By Mike Bedigan, PA Los Angeles Correspondent
The Simpsons’ producer has pointed out that the long-running cartoon once again seemingly predicted the future, following Donald Trump’s announcement he will run for US president in 2024.
Al Jean shared an episode screenshot from 2015, featuring a flying Homer Simpson and a sign in the background reading “Trump 2024”.
It comes as the former US president said on Tuesday he would officially mount a third campaign for the White House.
Writers of The Simpsons have previously gained a reputation for predicting events in the real world, hinting in 2000 that Trump would one day be president.
.@TheSimpsons As predicted in 2015 pic.twitter.com/BQEbCXAyy2
— Al Jean (@AlJean) November 16, 2022
The episode, titled Bart To The Future, showed Lisa Simpson as president telling her advisors “as you know we’ve inherited quite a budget cut from President Trump”.
Mr Jean previously told the PA news agency that there were “two types of Simpsons predictions” and the Trump prediction was an “insane coincidence”.
His remarks came earlier this year, following the outbreak of war in Ukraine, when show bosses commissioned a special Simpsons cartoon in solidarity with the country.
A similar scenario to the events in Ukraine had also previously been depicted in an episode.
The 1998 episode, titled Simpson Tide, jokes that the Soviet Union was never truly dissolved as army troops and tanks arrive on the streets and the Berlin Wall is resurrected.
Mr Jean told the PA news agency that he was “really sad this came true, but not surprised”.
“It’s been said that there are two types of Simpsons predictions,” he said.
“There are these insane coincidences like Trump, then there’s things like this where I’m really sad it came true, but not surprised.”
“You could see this coming for a long time…so I think you just have to be very vigilant about defending freedom.”
The US cartoon has featured cameos by many famous faces over the years including former prime minister Sir Tony Blair, Sir Paul McCartney and recently singer Billie Eilish.
