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"Bart to the Future" |
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This episode is set primarily or entirely in a flash-forward which are treated as non-canon. Please see Episodes Set In The Future for more. |
| “ | Bart: I am so sick of hearing about Lisa! Just because she's doing a little bit better than me- Marge: She's President of the United States! |
„ |
| ~ Bart and Marge |
"Bart to the Future" is the seventeenth episode of Season 11.
Synopsis[]
While visiting an Indian casino with his family, Bart encounters an Indian who foretells of his future. Bart learns that in the future he is a ne'er-do-well musician with Ralph Wiggum as a roommate. He goes to see Lisa to borrow money, but Lisa has her own problems, being the newly elected President of the United States and facing a tax crisis.
Full Story[]
The Simpsons are headed to Larval Lake for a day trip, but the park ranger forbids them entry because the mosquito infestation has gotten out of control (they took the guest book, stole the park ranger's class ring, then stripped his hand to the bone as they returned the ring). As the family heads back, Homer stops at an Indian casino, which Marge doesn't want to go to, as she still has her gambling addiction from when Mr. Burns' casino was open. Bart sneaks in by hiding in the case that holds Arthur Crandall's ventriloquist dummy, Gabbo. When Bart escapes the case, he's caught by casino security and brought into the casino manager's office, who warns Bart (and knows his name because Homer listed him as collateral on the mortgage he signed so he can have money to gamble) to change his ways or live a life of misery, as shown in the sacred fire.
Ralph and Bart struggle to pay rent
The sacred fire shows what life is like in the year 2030. Bart is a 40-year-old wannabe musician and (according to Homer) DeVry Institute drop-out, living at a beachside cabin with Ralph Wiggum (who has brown hair and is somewhat smarter than he used to be) and barely making rent. When the duo aren't playing gigs at Nelson's seafood restaurant (where they're paid in popcorn shrimp instead of money), Bart supplements the income by mooching off others, like his parents and a blind Ned Flanders, who offers Bart money because Bart hasn't outed Rod and Todd, who are now all but stated to be gay. After a gig at Nelson's seafood restaurant goes wrong, Bart and Ralph come home to being evicted and Ralph leaves Bart. Despondent, Bart aims a ray-gun at his head...which is actually a new way for people to watch news broadcasts, where he grouses over not having winning lottery numbers, but realizes that he's the no-good brother of President Lisa Simpson and can mooch off her.
Milhouse reveals the consequences of Trump's presidency
| “ | As you know, we've inherited quite a budget crunch from President Trump. | „ |
| ~ President Lisa Simpson |
Meanwhile, Lisa Simpson is America's "first heterosexual female President", tasked with trying to rebuild the country and its foreign relations following the previous term under Donald Trump (reader note: see the Reception section for how this often seen as a "prediction" for Trump's real-life presidencies). Thanks to Trump making the catastrophic choice of investing in the nation's children, America is now in the midst of a massive crime wave. Well-balanced taxpayer-subsidized breakfast programs for children has created a generation of ultra-strong super-criminals and midnight basketball taught them how to function without sleep. The U.S. is also completely bankrupt, having sold the "purple mountain majesties and amber waves of grain", among other properties that they do not even own, but still rely on foreign aid from Europe and China. Lisa and her advisers (one of which is a balding Milhouse van Houten) agree to impose a massive tax hike, agreeing to call it a "temporary refund adjustment" so the public doesn't catch on.
Bart invades a presidential meeting
Bart makes a nuisance of himself by having Marine One fly in Ralph, and hitting Lisa with his Frisbee during a speech. When Lisa makes her presidential address introducing the "temporary refund adjustment", Bart crashes in, promoting his band. Bart inadvertently gets Lisa to admit the truth about the tax hike live to the nation, which causes her approval rating to plummet.
Lisa then tells Bart she has an important mission for him, asking him to spend some time at Camp David with his friends so they can work on a "coolness report". Bart takes this seriously until he is visited by the ghost of Billy Carter, who informs Bart that Lisa had sent him on a wild goose chase to be out of her hair. Bart finally realizes he has been nothing but an embarrassment to his family, and works to be a better man.
Homer looks for Lincoln's gold
Because of America's massive national debt, Lisa meets with the countries to whom money is owed. This does not go well, until Bart shows up and uses his skills at stalling debt collectors to save the day. In return, Lisa promises Bart she will "legalize it".
While all this was going on, Homer, with Marge in tow, has been searching for Lincoln's gold, tearing up the White House in doing so. He finally succeeds at finding a letter from Lincoln saying that his "gold" is the American people. While Marge finds it touching, Homer is enraged that it was not real gold.
The vision is over, and Bart apparently has learned nothing from it, though he does question why his vision had a story about Homer trying to find Lincoln's gold. The casino manager handwaves it as the vision's main story being too thin. Bart leaves the office, just as Lisa tells Bart they need to go because Marge lost $10,000 and Homer pushed a waitress. Bart tells Lisa about his vision of the future where he has a band and downplays Lisa's stint as U.S. President as "some government job."
Behind the Laughter[]
Production[]
Maggie (now 31) does not appear in this episode's future, although we see her baby daughter, named Maggie Junior. The DVD commentary mentions a deleted scene where we learn that she's an astronaut, which was shown on TV commercials advertising the episode, but not in the actual episode itself. It is included as an Easter egg.
Reception[]
This episode has decent reviews on IMDB, averaging a 7.1/10 (which is "above average to good") currently on IMDB. Entertainment Weekly, however, named it the worst Simpsons episode of all time, stating that, "...while Bart to the Future was likely better than anything else on TV the week it first aired, even Mojo the monkey could've banged out a more inventive script," and that, "We didn't know it was physically possible for something to both suck and blow." (referencing a quote from "Screaming Yellow Honkers").
Despite this, the episode has become notorious in the mid-2010s for allegedly predicting that real estate mogul, Donald Trump, would run for and be elected President of the United States (cf. Lisa's line about how her administration has inherited "...quite a budget crunch from President Trump" and Milhouse going over just how disastrous Trump's administration was). Dan Greaney told The Hollywood Reporter in a 2016 interview that the thought of a Trump presidency at the time "...just seemed like the logical last stop before hitting bottom. It was pitched because it was consistent with the vision of America going insane." This episode aired shortly after the end of Trump's unsuccessful campaign for the Reform Party nomination in 2000. The chalkboard punishment phrase for the Season 28 episode "Havana Wild Weekend" ("Being right sucks") is a reference to this.
While Donald Trump would eventually lose re-election to former Vice President Joe Biden in 2020 (though would win again in 2024 against Biden's vice-president, Kamala Harris), this episode still attracted further attention in 2021 after the inauguration of Joe Biden, when the dress Vice President Kamala Harris (who became the primary Democratic candidate after Biden dropped out, but lost against Trump) wore for the event was compared to Lisa's outfit in the episode.