‘The Simpsons’ Most Politically Significant Episode Is Also One of Its Worst
As with pretty much every major world event these days, Joe Biden’s announcement that he’s decided to drop out of the presidential race and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris has inspired people to clog up the internet with claims that The Simpsons predicted this eventuality decades earlier.
This particular “prediction” stems from the 2000 episode “Bart to the Future,” the one where Bart is granted a magical vision of his adulthood in which he’s a Jimmy Buffett-loving burnout while Lisa is the country’s commander-in-chief.
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The comparison between future Lisa and Kamala Harris was first made back in 2021, after Harris wore a purple dress and pearls, distinctly reminiscent of President Lisa’s wardrobe, on inauguration day.
But even before that apparent coincidence, “Bart to the Future” was singled out for its psychic content owing to a throwaway line about Lisa inheriting “quite a budget crunch from President Trump,” a joke that became a whole lot less funny 16 years later.
This was never intended to be any kind of prediction. As the episode’s writer Dan Greaney told The Hollywood Reporter, the line was only pitched because the idea of a Trump presidency “was consistent with the vision of America going insane.” This one joke is seemingly why Bart scrawled “Being right sucks” on the Springfield Elementary chalkboard soon after Trump’s electoral victory.
In contrast, the Simpsons brass actually seem pretty cool with the idea that this episode also “predicted” a Kamala Harris presidency.
It’s kind of surprising that so much worldwide media attention has been paid to “Bart to the Future” considering that it’s arguably one of the show’s worst episodes. In fact, in 2003, Entertainment Weekly went full Comic Book Guy and branded it as the “worst episode” in Simpsons history.
“Bart to the Future” clearly just tried to ape the success of 1995’s “Lisa’s Wedding,” which also involved a mystical peek into the future. But, importantly, that episode found a way to turn its narrative gimmick into a bittersweet story underscoring Lisa’s connection to her dad. “Bart’s Future,” on the other hand, is just kind of a bummer, and its resolution offers no emotional payoff to justify its existence.
Not to mention, the episode padded out its runtime with an extra-lame B-plot concerning Homer’s search for Lincoln’s gold in the White House, which even the show directly acknowledged, was because the mystical “spirits” thought that the “main vision was a little thin.”
More distressingly, the framing device found the Simpsons visiting an “Indian Casino” run by a guy who has magical powers and enough free time to use said powers to entertain children. The beginning of this episode is chock-full of wildly insensitive jokes rehashing Indigenous stereotypes, like how the casino is featuring the comedian “Carrot Scalp.”
During the episode’s DVD commentary, Greaney made it a point to note that he wasn’t responsible for one of the more offensive jokes, Homer’s “Hi-how-are-you?” chant, which the writers flagged as problematic and considered cutting, but according to Greaney, “Dan (Castellaneta) did it so funny at the table (read) we decided to risk offending.”
It’s just too bad that the episode dominating the zeitgeist right now isn’t about killer robots, murder mysteries or monorails.
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