The Simpsons creator has addressed the show’s uncanny ability to predict the future, including foretelling Donald Trump’s presidency.
Matt Groening, who created the series in 1989, appeared on Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend to discuss the show’s past and future.
“Now, because of the internet, we are being congratulated for predicting the future,” began Groening.
O’Brien, who was one of the show’s best-known writers early in his career, said people are “totally serious” when they say things like “wizards work at The Simpsons.”
Instead, he said it’s a “volume business,” adding, “You throw out a lot of things. Maybe you make a joke about, ‘Yes, in the future, the president will be real-estate Donald Trump,’ and it’s just a quick laugh in the room. And then later on, it’s a chilling omen...”
Groening responded by acknowledging the famous prediction made in the episode “Bart to the Future” from 2000. The future-looking episode saw Lisa Simpson as the president of the United States, being told that she had “inherited quite a budget crunch from President Trump.”
When Trump did, in fact, assume the presidency in 2016, The Simpsons episode was seen as eerily prophetic.
Groening said writer Dan Greney wrote the line about Trump as president. “And then Lisa was president, so we don’t get everything right,” he joked.
Greney, a regular writer for The Simpsons, has declared his own ambitions to run for president in 2028. He launched his own semi-serious presidential bid in May, describing himself as a “progressive Republican in the tradition of Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt.”
The Harvard-educated, L.A.-based comedy writer has said his candidacy is “an attempt to bridge entrenched divisions and to speak to a broader sense of shared national purpose.”
“It’s a long shot, but I see a future where Trumpism has been defeated, polarization is moderated, and we create an America that works for all,” said Greaney. “And I have a pretty good track record on seeing the future.”
Groening and O’Brien both said they’d support their Simpsons colleague—though again, it’s unclear if they were being serious or not.
Groening, who also created Futurama and Disenchantment, has been an outspoken critic of Trump. He even joined Instagram in 2020 to release an anti-Trump song in which the voice of Homer Simpson sings lines like, “The reason I’m grumpy and so goddamned plump-rumpy / and so frumpy and schlumpy / is because the losers won’t leave me alone.”
The Simpsons has gained a reputation for accurately foreshadowing political and cultural events. The longest-running American animated series has predicted Super Bowl winners, technological advances, crises like the Titan submersible explosion, and FIFA corruption.
