The Simpsons is well known for its amazing predictions of future events, including Donald Trump becoming President, the horse meat scandal, Disney’s takeover of 21st Century Fox and The Ebola Virus, and people are now claiming that it also foresaw the closure of our favourite childhood toy store…
We can still remember the joy of saving up our pocket money and being taken by our parents to Toys R Us, the shelves of which rose up so high we could barely see the top. It was like we had died and gone to heaven.
Sadly, administrators have started a ‘nationwide closing down sales programme’ across the entire Toys R Us and Babies R Us range of stores, leaving 3,000 jobs at risk. It really is the end of an era, but surely the store’s downfall can’t have been predicted by a comedy cartoon show way back in 2004, could it?
In the 2004 episode of The Simpsons called ‘Marge vs. Singles, Seniors, Childless Couples and Teens, and Gays’, a group of childless adults decide to destroy all the child-friendly things in Springfield. This involves burning toys, breaking ‘child at play’ signs, and even tearing down a statue of Itchy and Scratchy, but the moment we’re interested in involves something far more true to life and current…
The crucial moment comes when Moe the bartender uses a ladder to climb up to a Toys R Us store’s sign and proceeds to turn the letter R around (which of course is usually displayed backwards).
Although the sequence doesn’t seem to be suggesting that Toys R Us was going out of business, the significance of it seems to be too much for some people to ignore, with one user on Twitter claiming that ‘Simpsons really predicted Toys R Us closing too’ and others agreeing…
However, some people were quick to point out that the episode, whilst perhaps poignant, wasn’t actually about the store’s closure, with one Twitter user posting ‘Okay, I just saw a tweet claiming that “The Simpsons” predicted the closure of “Toys R Us” and with it the posted a gif of Moe taking off the R, but what the gif doesn’t show you is that Moe is simply flipping the R to face in the right direction. Do some research, Twitter!’
It’s perhaps not surprising that The Simpsons would make some accurate predictions about the future, as since the show started in December 1989 over 600 episodes have been broadcast, so they’re bound to get some things right!
What is your view? Do you attach any significance to the episode or do you think it’s all a load of nonsense? Please do let us know with a comment, and be sure to share some of your happy childhood Toys R Us memories.