Super Bowl 2020: 'The Simpsons' May Have Predicted This Year's Winner

An older episode of The Simpsons may have predicted the outcome of Super Bowl LIV. Back in Season [...]

By Michael Hein

An older episode of The Simpsons may have predicted the outcome of Super Bowl LIV. Back in Season 10, the show took Homer and his friends to Miami, where they stumbled into the winning team's locker room. Some people online believe that winning team was the San Francisco 49ers, perhaps serving as a prediction for this year's real-life game.

The Simpsons has often been credited with predicting the future, as premises from older episodes of the series have sometimes come true. In the case of the Super Bowl 2020, the alleged prophecy goes back to Season 10, Episode 215, titled "Sunday, Cruddy Sunday."

In the episode, a travel agent tells Homer that he can get him into the Super Bowl for free as long as he signs up all of his friends for a special travel package. Homer manages co convince Moe, Barney, Lenny, Carl and others to go, thus getting himself into the game for free.

The men drink and party their way to Miami, Florida, where that year's game is taking place. As it turns out, their tickets are counterfeit, yet the drunken crew from Springfield still finds its way into the stadium.

Fans have noted that the uniforms worn by the players in the old episode closely resemble the uniforms that the 49ers wear today. This, combined with the fact that the game is set in Miami, has some fans thinking that the episode predicted a San Francisco win for the year.

Others say that these theorists are ignoring important details. For one thing, this episode originally aired in 1999. At the time, Super Bowl XXXIII was held in Miami, so the location was matched to the current Super Bowl, not some hypothetical future one.

More importantly, the 49ers did not play in Super Bowl XXXIII. The show does go out of its way to avoid mentioning the competing teams throughout most of the episode, but according to a report by Cinema Blend, that is because the show was animated before the competing teams were decided.

There is even a gag in the episode where Homer and Moe say the team names in exaggerated, obviously dubbed voice-over. The uniforms were meant to be as generic as possible, but the episode does note that the game features the Denver Broncos and the Atlanta Falcons.

Of course, The Simpsons can't always be right about the future, and in fact the world would be a worse place if it was. While some set a lot of store by the Simpson's clairvoyance, others argue that, after more than 30 years on the air, the show is bound to get some things right.

The Simpsons airs on Sundays at 8 p.m. ET on Fox. The entire series is available to stream on Disney+.

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