The Simpsons have done it again: When animated jokes become reality

The long-running series The Simpsons is a lasting part of pop culture and has built a reputation over the years for predicting the future.

Matt Groening’s animated sitcom has become notorious for some of its episodes and jokes becoming eerily accurate, in what some choose to believe is a stranger-than-fiction power of “prediction”.

Adhere to this or not, this past week has seen the show foretelling three unrelated current events.

On the lighter side of things, a 1996 episode titled ‘Homerpalooza’, which saw Homer join the fictional travelling music festival ‘Hullabalooza’, included a banana-skinned roadie claiming the members of hip-hop outfit Cypress Hill “ordered the London Symphony Orchestra” while high and therefore must perform with them. 

For years, there has been a running joke that one day Cypress Hill will work with the London Symphony Orchestra to create the mashup. And this week, Cypress Hill responded to an Instagram Reel of their Simpson’s cameo saying they plan to “make the gig with the London Symphony a reality.”

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More real-life inspiring itself than proof of prophesy, this is still impressive. 

The other two examples of Simpsons-soothsaying this week hark back to a 1994 episode, which seems to have foretold the recent Barbie hysteria linked to the release of Greta Gerwig’s upcoming film (the posters and trailer dropped this week) and Donald Trump’s recent indictment. Both in the same instalment.

The episode titled 'Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy' saw Lisa strive to make the Barbie creators come out with a more feminist toy to empower young girls. Springfield’s TV anchor Kent Brockman addresses her campaign: “Though it was unusual to spend 28 minutes reporting on a