The great South Park line “Simpsons did it!” is a joke about how the long running animated series has done just about every story line possible, but once again it feels like it refer to The Simpsons being one of the great prophets of our time. It turns out they predicted another major story years before it even seemed remotely possible, since in 1998 no one else could have imagined Disney buying Fox.
As io9 points out, the prediction/joke occurrs in season ten’s fifth episode “When You Dish Upon a Star.” Homer becomes a confidant and friend–before becoming an enemy–of new secret Springfield residents Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger and begins pitching movie ideas to Ron Howard. At the end of the episode Howard is seen pitching one of Homer’s absurd concepts to 20th Century Fox, which is listed as “A Division of Walt Disney Co.”
The episode originally aired on November 8th, 1998, so how did they call this almost 20 years ago? Disney was already a global powerhouse at the time, and just two years earlier Disney had purchased ABC, which also included ESPN. That’s why the notion Disney would continue to gobble up huge assets made sense, but the idea they would ever buy Fox was absurd enough that it was still a joke.
And now Disney owns The Simpsons. Because no matter how good the show was at predicting the future, there was no way they could have foreseen the insanity of 2017.
What is your favorite “prediction” the show made? Share yours with us in the comments below.
Images: 20th Century Fox (for now)
