‘The Simpsons’ showrunner explains why show is good at predicting future events
"You are surely going to anticipate the future foolishness of humanity"
by Sam Warner · NMEThe Simpsons showrunner Matt Selman has explained why the show is very good at predicting the future.
The animated series has famously foreseen several major events throughout its run, notably Donald Trump’s presidency, Disney’s takeover of Fox and iPhone autocorrect – to name a few.
Asked by People why the series has been great at such predictions, Selman responded: “Well, the sourpuss answer I always give that no one likes is that if you study history and math, it would be literally impossible for us not to predict things.
“If you say enough things, some of them are going to overlap with reality, and then that’s the math element.
“And then, the history element is if you make a show that is based on studying the past foolishness of humanity, you are surely going to anticipate the future foolishness of humanity as it sinks further into foolishness fair. So we don’t really think about it.”
However, he did stress that the list of things is “completely unregulated,” and that the writers “hate” when fans “put obviously fake images online and say, we predicted things that we didn’t”.
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“It was nicer when the predictions were just predicting real horrible events, not people pretending we predicted horrible events,” Selman added, admitting it’s “very depressing and dispiriting that people want the magic to be true so bad that they just start” making up predictions that they never aired.
In other Simpsons news, the show recently included a parody of The White Lotus‘ opening credits in an episode, where the family travels to “The Yellow Lotus” and “encounter death on vacation at a high-end resort”.
The show’s current 36th season recently kicked off with a fake “series finale”, which saw the return of Conan O’Brien – who wrote some of the show’s most iconic episodes in its earlier days.
The series is yet to be renewed for a 37th season, which comes amid speculation about the animated show’s future.