10 TV Hoaxes That Fooled Everyone
2. They Predicted The Pandemic - Futurama & The Simpsons
This one's a two-fer.
Shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread around the world, an image was posted online claiming that a Futurama episode contained the message "All time travel to the year 2020 is strictly prohibited" in its opening titles sequence.
Given that Matt Groening's animated shows have a tendency for cannily predicting the future, this image was taken at face value by many, that he had once again hinted at future chaos to come.
But of course, the image was Photoshopped by a zealous fan and is therefore total bull.
At the start of the pandemic, a similar hoax was also fabricated for The Simpsons, where a four-panel image recycled frames from two different episodes to suggest it had also predicted the pandemic, even adding the text "Corona Virus" into one of Kent Brockman's news broadcasts.
As much as The Simpsons in particular has so impressively held a mirror up to modern society, it's not that prescient.