Another rumor suggests that Simpsons creator Matt Groening is the time traveler and that all of the ideas and predictions came from him. Here, unwisely selected by Mister Burns to head up the nuclear plant’s new, union-free digs in India, Homer loses himself, Apocalypse Now style, once the Indian employees flock to his book-purloined management style. During Lisa's trip to London, a skyscraper is seen behind Tower Bridge that looks pretty damn similar to The Shard and is even in the right location. It’s tough to riff on a location whose most famous renowned denizens zoom in and out of town every January, so “Any Given Sundance” makes the mountain retreat a physical stand-in for the independent film culture that had sold the last scraps of its soul by 2008, just as Lisa nearly does when she turns her family’s most humiliating and intimate moments into the documentary Capturing The Simpsons. In its 29 seasons—and counting—the animated series has journeyed to France, Australia, China, Iceland, and the town of Bronson, where even the children are stone-cold badasses. ), You’d think that an episode about Lisa’s crisis of musical faith being cured by a family trip to New Orleans and an inspirational appearance of the jazzman nephew of Lisa’s late mentor Bleeding Gums Murphy would carry some emotional weight. Naturally, the rest of the Simpsons tag along so they, too, can marvel at the classic American cars that fill the streets of Havana, as well as hyper-efficient Danish design. Vegas’ naked hedonism and superficiality prove low-hanging fruit for The Simpsons’ satire, and the jokes come quickly. The definition of a tossed-off outing (both the episode and the trip), “Fland Canyon” also short-changes its national-treasure setting with some indifferent animation and design (how hard is it to draw a scorpion fight, really? David Mirkin attempted to put "as much blood and guts" into the episode as he could. Strangely enough, the reservoir itself was fed by water from a nuclear power plant. That’s a no-brainer,” brays one Boston football barfly, voiced by Boston-based Bill Burr, one of many Massachusetts celebrities on hand for local color.) Three-eyed fish — Season 2, Episode 4. “Back To The Pilot” – Original Air Date: November 13, 2011. But the real destination is Japan—specifically, Tokyo—and all its advanced technology and mockery of American mediocrity. (And is never mentioned again.) Sigur Rós came aboard to give an otherworldly sound to their “craphole island that looks like the moon and smells like rotten eggs” (Homer’s words), and while the country came in for a ribbing thanks to its taste for fermented shark, “The Saga Of Carl” revels in all its natural (black sand beaches, geothermal phenomena) and supernatural (trolls, fairies) splendor. [Sean O’Neal], As filled with endlessly quotable lines as Knoxville’s Sunsphere is with 16,000 boxes of unsold wigs, the season-seven classic “Bart On The Road” takes a freewheeling journey into the heart of America to see all the wonders and spring break-squandering disappointments it contains. Starting with a bag-boy strike and ending with a possible war criminal working as a flight attendant, this wandering storyline just leads to uninspired country. [Danette Chavez], The rare “The Simpsons are going to…” episode that ends with “get us sued,” season-13 episode “Blame It On Lisa” upset its host country of Brazil so much that executive producer James L. Brooks actually had to make a halfhearted apology to the city of Rio de Janeiro, lest its tourist board sue Fox for defamation. [Erik Adams], Multiple faraway locales are featured in “Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo,” including the Chuck Garabedian Mega-Savings Seminar those fat cats in Washington don’t want you to hear about. 1992, Season 3, Episode 24: “Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes?” … [Kyle Ryan], This classic season-three episode—one of the first to take the Simpsons out of Springfield—finds the family visiting the nation’s capital after Lisa ascends to the finals of a patriotic-essay contest. In addition, the hit show predicted the three-eyed fish back in its second season, nearly 30 years ago. Not necessarily, but there’s only so much unchartered territory left to a show in its 24th season, as The Simpsons was when “The Saga Of Carl” debuted. The bulk of “Beyond Blunderdome” is about Hollywood as an idea, a dream factory where the Lethal Weapon star whisks the Simpsons away by private jet after Homer is the only member of a test-screening audience to speak his mind about Mr. Smith. A fun reminder of how different the show use to be, while also a precursor of time travel episodes to come. © Watchr Media • All rights reserved, Proof The Simpsons Writers May Be Time Travelers, The Simpsons Will Finally Reveal Comic Book Guy's Origin Story, Disney+ Sets Up Simpsons Forever Themed Collections, Treehouse of Horror Streaming Now for Halloween, Treehouse of Horror XXXI Sneak Peek