One of the most known predictions of “The Simpsons” is predicting Trump’s presidency. And, Godzilla-related turbulence jokes aside, the episode strives for some authenticity with George Takei voicing a sardonic but composed game-show host. Taken at face value, the idealistic denouement feels out of place on The Simpsons, but considering legendary writer George Meyer penned the episode, it’s undoubtedly sarcastic. The year (on the show) was 2030, and the Simpson … – New York Times – New York Times Read More The whole family would see the sights in France in later seasons, but in this episode—credited to the Murderers’ Row of George Meyer, Sam Simon, John Swartzwelder, and Jon Vitti—traps Bart in slave-like conditions at a shady winery run by a couple of small-time crooks. The Simpsons’ creative team was publicly taken aback by Rio’s response to its homage to the “lovely city and people of Rio de Janeiro,” which revolves around the kidnapping of a poverty-stricken orphan, and it offered amends not only by suggesting the president of Brazil come fight Homer on Celebrity Boxing, but also calling Brazil “the most disgusting place we’ve ever gone” in a later episode. This is the day when the Simpson family made their first official appearance on television, having appeared in the third episode of season one of The Tracey Ullman Show, in the short Good Night. According to Simon Singh, the author of The Simpsons and their Mathematical Secrets, the equation predicts the mass of the Higgs boson particle, aka, the God Particle. In this episode from 1990, Bart catches a three-eyed fish … [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. 9/11, the terrorist attack of 2001. [Dennis Perkins], The Simpsons has been to France a few times now, from Bart’s legendary misadventures in the exchange student program to that time when Carl wound up having sex with French first lady Carla Bruni. 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. With Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith. And, once Ned and Homer find themselves on a leaky raft full of life-saving junk food, all it recalls is the simple comic poetry of Ned’s long ago “Godspeed, little doodle.” [Dennis Perkins], Traveling to countries with universal healthcare in two separate episodes in consecutive seasons is as much a reflection of the dismal state of U.S. healthcare as it is the tapped creative well in The Simpsons’ writers’ room. But the episode distinguishes itself thanks to some well-timed gags about toad-licking and Jebus-worshiping, plus its nicely developed subplot about Bart taking over as “the man of the house,” and there’s something admirably, knowingly lazy (as opposed to the indifferent laziness of later years) about just letting the episode fall apart as spectacularly as the natives’ Homer-ravaged civilization. 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.) He’d get his fill of the country in season 17. [Danette Chavez], The episode that executive producer Al Jean referred to as an ode to Ireland, “In The Name Of The Grandfather” rides the line between send-up and loving homage better than most of the show’s global jaunts. Another prediction that The Simpsons nailed was the tiger attack on Siegfried and Roy that originally aired in 1993 and then happened in real-life 10 years later. Proof ‘The Simpsons’ Writers May Be Time Travelers. A great family game is now a great family movie,” she exclaims before walking in on a scene of two people shooting up. Typical of a year that also found Lisa paired off with Fat Tony and Cletus’ respective kids, season 18’s “Moe’N’a Lisa” still offers some bright spots amid its rather algorithmic premise—all of them located in Vermont. Coincidence or time travel? The kicker is that the 9 was right next to the towers. Of course, that was 18 years and plenty of new contenders ago, and while the Simpsons’ Florida adventure hasn’t become any more linear—it stumbles drunkenly from Homer seeking a cure for insomnia-fueled insanity, to his becoming the “King Of Spring Break,” to the whole family living as fugitive hillbillies after accidentally murdering the state’s reptile mascot—there’s at least some classic John Swartzwelder absurdism buried beneath the gimmicky Kid Rock cameos. That means Carl’s past, his friendship with the guys down at Moe’s, and his heretofore unknown ancestral homeland, Iceland. Although the episode has a bounty of Vegas zingers—“Someone dishonoring their marriage vows? Chances are if you’ve thought about those cities/crooners in the past 22 years, it’s been through the filter of this episode. But once there, The Simpsons explores the modernization of the Irish capital—whose smoking ban inspired the episode—with some help from Colm Meaney and Glen Hansard. “That sure was a fun trip to Las Vegas,” says one. The Mook, the Chef, the Wife and Her Homer (Season 18, Episode 1) FXX Lisa's friendship with Fat Tony's son Michael prompts mob boss Tony to invite the Simpsons over for dinner. 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. 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. “The Simpsons are going to…” episodes are one of the more common tropes they’ve used. “I’m home!” Elsewhere, on the set for a film called Canadian Graffiti, a teen spray-paints “OBEY THE RULES” on a building. We saved your ass in Vietnam and shared our prostitutes with Hugh Grant!”