‘The Simpsons’ predicted Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential run

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There’s no end to The Simpsons’ crystal ball when it comes to predicting the future.

On Wednesday, Al Jean, producer on the long-running animated series, tweeted how the show forecast Donald Trump’s announcement that he will run for president in 2024 by sharing an image of Homer Simpson and a campaign sign that read “Trump 2024.”

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“As predicted in 2015,” the producer tweeted.

Following his 2020 defeat, Trump launched a bid to regain the presidency in 2024 on Tuesday night.

“In order to make America great again, I am tonight announcing my candidacy for president of the United States,” Trump said to supporters.

On social media, one fan reacted to the prophecy by tweeting, “I need The Simpsons to predict the following: world peace … an end to world hunger and inequality, an end to billionaires.”

“How does The Simpsons keep predicting this s—?” another person noted. “It honestly kinda scares me at this point.”

The Simpsons has an eerie track record when it comes to predicting the future. In a 2000 episode, titled Bart to the Future, the show teased Trump’s first presidency.

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In the flash-forward episode, Bart takes a trip to the White House to visit his sister, Lisa, who has grown up to become “the first straight female” president of the United States.

Lisa is meeting with her inner circle in the Oval Office when Bart visits, and can be heard complaining about the state her predecessor, a “President Trump,” left the country’s economy in.

Elsewhere, in March 2020, fans pointed to a May 6, 1993, episode titled Marge in Chains — which featured a fictitious disease dubbed the “Osaka Flu” that everyone contracts after an ill factory worker in Japan coughs on boxes that are shipped to Springfield — as proof that the series saw the coronavirus pandemic coming.

Later in that same episode, when the townspeople of Springfield demand a cure, they accidentally topple a crate marked “Killer Bees” — which some fans took as proof the series also foresaw “murder hornets.”

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Bill Oakley, a co-writer on the show, downplayed the notion that the series acts as a modern-day Nostradamus telling The Hollywood Reporter, “It’s mainly just coincidence because the episodes are so old that history repeats itself. Most of these episodes are based on things that happened in the ’60s, ’70s or ’80s that we knew about.”

But over the years, The Simpsons has seemed to have had a crystal ball when it comes to foretelling current events. In addition to name-checking Trump in a 2000 episode, the program is credited with predicting smart watches (1995’s Lisa’s Wedding), Lady Gaga’s Super Bowl performance (2012’s Lisa Goes Gaga), a Beatle responding to overdue fan mail (1991’s Brush with Greatness), the Siegfried and Roy tiger attack (1993’s $pringfield) and the U.S. winning gold in curling at the 2018 Olympics (2010’s Boy Meets Curl).

But show writers haven’t always been right. While 1999 episode floated the possibility that the San Francisco 49ers would win the 2020 Super Bowl, they lost that year to the Kansas City Chiefs.

Created by Matt Groening, The Simpsons, which is the longest running scripted series airing in primetime, is currently in its 34th season.

mdaniell@postmedia.com