The Simpsons was one of the most revolutionary and groundbreaking shows ever to grace television. During its three decades-plus run, they have inadvertently made several predictions that are downright scary how accurate they later became years later, like 9/11, Donald Trump's presidency, smartwatches, and video calls, among others.
However, what's fallen under the radar is that The Simpsons also unintentionally predicted the murder of one of their cast members. In what was easily their creepiest prediction ever, The Simpsons predicted the murder of Phil Hartman months before his tragic death happened.
Throughout the 90s, Hartman voiced two of The Simpsons' biggest standout side characters: has-been actor Troy McClure and incompetent lawyer Lionel Hutz until his death in May 1998.
Four months before that, The Simpsons aired the episode "All Singing, All Dancing," a hybrid clip show/musical in which songs from previous episodes resurfaced. The Simpsons as a family also speak in song throughout most of the episode's runtime, ala Les Miserables.
While all that was happening, the episode featured a subplot involving Snake Jailbird deciding whether or not to kill the titular family based on their singing during an attempted robbery. He lets them live but makes it clear he despises any music being played. His hatred is so strong that he fires gunshots as the credits roll to stop the music that goes with it.
What this has to do with Hartman
Hartman was featured in the episode because he participated in "The Monorail Song" in the Season 4 episode "Marge vs. the Monorail," singing as his one-off character, Lyle Lanley, which was then featured in "All Singing, All Dancing."
Because the song showed up again, Hartman's name was featured in the credits. His name appears just as Snake fires gunshots to tell the credits to stop the music.
(Cut to the 2:04 mark to get to the gunshots)
Four months later, Hartman was tragically shot to death by his wife in his sleep. So, the credits accidentally foreshadow his fate. If that's not eery enough, watching the credits roll in mostly silence only makes it look all the creepier in hindsight.
Hartman's death is very tragic knowing the details about it, but if you're in for a good scare this Halloween, re-watch the credits of this knowing everything that actually happened here.
No one knows how exactly The Simpsons managed to do things like this consistently. Some of their accurate predictions initially served as jokes, like their predictions of video calls and smartwatches. Their prediction about 9/11 was the same as Hartman's death, where it's kind of creepy that they called it before it happened.
Although that episode isn't available on Hulu, the show's latest episodes can be streamed there. You can find out more about Hartman's murder on "Dark Side of Comedy," which can be streamed on Hulu.
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