Did The Simpsons Predict The Coronavirus?

2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15

The idea that The Simpsons animated series continues to hit the nail on the head with its predictions is not new. Now, there is a theory circulating on social media that they also predicted the coronavirus.

This is an episode that aired for the first time in 1993 titled "Marge in Chains" in which Homer Simpson's wife is arrested for theft when she was buying medicine for her family who was sick with the "Osaka flu" disease which, according to the series, began with the cough of one of the packers of products in Japan and spread in a matter of weeks throughout the city.

Bill Oakley, one of the writers for the episode, confessed that he hadn't thought about the story until he saw memes on social media where the Osaka flu represented COVID-19. In any case, he pointed out that there is no relationship between the fictitious and the real virus, while condemning any possible use for racist or xenophobic purposes of the series.

"I don't like it being used for dire purposes," Oakley said of the episode he wrote with Josh Weinstein. "The idea of someone taking it to make the coronavirus look like an Asian plot is terrible. In terms of trying to blame Asia, I think it's gross," he said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.

The writer also explained that history repeats itself and that many chapters are based on things that have already happened, such as the case of the flu that hit Hong Kong in 1968. About the episode, he added that it was supposed to be a joke about how arrived in the United States.

"It was supposed to be absurd that someone could cough into a box and the virus would survive for six to eight weeks in the box. It is cartoonish. We did it cartoonish intentionally because we wanted it to be silly and not scary," he told The Hollywood Reporter.