10 Moments Where Cartoons Predicted The Future
Cartoons exist in the realm of imagination, a magical place where anything can happen
if the cartoonist draws it that way.
They aren't tethered to the real world, but sometimes, cartoons still get the real world
right.
And sometimes, they even seem to know what's going to happen before the rest of us do!
Over the years, cartoons have depicted a lot of strange and unusual things, some of which
actually happened later on.
Here are 10 moments where cartoons predicted the future.
The Simpsons predicts US President Trump Never meant as an actual prediction, this
concept seemed as far-fetched as most of the show's musings about the future back when
the episode “Bart to the Future” aired in the year 2000.
Nevertheless, demonstrating that truth is indeed stranger than fiction, real estate
investor and reality TV personality Donald Trump won the US Presidential election in
2016.
At first glance, a Trump presidency coming to pass makes The Simpsons seem clairvoyant,
but in reality, Trump was probably chosen for the role because Biff Tannen, the recurring
antagonist of the Back to the Future films, was based on Donald Trump in Back To the Future
2, and the Simpsons episode was, in turn, based loosely on the movies.
It's still a startling coincidence.
Family Guy foresees Caitlyn Jenner's Transition Almost everybody has heard of Caitlyn Jenner,
the retired gold medal-winning Olympic decathlete who recently transitioned from male to female
and has been called “the most famous transgender woman in the world.”
Even when she went by Bruce, Jenner was a public figure, both for her Olympic success
and for her continued presence in the media afterwards, so it makes sense that Family
Guy, a show that loves pop-culture references, would have included her in a one-off gag.
In a 2009 episode, Stewie refers to Jenner, then still going by Bruce, as a woman.
Brian tries to correct him, but Stewie insists: “No, Brian...
Bruce Jenner is a woman.
A beautiful, elegant, Dutch woman.”
It was meant as a bit of oddball humor, but it now seems surprisingly prescient... except
for the Dutch part.
Futurama predicts Elon Musk's “Hyperloop” Inventor and entrepreneur Elon Musk is widely
admired for his willingness to dream big and come up with novel solutions to many of the
long-term problems facing modern society.
As a dreamer, Musk is known to look for inspiration wherever he can find it, and it might be that
Futurama, the beloved on-again, off-again cartoon series from Simpsons creator Matt
Groening, was a partial influence on one of his biggest plans to date.
Musk's “Hyperloop” is a vacuum tube transport system that will carry passengers between
L.A. and San Francisco in as little as 30 minutes; it uses passenger cars, but it's
otherwise a very similar idea to the Tube Transport System seen in Futurama's opening
credits sequence, able to deliver passengers safely and quickly to a destination without
any interruptions.
South Park's Flag Controversy Looks Awfully Familiar
After a horrific, racially-motivated shooting at a South Carolina church in 2015, the United
States took a long, hard look at the Confederate Flag, a banner of the Southern rebellion that
remained popular there long after the Confederacy lost the U.S. Civil War, and decided that
enough was enough.
The church shooter had favored the flag, which brought it into sharp relief as a symbol of
racial prejudice.
Despite some protest, most public places that once flew versions of the flag have agreed
to stop doing so, and many large retailers no longer sell it.
This flap over the symbolism of a flag seems to have been presaged by an episode of South
Park from the year 2000 called “Chef Goes Nanners.”
The setup is remarkably similar: South Park has a city flag as old as the town itself,
but it features an image of white people hanging a black person, and the town becomes divided
over whether to keep it for tradition's sake, or replace it with something less horrible.
In the end, the flag is altered, rather than removed, but the general plot of the episode
closely mirrors the actual flag-related events of 2015.
The Jetsons Predicts The Roomba 1960s TV cartoon mainstay The Jetsons was
Hanna-Barbera's futuristic counterpart to their earlier smash success, The Flintstones.
As a show set in the future, The Jetsons actually predicted a lot of technologies that eventually
became reality, though we're still waiting on a practical, economical flying car.
One of the most fun inventions the show predicted is the humble Roomba.
On the TV show, the Jetsons' cleaning robot, Rosie, is considerably livelier than today's
quiet, disc-shaped robot vacuum, but the idea – a robotic assistant that cleans house
– might as well have come straight from George Jetson's house into our living rooms.