Images Give The Simpsons a Pixar Makeover, The Simpsons Season 31 Starts Streaming on Disney+, The Simpsons Introduces the New Voice of Carl Carlson, Ice-T Reflects on Going from Robbing Banks to Playing a Cop on SVU, Saved by the Bell Reboot Renewed for Season 2 at Peacock, Savannah Welch Is Barbara Gordon in Titans Season 3. The episode, broadcast correctly made the prediction 17 years ago on March 19th, 2000, and saw Bart's vision of his future in which he is a beer drinking adult, while his sister Lisa has become president, following Trump's time in office. A great family game is now a great family movie,” she exclaims before walking in on a scene of two people shooting up. 9/11, the terrorist attack of 2001. There are some solid digs at oppressive regimes, including a plaque in Tiananmen Square that claims “nothing happened” there in 1989. Another prediction is somewhat debated, but HOLY CHEESE is it crazy. In a 1998 episode called The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace, Homer Simpson becomes an inventor and is shown in front of a complicated equation on a blackboard. It was first predicted in 1964 by Professor Peter Higgs and five other physicists, but it wasn't until 2013 that scientists discovered proof of the Higgs boson in a $13 billion experiment. Jokes about universal healthcare, check. But after making the necessary Hamlet reference, “Throw Grampa From The Dane” wanders into the all-too-familiar territory of Marge and Homer’s ever-tenuous marriage, as she briefly chooses to remain in Copenhagen. In season 25 episode … The Simpsons has a long history of satirizing the British, but “The Regina Monologues” unsurprisingly turns Homer into the ugly American—“We’re big-shot tourists from everyone’s favorite country, the USA. Socialism gets a bit of a drubbing in both cases (“In Denmark, we have socialized tattooing. “This is a knife,” it finishes, now brandishing a spoon. Donald Trump becoming the President of the United States was predicted 16 years ahead of time and the writers claim that it was more of a warning than anything. ‘The Simpsons, 1993, this goddamn series predicted coronavirus. Autocorrect was introduced in an episode of The Simpsons back when you couldn't even play Snake on an old brick cellphone. “Bart Vs. Australia” (season six, episode 16): Australia. [Danette Chavez], Although its plot hangs on the flimsiest of premises—Flanders is 60 years old, apparently, and regretful of his hyper-cautious life—“Viva Ned Flanders” gets a lot of mileage from Flanders seeking Homer’s help to live in “the Impulse Zone.” Homer takes him to Vegas for a lost weekend, which naturally segues to the duo drunkenly marrying a pair of waitresses. A side-by-side image of the episode and real life of Trump waving his hand while going down an escalator sparked the interest of social media. [Erik Adams]. Homer and Flanders pass a pair of Ralph Steadman-esque figures on the highway. When Westworld’s Sidse Babett Knudsen shows up as one of the many beautiful characters who unaccountably fall for Homer, it’s really time to pack it in. The year (on the show) was 2030, and the Simpson … These are only two out of the many things that The Simpsons have accurately predicted over the years with alarming accuracy, which is now leading to claims of time travel amongst the writers of the massively … In season 11, "The Simpsons" predicted a Donald Trump presidency in the 2000 episode "Bart to the Future." The Simpsons creators may have made a big blunder in one of their Christmas episodes or have one of the main characters discovered the art of time travel? It only takes a few days in the home of the Sundance Film Festival (“Where Parker Posey meets parka-ed posers”) for Principal Skinner and Superintendent Chalmers to go from swag-grubbing novice producers to jaded industry types stonewalling Park City darling John C. Reilly. The trip is a silly justification of his throwaway joke of a surname—the Nordic patronym Carlson—but the way the show transports itself to Iceland is anything but half-assed. Mmmm, chicken. Although the episode has a bounty of Vegas zingers—“Someone dishonoring their marriage vows? With Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith. The 2013 horse meat scandal. Bart and Lisa are fishing when they catch it, the curiosity and the fish have become one of the show's more famous bit characters. One of the most known predictions of “The Simpsons” is predicting Trump’s presidency. After predicting the Disney and Fox deal nearly 20 years ago, many believe that The Simpsons writers just might be time travelers. The Cuba outing actually stays the course, and resolves Grampa’s health issues, which stemmed from his loss of productivity. By the time the episode aired in 2005, The Simpsons had been on many other (and funnier) trips, but “Goo Goo Gai Pan” did carry on the tradition of being banned in the country that served as its setting. 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