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The animated television comedy series The Simpsons has been said, in its 30-plus years on air, to have predicted numerous events that came to pass only well after particular episodes that referenced them had aired — everything from the common autocorrect feature on phones, tablets and computers to the 2019 fire at the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. Many of those so-called predictions were simply hoaxes (created by altering screenshots or misrepresenting the timing of episodes), and even those that might have rung true weren't astonishingly remarkable for a show that lampoons American culture, society, and many aspects of the human condition — anticipated might be a better word than predicted for such cases. Nonetheless, in April 2020 a 1993 episode of The Simpsons was claimed to have predicted both the outbreak of the COVID-19 coronavirus disease and the incursion of murder hornets into the U.S. — events that were prominent news items some 27 years after The Simpsons episode in question originally aired: This item is true in the sense that the referenced clip is unaltered and dated correctly, but the predictive powers attributed to it are rather weak. The episode this clip was taken from, Marge in Chains, originally aired on May 6, 1993. In that episode, Springfield was hit by an outbreak of Osaka Flu, transmitted via an infected worker in Japan who boxed up packages of Juice Looseners to be shipped to customers in the U.S.: https://youtu.be/hqCVB0tOSVQWhen townspeople gather at Dr. Hibbert's medical clinic to demand a cure for the Osaka Flu, the doctor informs them that the only useful treatment for the illness is bed rest, and that anything he gave them would just be a placebo. The gathered crowd then tips over a nearby truck in search of placebos, thereby breaking and unleashing a crate full of killer bees: Although some similarities to events of 2020 are evident here — the spread of an illness believed to have originated in Asia and an insect with a homicidal name — they're rather loosely connected and are more commentary on past events than predictors of future ones, as Marge in Chains co-writer Bill Oakley told the Hollywood Reporter (THR): Oakley also opined that, There are very few cases where 'The Simpsons' predicted something. It's mainly just coincidence because the episodes are so old that history repeats itself. Most of these episodes are based on things that happened in the '60s, '70s or '80s that we knew about.
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