Why ‘The Simpsons’ envisioned a Trump presidency
Staffer on animated show says episode was 'warning to America,' while 'Back to Future II' writer admits his villain was based on president-elect
An old episode of the hit animated series “The Simpsons” predicted Donald Trump’s ascendance to the presidency of the United States, painting his term as one that brought America to the brink of destruction.
In the episode titled “Bart to the Future,” which aired in 2000, the series creators said they wanted to show Lisa Simpson entering the White House to an abysmal situation, and the way to do so was to portray her inheriting the presidency from an outgoing President Trump.
Asking her staff how bad things are, President Simpson is told that the country is broke, as the previous administration has created a “generation of ultra-strong super-criminals.”
Earlier this year, the show’s creators said the dystopian vision was meant as a “warning to America.”
“The important thing is that Lisa comes into the presidency when America is on the ropes, and that is the condition left by the Trump presidency,” the episode’s writer Dan Greaney was quoted by The Guardian as saying Thursday. “What we needed was for Lisa to have problems that were beyond her fixing, that everything went as bad as it possibly could, and that’s why we had Trump be president before her.”
A President Trump “just seemed like the logical last stop before hitting bottom,” said Greaney. “It was pitched because it was consistent with the vision of America going insane.”
When Trump officially announced his candidacy, the series produced a short clip that made fun of Trump, mocking his spray tan and hairstyle as well as poking him in a notoriously sore spot — the size of his hands.
Meanwhile, Back to the Future II co-screenwriter Bob Gale told The Daily Beast last year that the character of the grown-up Biff Tannen, the hero’s nemesis, was based on Trump.
Tannen, in the second film, has become one of the most powerful people in America, having made his wealth by building a gambling empire. When the movie was released, Trump was already famous as a casino owner and gambling entrepreneur.
“We thought about it when we made the movie! Are you kidding? You watch Part II again and there’s a scene where Marty confronts Biff in his office and there’s a huge portrait of Biff on the wall behind Biff, and there’s one moment where Biff kind of stands up and he takes exactly the same pose as the portrait? Yeah,” Gale said in an interview.
The interviewer notes that in the movie, Biff uses the profits from his casino to shake up the Republican party and assume political power himself, transforming the town Hill Valley into “a lawless, dystopian wasteland where hooliganism reigns, dissent is quashed” and where citizens are encouraged to call him “America’s greatest living folk hero.”
“Yeah, that’s what we were thinking about,” Gale said.