As with just about each main world occasion as of late, Joe Biden’s announcement that he’s determined to drop out of the presidential race and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris has impressed individuals to clog up the web with claims that The Simpsons predicted this eventuality many years earlier.
This explicit “prediction” stems from the 2000 episode “Bart to the Future,” the one the place Bart is granted a magical imaginative and prescient of his maturity wherein he’s a Jimmy Buffett-loving burnout whereas Lisa is the nation’s commander-in-chief.
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The comparability between future Lisa and Kamala Harris was first made again in 2021, after Harris wore a purple gown and pearls, distinctly harking back to President Lisa’s wardrobe, on inauguration day.
However even earlier than that obvious coincidence, “Bart to the Future” was singled out for its psychic content material owing to a throwaway line about Lisa inheriting “fairly a price range crunch from President Trump,” a joke that turned a complete lot much less humorous 16 years later.
This was by no means meant to be any type of prediction. Because the episode’s author Dan Greaney instructed The Hollywood Reporter, the road was solely pitched as a result of the thought of a Trump presidency “was in keeping with the imaginative and prescient of America going insane.” This one joke is seemingly why Bart scrawled “Being proper sucks” on the Springfield Elementary chalkboard quickly after Trump’s electoral victory.
In distinction, the Simpsons brass really appear fairly cool with the concept that this episode additionally “predicted” a Kamala Harris presidency.
It’s type of shocking that a lot worldwide media consideration has been paid to “Bart to the Future” contemplating that it’s arguably one of many present’s worst episodes. The truth is, in 2003, Leisure Weekly went full Comedian E-book Man and branded it because the “worst episode” in Simpsons historical past.
“Bart to the Future” clearly simply tried to ape the success of 1995’s “Lisa’s Wedding ceremony,” which additionally concerned a mystical peek into the longer term. However, importantly, that episode discovered a approach to flip its narrative gimmick right into a bittersweet story underscoring Lisa’s connection to her dad. “Bart’s Future,” however, is simply type of a bummer, and its decision presents no emotional payoff to justify its existence.
To not point out, the episode padded out its runtime with an extra-lame B-plot regarding Homer’s seek for Lincoln’s gold within the White Home, which even the present straight acknowledged, was as a result of the magical “spirits” thought that the “primary imaginative and prescient was a bit skinny.”
Extra distressingly, the framing system discovered the Simpsons visiting an “Indian On line casino” run by a man who has magical powers and sufficient free time to make use of mentioned powers to entertain youngsters. The start of this episode is chock-full of wildly insensitive jokes rehashing Indigenous stereotypes, like how the on line casino is that includes the comic “Carrot Scalp.”
In the course of the episode’s DVD commentary, Greaney made it some extent to notice that he wasn’t chargeable for one of many extra offensive jokes, Homer’s “Hello-how-are-you?” chant, which the writers flagged as problematic and regarded slicing, however in response to Greaney, “Dan (Castellaneta) did it so humorous on the desk (learn) we determined to threat offending.”
It’s simply too dangerous that the episode dominating the zeitgeist proper now isn’t about killer robots, homicide mysteries or monorails.
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