‘I guess we did’: Simpsons writer admits 2020 pandemic clairvoyance as murder hornets clip goes viral

The Simpsons is widely known for predicting the future with eerie accuracy, but things are starting to get ridiculous; after apparently predicting the coronavirus, it now appears the show saw the murder hornets coming too.

Like an animated Nostradamus for the noughties, the animated TV show has a number of oddly accurate predictions already on the books over the course of its 30 years on air. 

It apparently foresaw Disney buying Fox nearly 20 years ago, the invention of smart watches, the US winning an Olympic medal in curling and, of course, also predicted that Donald Trump would one day become president of the US. But its latest apparent peek into the future is so close to reality, even one of the show’s writers, Bill Oakley, had to hold his hands up and admit, “OK fine I guess we did.”

Oakley’s admission was made in regard to a clip from 1993’s “Marge in Chains” (season 4, episode 21), in which a mysterious virus from Asia dubbed the Osaka Flu strikes the town of Springfield. 

In the episode, a sick Japanese factory worker sneezes into boxes containing the new must-have gadget ordered by numerous Springfield residents, including everyone from Homer Simpson to the local school headmaster, Principal Skinner. 

As tetchy residents become more and more panicked, demanding a cure, even if it’s just a placebo, in their wrath they knock over a truck in the hopes of finding a cure. Instead, however, they inadvertently unleash a vast swarm of “killer bees.”

While not quite the Asian giant hornet aka ‘the murder hornets’ that have recently been invaded Washington state in the US, it’s still close enough to raise a few eyebrows online, with one clip shared on Twitter generating over 5.7 million views since it was posted.

Awestruck commenters shared some gallows humor about what a cartoon predicting the current state of the world says about reality and life imitating art.

“And just like the Simpsons we move on once this episode is over, learn almost nothing from it, and then go on to do something even more stupid,” one jaded commenter quipped. Oakley’s reply read: “Exactly.”

Indeed, additional elements of the same episode, such as Springfield’s Mayor Quimby not taking the virus seriously, hit a little too close to home.

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