—who causes an international incident. [Kyle Ryan], Sometimes, a destination imprints itself on the characters of The Simpsons, rather than the other way around. But in this season-27 episode, writer Bill Odenkirk strikes an admirable balance between the expected “rude French” and “ugly Americans” stereotypes and unassumingly sweet character comedy. Random takedown of Canadians’ inferior basketball skills, check. 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. Bush?) Over time, though, these travelogues expanded past the occasional family adventure to include business trips, diplomatic missions, ill-advised romantic gestures, and helping some secondary character find themselves. Not in Las Vegas!” and “Las Vegas doesn’t care for out-of-towners”—the most inspired bit pays homage to Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas. (Apparently outsourced workers really like coffee breaks and doughnuts, too.) A possible future Trump presidency, said the episode's writer Dan Greaney, "just seemed like the logical last stop before hitting bottom. Though he didn’t helm the episode, director David Silverman took hundreds of photos of the city so that animators could create a detailed replica, giving a touch of gritty, urban realism to a story about Homer and the family tracking down their car after a disgruntled Barney leaves it parked illegally between the Twin Towers. Nineteen years ago, they predicted that Disney would buy out Fox . 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 … An advertisement poster in the show (background of one of the episodes) showed a special discount for travel to New York (with the Twin Towers highlighted) with rooms costing $9. [Dennis Perkins], What is it with foreign travel that makes Homer imagine himself as a god? You can be the judge. Ever. Gibson himself is more vacated eyesore than “Hot Star Maps” attraction these days, but his action-movie résumé made him an ideal entry point for Homer’s conception of Tinseltown, a place where he and Mad Max can stick a shootout at the end of a Frank Capra classic, then hijack the Road Warrior car to lead a high-speed chase past such Hollywood Boulevard landmarks like Mann’s Chinese Theater and its lesser-known neighbor, the Chinese Man’s Theater. Vegas’ naked hedonism and superficiality prove low-hanging fruit for The Simpsons’ satire, and the jokes come quickly. And this wasn't the only time the writers had managed to predict the future. He later called it "the most [...] disturbing Halloween show ever". To be fair, the animators’ rendering of a dozen or so varieties of po’ boy are pretty satisfying, as far as empty comedy calories go. There are some solid digs at oppressive regimes, including a plaque in Tiananmen Square that claims “nothing happened” there in 1989. Disillusioned, she pens a savagely cynical new essay, “Cesspool On The Potomac,” which fails to win the contest but quickly spreads through D.C. and costs the dirty congressman his job. The episode’s tabloid inspiration will fade from memory, but the show will continue to chase the high of a $900 collect call, chaswassers, and “Mr. © 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. But the shudder that runs through a Tanzanian tribesman when Homer exclaims that “the Simpsons are going to Africa” portends a whole slew of jokes ranging from nonsensical (“hippos don’t come from eggs”) to uncomfortable (cracks about frequent regime changes and “bloodless coups”). But while this season-29 episode’s truly impressive visual depiction of the streets of the Big Easy goes a long way toward erasing any lingering resentment over Oh, Streetcar!’s musical slanders, “Lisa Gets The Blues” largely neglects everything else in favor of a long, long montage of Homer the food monster chomping his way through literally every signature dish in town. This was because Mirkin was disappointed by complaints from Congress regarding the amount of violence in the show and their attempts for it to be censored. At this time of year, in this part of the world, localized entirely outside of Homer, Moe, and Lenny’s rental car? Aurora borealis? Homer is Homer, decked out in all-USA jerkass-wear and brandishing his Carolina Panthers credit card while ordering cold cuts on his falafel and napping in Jesus’ preferred spot in the Church Of The Holy Sepulchre, while the episode takes a few solid jabs at Israel. The producer's self-acclaimed concept is that of an amorphous, anonymous, space-bound being that … (“Your American tax dollars at work,” reads a sign at the airport.) In addition, the hit show predicted the three-eyed fish back in its second season, nearly 30 years ago. If Canada took it hard, it only had to wait until season 14, when the entire show stopped to sincerely praise—and sing—the country’s national anthem, “O Canada.” [Kyle Ryan], Does Carl, of Lenny and Carl fame, need an origin story? 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. Homer also deteriorated back into the form of his original self, when he did this. 10 The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular 1995-12-03 ... 10 Once Upon a Time in Springfield 2010-01-10 . Some are so convinced they even took the time to edit ‘Osaka flu’ to ‘Coronavirus’ in Kent Brockman’s news report. (And is never mentioned again.) The show had played these globetrotting games of knifey-spoony before, and it would play them again and again and again, but never with the lunatic zeal of “Bart Vs. Australia,” an episode that permanently warped a generation’s perception of the Coriolis effect and the titular island nation/continent. Meanwhile, Jasper freezes himself in the Kwik-E-Mart freezer. Writer Matt Marshall envisions Ireland (a.k.a. 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