Top 10 Times Futurama Predicted the Future
#10: Miss Universe Mess-Up
“The Lesser of Two Evils”
What do real-life TV host Steve Harvey and animated character Zapp Brannigan have in common? Not much, except they both hosted the “Miss Universe” pageant, with Zapp’s version being a more literal take on the word “universe.” They also both announced the wrong winner. Brannigan was distracted by Leela. Harvey read the name of the first runner-up instead. Given the widespread notoriety Harvey’s flub received, and the fact both were hosting the same pageant, you may think the “Futurama” scene was a parody. But Zapp’s mess-up happened on an episode that aired in 2000, 15 years before Harvey made the same mistake. So it’s more a case of life imitating art. Inadvertently, of course.
#9: Star Wars: Episode IX
“The Lesser of Two Evils”
In an early 2000 episode, Fry and Leela walk by a movie theatre marquee that reads “Star Wars 9 – Yoda’s Bar Mitzvah.” While it was clear to audiences back then that the episode title was a sight gag, it wasn’t clear there’d be a ninth “Star Wars” film, even by the year 3000. Audiences had just seen the first prequel movie “The Phantom Menace,” which they had waited sixteen years for. They would have to wait another twelve years for Disney to purchase Lucasfilm and confirm a sequel trilogy was even happening. Then another seven after that for the real Episode IX, “The Rise of Skywalker,” to hit theatres, almost two decades after “Futurama” predicted it.
#8: Its Own Cancellation
“Where No Fan Has Gone Before”
“Futurama” has been canceled twice officially, and brought back more times than that, sometimes by different networks. So predicting its own cancellation now, or even a decade ago, wouldn’t have been that prescient. Doing so in its fourth season is a whole other story. It happened in an episode famous for bringing back most of the original series “Star Trek” cast, playing themselves. Bender refers to Trek as “another classic sci-fi show cut short before its time.” This was less than a year before Fox brought “Futurama’s” production to a halt. We can’t be sure if the writers had an idea it was coming, or if this was just a bit of accidental irony.
#7: Quarantine: Shades of COVID
“Cold Warriors”
When Fry inadvertently brings back the common cold, at a time where no one has resistance to it, authorities envelop the Planet Express building, placing it under quarantine. Bender escapes and quickly spreads the virus to the entire city of New New York. While the episode largely focuses on Fry’s relationship with his father through a series of flashbacks, we get to see public officials warning people to wash their hands, and considering launching the whole city into the sun. Eventually, they make a vaccine with a sample of the cold Fry knew about. Although no one considered incinerating a city as a solution, quite a bit of this was mirrored in reality nine years after this episode originally aired during the COVID-19 Pandemic.
#6: Assisted Death
“Space Pilot 3000”
In the 31st Century, there’s a booth on every street corner where people can take their own lives with assistance. This is established in the series premiere when Fry, thinking it’s a phone booth, meets Bender outside of one. While assisted death was legal in some areas when the episode aired in 1999, the practice would only start to gain broader reach a few years later in The Netherlands. It’d be more widely available around the world at the end of the 2010s. In “Futurama,” these booths are a commercial product that costs a quarter. While it’s nowhere near as crassly commercial, you can, in fact, pay for assisted death in Switzerland.
#5: The Ebola Crises
“A Big Piece of Garbage”
Ebola swept through West Africa in 2014, spreading to several countries, including major cities. The World Health Organization declared it an “Emergency of International Concern.” One of the reasons it spread so quickly is the outbreak largely took people by surprise. 15 years earlier, though, “Futurama” dropped a reference to Ebola 9, which Professor Farnsworth called “The Virus Planet,” where all its residents were infected with Ebola. The Planet Express crew needed to wait a day to make their delivery there because Farnsworth needed everyone alive for an event that evening. At least some people had an idea of what danger Ebola might cause as far back as the late 90s.
#4: Interactive Mainstream Media
“Raging Bender”
The Planet Express crew head to the movies, which is still a popular form of entertainment in the 31st Century. Watching “All My Circuits,” though, they’re given a choice: action sequence or Claculon finishing his paperwork, with the buttons clearly rigged for the lower budget option. Interactive entertainment isn’t a new thing, as there were experiments with it dating back to 1967. However, mainstream media letting the audience decide wasn’t really a thing when this episode aired in 2000, and would only become one a bit shy of a couple of decades later with shows like “Black Mirror.”
#3: Asteroid Deflection
“A Big Piece of Garbage”
A giant asteroid composed of garbage from the Earth is hurtling back home. Fry discovered it using Professor Farnsworth’s Smell-o-Scope, an invention comparable to the Nasal Radar, which has since been invented. That’s not the only thing this 1999 episode got right. The ultimate solution to prevent the asteroid’s devastation wasn’t to destroy it, but to deflect it with another giant piece of garbage. It turns out scientists now believe that deflecting an asteroid heading toward Earth is the way to avoid catastrophe, as attempting to destroy one will only break it into multiple smaller deadly pieces. NASA even successfully changed an asteroid’s trajectory with its DART spacecraft in 2022 as a test.
#2: Drone Cameras
“A Head in the Polls”
Drones are everywhere now. Both their recreational and commercial use have increased exponentially since the 2010s. Most major sporting broadcasts will cut to a drone camera shot at least a few times during the event. In the early seasons of “Futurama,” drone cameras are commonplace, being used to film press conferences and political debates. It may look like an exaggerated depiction of the present instead of an imaginative guess at the future. But those episodes aired in the very late 90s and early 2000s when the aerial shots generally came from cameras mounted on cranes.
#1: Mundane VR
“The Series Has Landed”
In “Futurama’s” second episode, the Planet Express crew takes a trip to the Moon where Amy Wong tries out virtual reality. VR was already becoming more commonplace throughout the 90s. The look of the headset that Amy wore was in line with where the design was already headed. What the show surprisingly got right, though, is what she was experiencing virtually. Amy was playing Virtual Virtual Skeeball next to someone playing Virtual Skeeball, next to someone playing actual Skeeball. While VR can be a way to escape from, or enhance the mundane, it’s largely used to virtually replicate mundane experiences like gardening and office work.
Are there any other times “Futurama’s” future ended up mirroring our present? Let us know in the comments.
