The Simpsons has earned itself a reputation over the years for seemingly predicting the future, so much so that there’s a Wikipedia page dedicated to the idea. The latest thing they were said to have predicted? That annoyingly nonsensical “6-7” meme:
It’s fun to think the show has a sort of special ability to foresee events, but a lot of the things it’s been said to have predicted are a bit of a stretch, or in hindsight seem pretty obvious. For example, you don’t have to be a fortune teller to suggest that a magician who works with a tiger could one day be attacked by it. Nonetheless, there have been a few Simpsons “predictions,” for lack of a better word, that were a little too spot-on to be looked at as anything else. Including the following:
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4. People selling ferrets as toy poodles
In the 2002 episode “Poppa’s Got a Brand New Badge,” Homer decides to start his own police force called SpringShield. He eventually sets his sights on Fat Tony, the Springfield Mafia Don, who he catches trying to pass off ferrets as toy poodles to an unsuspecting pet shop. A little over a decade after the episode initially aired, a man in Argentina bought what he was told were two toy poodles at a bazaar, only to find out that they were actually ferrets. The animals had apparently been given steroids and were groomed to appear more like poodles.
3. Disney buying 20th Century Fox
Homer becomes a personal assistant to Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger in “When You Dish Upon a Star,” which first aired in 1998. Toward the end of the episode, we see a sign for 20th Century Fox, and in small print under the logo, it says “A Division of Walt Disney Co.” In March of 2019, Disney would announce its acquisition of 21st Century Fox. Interestingly enough, The Simpsons itself was a part of it.
2. The Shard skyscraper in London
Lisa gets a glimpse into her future in the 1998 episode “Lisa’s Wedding,” when a fortune teller informs her that she’ll end up marrying a British man in 2010. At one point, we get a look at London as The Simpsons envisioned it in the future. If you look closely, you can see a pointy building next to Tower Bridge that looks suspiciously like The Shard (the tallest building in the UK). Construction on the real skyscraper didn’t begin until 2009.
1. The mass of the Higgs boson (a.k.a. the “God particle”)
Homer tries his hand at being an inventor in 1998’s “The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace.” In one scene, Homer is shown working out an equation on a blackboard. According to physicist Simon Singh, “That equation predicts the mass of the Higgs boson,” sometimes referred to as the “God particle.” Singh finds the prediction “kind of amazing” because it was made 14 years before the particle was discovered.
