Did ‘The Simpsons’ Episode Really Predict COVID-19 Coronavirus And Murder Hornets?

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Word is spreading that a 1993 episode of The Simpsons, an animated sitcom that has been on TV since 1989, somehow “predicted” what’s happened so far in 2020, which, by the way, has included the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. The episode, the 21st from season 4 of the series, bore the title "Marge in Chains,” and featured a fictional infectious disease called the “Osaka Flu.” In the episode, this fictional flu started to spread after someone coughed into some packages as the video accompanying this tweet showed:

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Yeah, the flu or the new coronavirus doesn’t really spread through packages that take six to eight weeks to ship.

That’s not the only thing scientifically off about this episode. As you can see, this “flu” appeared to have an incubation period of about three seconds, which just doesn’t happen. The virus needs time to enter your body, get into the cells in your body, and then reproduce, before resulting in symptoms. That’s not exactly a quickie. The typical incubation period, that is the time from initial infection to having symptoms, for the flu is about 48 hours. For the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV2), it’s typically four to five days but can be up to 14 days.

The virus in The Simpsons episode also was gigantic, so gigantic that you could actually see it without an electron microscope, which is highly unusual for a virus. If viruses were indeed that large, it would be a lot easier to dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge them.

Additionally, the virus looked like single-colored Skittles floating amidst some kind of perfume, cologne, or very visible fart mist, which again is not typical for a virus. Oh, and the virus seemed to be flying around like insects, even though viruses don’t tend to have little wings or really little jet packs. But more on insects in about two sentences. The virus proceeded to spread throughout the fictional town of Springfield.

Then, later on in the episode, there’s a scene of people demanding a cure for the disease, rioting after getting an answer that they deem unsatisfactory, and encountering, guess what? Not murder hornets, but killer bees, as the video along with this tweet showed:

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That’s not all. An image appeared online of a scene from The Simpsons that included a news report with the words “coronavirus” on the screen behind the anchor person:

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Really? Well, not really. People soon began questioning the authenticity of the image:

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In this case, doctored doesn’t mean saw a medical doctor. It means altered. You mean people actually alter images and post them online without telling people that they were altered? Shocking. In the words of Homer Simpson, "why you little!"

The “Apocalypse Meow” scene apparently appeared 17 years later in a 2010 episode entitled “Fool Monty.” Indeed, this ABC 10 News report indicated that this “coronavirus” image was actually a hoax.

Is that the whole story? Nope. Ryan Parker reported for The Hollywood Reporter that “internet trolls have used the episode for racist propaganda in response to the coronavirus outbreak.” Gee, racism against people of Asian-descent? What a surprise. Parker included a quote from Bill Oakley who co-wrote the episode with Josh Weinstein: "The idea that anyone misappropriates it to make coronavirus seem like an Asian plot is terrible. In terms of trying to place blame on Asia — I think that is gross." Trying to put the blame on an entire continent? Aw man. Gross, indeed, and scientifically inaccurate.

First of all, a cartoon is not exactly the same thing as scientific evidence. No real scientist has said, “I decided to publish the results of our study on The Simpsons. The next study will be presented on Married with Children.”

Nevertheless, it seems like some are trying to use the cartoon as “evidence” that this pandemic was somehow planned. This has been part of pushing such conspiracy theories and even the name “plandemic.” Just check out the comments on YouTube below the ABC 10 News Report such as “It was well planned, not predicted” and “Not predicting, it’s planned by the government.” And where exactly is the scientific evidence behind such claims?

Using The Simpsons as proof of anything like that is reminiscent of the time anti-vaccination advocates circulated an episode of The Brady Brunch, suggesting that it “proved” that the measles was not a serious disease. Yeah, if you think that The Brady Brunch was a super realistic portrayal of the average family life, you may be pretty “far out.”

Secondly, as alluded to previously, this The Simpsons episode was very unrealistic in many different ways. There were the many aforementioned scientific inaccuracies. Plus, how the heck did Homer Simpson get his facial hair to look like someone put a flapjack on his face?

Third, Osaka, Japan, is very different from Wuhan, China. Osaka doesn’t have the same wet markets that Wuhan has. The two cities are “day and night” in many various ways. While some people may not take the time and effort to distinguish different Asian countries as they would different European countries such as Sweden and Italy, the diversity that exists in East Asia at least equals if not exceeds the diversity in Europe. Japan is not the same as China. In fact, different cities in China can be quite different from each other. Assuming that they are the same can be like saying, living in Pasadena, Texas, or Pasadena, California, what’s the difference?

Fourth, predicting that a pandemic will happen at some point is not too difficult to do. As I have covered previously for Forbes, many experts in infectious diseases and public health have been warning for years that another infectious disease pandemic will happen. There have been movies and other TV shows about disease outbreaks, epidemics, and pandemics. So it would not be too unusual for a TV show to have portrayed something like this.

A TV episode that includes an epidemic would be like a TV episode that includes a person lying about himself or herself on Tinder. It’s going to happen. You don’t exactly when. You may not be clear on how bad it’s going to be. You may not be able to see it immediately. But it will happen. Oh, and let’s get this out of the way. The current COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic will certainly not be the last pandemic to occur. This will happen again. How long has it been since the last pandemic? Just over ten years? There’s a good chance that a virus or other microbe spreading in the future could be even worse. If everyone doesn’t learn enough from this pandemic about fixing the many, many existing problems in preparedness and response that have been exposed by this pandemic, things will be worse in the future.

Finally, using an episode from The Simpsons to support this whole “the pandemic was planned or created” conspiracy theory is really scraping at the bottom of the barrel, isn’t it? That’s akin to confronting your significant other, saying, “I saw Carrie Bradshaw and Big cheating together on Sex and the City, which proves that you cheated on me.” Huh?

What about the killer bee thing in the episode? The Simpsons episode was not the first and will certainly not be the last show to portray killer bees. There is actually an IMDB listing of the “Most Popular Killer Bee Movies and TV Shows.” Not even all killer bee movies and TV shows, but just the most popular ones.

Moreover, bees are not the same as murder hornets. Murder hornets are hornets as I described previously for Forbes. Murder hornets actually eat bees. Not all bees, and not necessarily killer bees, but they lop off the heads of certain bees.

Does all of this offer some re-assurance that you won’t have to have a cow about killer dolphins anytime soon, at least not in the way that The Simpsons have portrayed them:

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Before you say anything, yes, there are plenty of sea creatures that can kill. Yes, with a fair amount of certainty, some new creature will emerge at some point that will be killing something, somewhere. But don’t then say that The Simpsons is further revealing this massive plot that somehow involves a coordinated unveiling of virus, insects, and sea creatures. As Marge Simpson has said, "I don't think that's a very good idea."

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