Images are circulating online that claim to show that the cartoon series The Simpsons predicted the death of George Floyd and the resulting May and June 2020 riots across the United States. Other related claims assert to show Donald Trump in a coffin.
The Simpsons has a rather embellished reputation of predicting future events, and many have interpreted the images below as another uncanny prognostication.
One example below features several excerpts from the show (with the implication perhaps being they are from the same episode) showing police officers holding a black man in a headlock, the news anchor reporting on the story, a police station on fire, the residents of Springfield rioting (well, holding up flaming pitchforks) and a darkened White House.
Claim 1
Another example shows The Simpsons character Chief Wiggum kneeling on a black man while Lisa holds a sign reading “Justice for George”.
Claim 2
Despite the “evidence” provided, it’s not really accurate to claim The Simpsons orchestrated some incredible or supernatural prediction of the future here. In fact, when we look at each of the claims, the reality is far more mundane and less impressive.
With claim 1, that features images showing the alleged police brutality, a police station on fire, rioters and the dark White House, the most important thing to note is that three images – while real – originate from different and unrelated episodes, and two images are not from The Simpsons at all.
– The two images showing Chief Wiggum and another officer wresting with a black man and then discussing it on the news were actually created by artist aleXsandro Palombo, who used characters from the popular cartoon series to illustrate the death of Eric Garner in 2014. The scenes were not officially affiliated with the show and never aired in any episodes.
– The second image of the police station on fire is taken from season 11 episode 6, Hello Gutter Hello Fadder which aired back in 1999, and isn’t related to rioting or civil riots. The scene did not play a pivotal part in the episode.
– The third image of the rioting (or rather, holding flaming torches) is taken from The Simpsons Movie from 2007, and features the townsfolk about to ransack Homer’s house, and again had nothing to do with actual rioting or civil rights.
– And the final image of the dark White House was taken from a The Simpsons special about Trump’s first 100 days in office. Again the scene wasn’t related to rioting.
Given that there have been several hundred episodes of The Simpsons, each containing dozens of different scenes, if one is given the freedom of picking any set of scenes they wish from any episode, one could potentially narrate almost any event they wish.
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The second claim shows an image featuring Chief Wiggum holding down an African American man while Lisa stands by with a Justice for George banner. This isn’t from an episode of the show. It is another fan creation, from artist YuriPomo who showcased the image and several others like it on his Instagram feed, after the death of George Floyd.
Often we have seen these claims also include an image of President Trump in a coffin (below) with the assertion that The Simpsons has also predicted his death. An ominous warning certainly, if the aforementioned “predictions” were real – but of course, as we have explained already, they are not.
And again, in this case, the image hasn’t appeared on an episode of The Simpsons. It appears to be some sort of “fan art” depiction of a scene that isn’t real. While a “President Trump” has indeed been referenced in the show (the episode ‘Bart to the Future’ makes references to Trump having been president, long before he actually did run for the office) there has never been a storyline in which Trump was seen lying in a coffin.
Given that many of these images are not from The Simpsons, and the ones that are are taken from different episodes with unrelated story lines, we rank the claim that The Simpsons predicted the death of George Floyd and the subsequent riots as false.