Through the Black to the Future Part II

On January 27, the day after Kobe Bryant’s death, and little less than a month before Trump first addressed the nation with orders to not meet in groups of over 200 (on a Friday the 13^th no less) I wrote an article for Real Dark News entitled “Through the Black to the Future” where I laid out several examples where seemingly innocuous cartoons appear to contain predictive programming in advance of events that would eventually play out on the world stage. This included Kobe’s death along with other events such as the Boston Massacre, Bruce Jenner’s sex change, and 9/11, to name just a few.

Now, through the retroactive lenses of pop culture hindsight, articles and You Tube videos outlining examples of television shows, movies, and cartoons that appear to predict the COVID quarantine (some as early as 2010) are coming out in droves.

Casper McCloud, in his article, “How Shall We Overcome” in the May 2020 issue of L.A. Marzulli’s PP&S online magazine, points out two stellar examples: The Simpsons episode entitled, “The Fool Monty” which aired on November 21, 2010 (Episode 6, Season 27), and the opening ceremonies of the 2012 Olympics in London, England. (For links and details, see the UPDATE at the end of “Through the Black to the Future, Part I.”

In addition to these two examples, there also appears to be some rather specific predictive programming in The Family Guy episode entitled, “Hot Shots,” which aired on November 13, 2016 (season 15, episode 6.) As you will see from the screen shots below, the episode opens with a black bat in the Griffin’s house, chasing them around the living room. It also predicts mayhem at the grocery stores, a citywide quarantine, makeshift medical tents in the park, mandatory vaccines, and wearing face masks.

The programming is not the only bit of predictability in this storyline. The plot centers around Peter and Lois hot on an anti-vaccination campaign that paints them in the classicly-cliché “kook conspiracy theorist” light. Take for example, this exchange between Lois (the mom) and Brian (the family dog). Brian, the dog, whose character is nonsensically intelligent, so as to highlight the moronic nature of the rest of the family,

Lois: We were going to get Stewie vaccinated, but now, after our research, we’re definitely not.

Brian: Ah, no, Lois, don’t tell me you fell for all that anti-vaxxer crap.

Lois: It’s not crap, Brian. There’s a lot of evidence to suggest there’s a link between vaccinations and autism.

Brian: Lois, all that so-called evidence has been debunked.

Lois: Listen to some of these ingredients: “mercury, thimerosal, aluminum, formaldehyde.”

Brian: Lois, deciding not to vaccinate Stewie is something that affects all of us. The only reason they work is that if a critical mass of society gets immunized, then the diseases won’t spread.

Well, if a sardonic animated Labrador says it, it must be true.

Later in the episode, Peter (the dad) has an anti-vaccination PSA on television peppered with sophomoric boob and diddling jokes so as to make anyone who speaks out against vaccines look like a complete numbskull.

The episode, more than appropriately, ends with, deus ex machina, Sean Penn, coming to Quahog (where the Griffin’s live) with enough vaccines for the whole town, thus ending Peter and Lois’ anti-vaccination campaign once and for all.

Sean Penn: I’ve brought enough vaccines for your whole town. I hope you’ve realized that vaccinations are not a freedom of choice issue, they’re a public health issue. Thanks to them, countless serious diseases, mumps, polio, smallpox, and rubella, have been all but eradicated. Like clean water and functional schools, vaccinations are a human right.

Peter: Great, just what I needed, a lecture from liberal Hollywood.

Sean Penn: This whole thing has been a lecture from liberal Hollywood. Well, it’s a relief that everyone’s been vaccinated, and the quarantine has been lifted.

Peter: Well, I’m just happy that Stewie is healthy, and only 150 people died, but not anyone we knew personally. Yeah, I know I sure learned something.

Yeah, I know I sure learned something too, Peter….

And it’s true we are immune
When fact is fiction and TV reality
And today the millions cry
We eat and drink while tomorrow they die

U2, Sunday Bloody Sunday