Several shows including 'The Simpsons', 'Family Guy', and 'South Park' have made some interesting predictions.
When they said life imitates art, they would have never imagined it would be so accurate. While many real-life inventions may have been inspired by the world of imaginative fiction, there are other events that seemed unlikely on TV but went on to actually happen. The Simpsons has a reputation for including many such predictions, but there are other cartoons that have done it as well. Here are a few instances that the art medium of cartoons has predicted so far.
The September 11 attacks were one of the most devastating attacks to take place in the US. But there seem to be hints of the same in two TV shows. In a 2001 episode of Johnny Bravo, there was a clear image of a tower on fire with the label — "coming soon."
Similarly, in The Simpsons episode from 1998, Lisa holds up a magazine that reads New York with the price of $9 and the Twin Towers that make it look like 9/11.
There was an Ebola scare in the US a few years ago during the West Africa Ebola outbreak between 2014 and 2016. But the cartoons had it down several years before. The Simpsons had a book named "Curious George and The Ebola Virus." Although, it was probably a reference to an ebola outbreak in monkeys in 1989.
But South Park, too, had an episode called "Gluten Free Ebola" just before the 2014 outbreak happened.
The Simpsons yet again hit the nail on the head with this one. In an episode from 2000, Lisa is in the White House and notes the budgetary deficiency that the previous term served by Donald Trump had. At the time, it probably made for a good joke. But Trump contested and won the election as well.
The topic of self-driving cars is pretty commonplace now. They can drive by themselves as well as park by themselves now. Something of the sort was predicted by Inspector Gadget way back in the 80s. Although it is not as dramatic as the cartoon predicted, it still managed to think of an innovative future for cars.
The Simpsons strike again. The animated series that regularly features real-life people in its sketches included Siegfried & Roy, a German-American magician and entertaining duo who commonly used white tigers and lions in their acts. In 1993, in an episode featuring them, it made a joke about them getting mauled by one of their tigers. This actually happened exactly ten years later during a performance.
The Fast & and Furious franchise did well over the years with Vin Diesel and Paul Walker as the face of it. American Dad! had an episode in which Steve and his friends find a corpse in a car clutching onto a Fast & Furious movie script. They read the script of the future movie that has details about Walker as Brian O'Conner. Several months later, in November of 2013, Walker died on set after a fatal car crash.
These tidbits may not be a prediction as much as an exposé about the actual goings-on behind the scene of the Hollywood film industry. In 2004, there was a South Park episode where Stan and Kenny watch a film starring Mel Gibson and decide to get their money back after it turns out to be bad. Gibson goes off on them, and there is also the insinuation that he is anti-Semitic. Two years later, Gibson was exposed to be a racist and physical abuser and Winona Ryder also mentioned that he had used anti-Semitic slurs against her as well as made homophobic comments.
Similarly, there was another Family Guy episode from 2005 that showed Stewie running naked through a mall shouting, "Help! I've escaped from Kevin Spacey's basement. Help me!" In 2017, actor Anthony Rapp alleged that Spacey had made a sexual advance toward him in 1986 when he was 14 and Spacey was 26. Fifteen others came out making similar allegations against the actor later.
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