Did 'The Simpsons' Predict the Pandemic AND Murder Hornets? Of Course it Did.

Like I said early on, before the shutdown when we were all still pretty much in the Still Naive Enough to Think This'll All Blow Over and Turn Out to Be No Big Deal/Denial phase of coronavirus, of course "The Simpsons" more or less predicted this. In May of 1993, which would be Season 4, Episode 21 "Marge in Chains," Homer orders a juicer from the Far East, in this case, Osaka, Japan. A factor worker with the flu coughs into the box before he ships it out, and social commentary, satire and madcap hijinks ensue: 

What's been ignored until now is that later, in that same episode, as Dr. Fauci Hibbert tries to ease public fears from the White House Briefing Room his clinic, this happens:

Let's review. A virus spreads from the Far East to middle America. Health officials try to keep the public calm and informed. Still there's panic and civil unrest. The people become impatient, begin to defy the medical profession and protest.  And then deadly, murderous, stinging insects are unleashed, adding to the panic. Sounds vaguely familiar. 

Again, maybe this is just simple math. "The Simpsons" has been on since 1989 and done over 680 episodes. So many that even "South Park" and "Family Guy" have joked about how it's done everything a show can do. So this could just be a "put an infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of keyboards and eventually they'll type all of Shakespeare's works" (and one of my blogs in 0.5 seconds, tbh) situation.

But even with that, you have to admit this is strangely, weirdly, uncannily specific. Surreal and dead balls accurate. 

As a plot device, I don't even get how a bunch of killer insects getting loose in the middle of a pandemic crisis makes any sense at all or works as a punchline. It almost makes more sense that we'll find out the writers were from the future and went back in time to create this content just to tie everyone's brains into balloon animals 27 years after it airs. Then have a big laugh at our expense. Hell, they were probably sent back to 1993 by the future Disney Corp. who'll invent time travel because knew they'd put "The Simpsons" on Disney+ in 2019 and it's worth messing with the time/space continuum if it sells subscriptions and helps get them through this downturn. It's diabolically ingenious. And if there's a media giant I wouldn't put it past, it's the Mouse.

Hell, "The Simpsons" even predicted that.