And between Tom Haverford's “DJ Roomba” on Parks & Recreation, and hundreds of YouTube
videos featuring cats on Roombas, even this real-life version of Rosie seems to have a
little personality of its own.
The Simpsons predicts Robot Librarians In a 1995 episode of The Simpsons called “Lisa's
Wedding,” Lisa is granted a prediction of her future by a fortune-telling machine, a
future in which she meets the love of her life at a library.
In the pivotal library scene, the librarian watching them turns out to be a robot, because
it's the future, so of course the librarian is a robot.
If that sounds far-fetched, prepare to be surprised: In 2011, a library in Chicago launched
a new facility that stores books more efficiently than normal, and uses a robotic system to
retrieve books for patrons.
We don't think these robots will be crying and short-circuiting their heads with the
moisture from their tears anytime soon, but considering the future world of “Lisa's
Wedding” was set in 2010, it's a pretty amazing prediction.
Inspector Gadget Shows Off One Heck Of A Smart Watch
Inspector Gadget's titular police detective was the main focus of this popular 1980s cartoon,
but kids knew that his niece, Penny, was the one with the really cool toys.
She kept tabs on her bumbling Uncle Gadget using advanced technology, including an ultra-powerful
computer disguised as a book.
She also had an amazing watch that allowed her to make phone and video calls, and sync
data with other devices.
In 2015, Apple released a remarkably similar smart wearable, the Apple Watch.
Of course, Inspector Gadget was hardly the first show to feature a souped-up watch, but
it was the first cartoon.
Now just give us the rest of the cartoon watch's features, which include an electromagnet,
a radiation detector, and a powerful laser beam, and we'll line up around the block for
the next Apple Watch!
Ren and Stimpy Shows Off A VR Headset Ren and Stimpy, the boundary-pushing '90s
cartoon that spawned a hundred imitators, is better known for its gross-out humor and
weird close-ups than it is for predicting the future, but we like what the show had
on offer in the classic 1994 episode, “The House of Next Tuesday.”
In the episode, we're treated to a number of absurd, futuristic inventions, including
a headset that drops from the ceiling and allows the user to experience TV shows from
the star's point of view, as though he was actually there.
This is not at all unlike the consumer VR headsets, like the HTC Vive and the Oculus
Rift, that have hit the market in recent months.
Though those devices are primarily designed with games in mind, we find the idea of being
in the middle of our favorite TV shows intriguing.
Think about it, VR headset makers!
American Dad Puts Furious 7 And A Tragic Wreck Together
The movie-going world was shocked and saddened by the sudden death of “Fast and the Furious”
series star Paul Walker in 2013.
The writers at American Dad, however, might have had a bit of a window on the future when
they wrote this eerily prescient scene in the 2012 episode, “American Stepdad.”
In the scene, Steve and his friends are exploring when they come across the wreck of a plane.
Inside the plane is a dead man holding a script for “The Fast and the Furious 7,” which
may or may not be genuine.
A vehicle wreck and a script for Furious 7 becomes quite the coincidence in light of
the fact that Paul Walker died in a vehicle crash, and Furious 7 was the last movie he
ever appeared in.
Dragon Ball Z Gets Google Glass Pretty Much 100% Right
Aside from being the name of a popular Taylor Swift album, 1989 was a pretty important year
in a number of ways: anti-Soviet revolutions swept eastern Europe, culminating with the
fall of the Berlin Wall in November.
It was the first year that commercial internet service providers opened for business.
And it was the first year that Dragon Ball Z aired in Japan.
Right from the start, DBZ earned a place on this list.
The show's one-eye-covering, head-mounted “scanners,” seen as early as season 1,
display “heads-up” data about their surroundings, and are primarily worn by villains.
Sound familiar?
Fast forward to 2014, when the original Google Glass went on sale to the general public,
and you'll see startling parallels – a device that mounts over one eye, displays information
for the wearer, and is widely seen as a toy for creepy rich people – maybe not as dangerous
as Saiyan warriors, but still unnerving to many.
So, what do you think of our list?
Any other amazing predictions you'd like to share?
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