‘The Simpsons’ Predicted Lady Gaga’s High-Flying Super Bowl Performance in 2012
The Simpsons might have to adjust its series title to something like The Oracles — once again, the long-running cartoon sitcom predicted a huge cultural movement: Lady Gaga's halftime performance at Super Bowl 51.
Five years ago, the FOX show featured Gaga in a 2012 episode called "Lisa Goes Gaga," which finds Gaga's animated alter-ego passing through the show's town of Springfield while en route to a coming tour stop. Cartoon Gaga takes it upon herself to cheer up the whole town — which she notices is especially depressed — especially Lisa, whose social standing at school has plummeted. Eventually, she and Lisa perform a duet together.
Gaga also performs a set in the episode that finds her suspended high above a crowd, the mechanics of which Twitter immediately recognized as similar to her Super Bowl set (the mashup of the cartoon Gaga and real Gaga above was created by The Independent).
And the great Gaga-prediction wasn't the first time The Simpsons has accurately foreseen a sweeping cultural movement. The show's team actually predicted Donald Trump's ascendance to presidency way back in a 2000 episode. The story found Lisa assuming the presidency after Trump and observing "As you know, we’ve inherited quite a budget crunch from President Trump.”
Dan Greaney explained in November that he wished the Simpsons team hadn't been right about Trump, but that his eventual election did seem consistent with cultural trends.
"That just seemed like the logical last stop before hitting bottom,” Greaney told The Hollywood Reporter of the President Trump bit. “It was pitched because it was consistent with the vision of America going insane."
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