American television writer and producer Bill Oakley has hinted that the animated sitcom predicted a pandemic in 2020.
Oakley was a writer on a 1993 episode in which residents of Springfield experienced a virus called Osaka Flu.
Taking to Twitter, he shared a clip of a 1993 episode of the hit show. He was responding to a fan who asked if the The Simpsons really did predict 2020. “Ok fine, I guess we did,” Oakley wrote.
The episode ‘Margie in Chains’ from the show’s fourth season and originally aired on May 6, 1993 shows all of Springfield purchasing a popular juicer made in Japan.
https://twitter.com/thatbilloakley/status/1258121128905543682
A sick Asian worker in the factory workers coughs into one of the boxes that is shipped to the city, causing everyone to get sick and kicking off a flue outbreak.
The clip also shows a crowd demanding a cure for the flu identified as ‘Osaka flu’ but people weren’t pleased with the doctors response and caused a ruckus.
In a March interview, the former writer of the show told a reporter “I don’t like it being used for nefarious purposes” after three stills of the episode went viral and compared the ‘Osaka Flu’ to coronavirus.
