the writer’s getting it right because they did their research, this phenomenon can also be explained. The previously mentioned New York Times article makes reference to a theory by Harvard mathematicians Frederick Mostellar and Persi Diaconis. The theory states:
“With large enough sample, any outrageous thing is apt to happen.”
Given the length of time The Simpsons has been on air, there’s bound to be times that what they write about matches up with reality. With more than six hundred episodes, thirty two seasons, and one movie – most shows don’t even reach half of what The Simpsons have achieved in longevity. With this in mind, the sample size of things the show has predicted is so large the possibility of them being right increases as well.
“The Whole Damn System Is Wrong!”
The Simpsons have gotten many things right, but they’ve also gotten many things wrong. From the Big Ben transitioning from an analog clock to a digital one in the season six episode “Lisa’s Wedding” to hover cars existing in 2013 as seen in the season sixteen episode “Future-Drama,” not every joke the writers introduce is true.
Statistically, the number of jokes that accurately predict future events is a significantly lower number when compared to the overall number of jokes the show has created. While most theories can be explained, the ones that feel more coincidental are just that – coincidences.
Facing Stupid Reality Again
There’s a lot of prophecies The Simpsons have made that can be explained. With a team of writers who stay ahead of the game, it’s almost inevitable that some of their assumptions would end up matching reality. This is not the work of clairvoyants, but rather the work of a group of people who intentionally try to mimic what they think the future is going to look like for their audience.
While it is a fun idea to think about the cast and crew of The Simpsons being psychics, that is probably not the case. Along with the brilliant team of writers, for a show to be running for this long – the percentage of a handful of jokes being true gets higher. Overall, if one were to mark down every accurate and inaccurate idea the show’s writers have proposed, there’d be more wrong guesses versus correct ones.
There’s an answer to everything when it comes to The Simpsons. But if the idea of a crystal ball in the writer’s room makes the show a little more enjoyable to you, by all means continue with that.
