The animated series “The Simpsons” in the “Horror Tree House” series showed us a vision of 2021, in which the inhabitants of Springfield are faced with an almost apocalypse. But the fans are now uncomfortable – given the previous “predictions” from the episodes about the famous family, the public can only joke nervously about the sad “forecast”.
The fourth episode of the 32nd season of “The Simpsons”, which was released in the US on November 1, is called “Tree House of Horror XXXI”. This is another Halloween episode of the animated series, which usually features eerie and fantastic events with the family from Springfield. Like other similar episodes, the fourth featured three short stories about The Simpsons and a small general introduction to them.
At the beginning of the episode, viewers saw Election Day in Springfield – a reflection of the presidential (and not only) US vote on November 3. Marge encourages Homer (lying peacefully in a hammock) to go to the polling station, which he does. There Simpson gets acquainted with the resonant actions and statements of Donald Trump over the past four years, after which he decides: something needs to be done.
But after Homer voted, it turns out that he dreamed all this – in fact, he fell asleep in a hammock, never going to the polls. “What could happen,” he replies to worried Marge. And it turns out to be wrong: in the next shots we are shown a burning and dilapidated Springfield, in which aggressive robots are in charge. The city reached this state by January 2021.
At the end of the introduction, the horsemen of the Apocalypse – Pestilence, War and Famine – sweep over Springfield, and with them the fourth, carrying the banner of the “Treehouse of Horrors”.
The Simpsons fans who watched the episode paid special attention to the introduction.
On tiktok, it even garnered more than nine million views for a video of the guy who showed him gazing with dismay at the Springfield apocalypse in January 2021.
I pray they will be wrong this time.
The thing is, fans credit The Simpsons with predicting the future. In the animated series, fans saw prophecies about the coronavirus pandemic, violent protests against racism in the United States – and these are just a few episodes and scenes that “came true” in reality.
Having learned about the events in the Halloween episode, the audience either jokingly or seriously told: they are not comfortable with such a “forecast” for January 2021.
But sceptical commentators were in no hurry to panic:
