Cypress Hill have confirmed they will perform alongside an orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall this summer, once more realising a joke made on The Simpsons.
The cartoon has become famous for gags which have become real-life events in the years that followed. And it appears the writers struck gold with 1996 episode Homerpalooza, where rap group Cypress Hill collaborate with the London Symphony Orchestra.
In the series seven episode, Homer finds his size makes him perfect cannon fodder – or, more accurately, he is large enough to take a hit from a cannonball and survive as part of a travelling music festival’s sideshow.
Homerpalooza, series 7.
— Simpsons Daily Glavins (@simpsons_DG) March 14, 2023
Why did Cypress Hill not actually release this version of Insane in the Membrane??@cnowakdoe pic.twitter.com/VUnn365UeD
The Smashing Pumpkins and Sonic Youth make cameos, but the episode is best remembered for a scene when the orchestra arrives. It later transpired that Peter Frampton had hired the London Symphony, but the rocker was not on set when a roadie arrived with the ensemble.
“Who is playing with the London Symphony Orchestra?” the roadie asks. “Come on, people, somebody ordered [them], possibly while high… Cypress Hill, I’m looking in your direction.”
The rap group cannot remember hiring them but discuss what to do before agreeing to perform their 1993 hit Insane in the Brain with the orchestra, a rendition that wins the approval of Marge as Homer nods in respect.
In real life, Cypress Hill did not say the idea came about when they were high, or that the Colorado Symphony had been stolen from Peter Frampton.
The LSO and director Troy Miller will accompany the Californian hip-hop group, which consists of B-Real, Sen Dog, and Eric Bobo, in July. Miller will adapt the band's songs for orchestra, including singles from their landmark 1993 album Black Sunday.
Cypress Hill said: “We are thrilled to be performing with the London Symphony Orchestra in such a prestigious venue as the Royal Albert Hall.
“It’s a dream come true, a collaboration only The Simpsons could have predicted.”
But this is not the first time The Simpsons has been eerily on the money when it comes to predicting the future.
Here are five far-out events the show foresaw.
1. Video calls and smartwatches
Lisa’s Wedding was a 1995 episode that looked ahead to 2010 and made many wacky predictions, including the Rolling Stones holding a “Steel Wheelchair” tour, World War Three having been fought, and Big Ben going digital.
However, two things it got right were smartwatches and video conferencing, with the internet still in its infancy in the 1990s.
2. Walt Disney and Fox merging
A running joke on The Simpsons is how it makes fun of its production company, 20th Century Fox, and the corporation’s owner, Rupert Murdoch. This was again played up in 1998, with episode When You Dish Upon a Star, where Fox Studios is shown on a poster to be “a division of Walt Disney Co”.
The apparent belittling of their producers was a blink-and-you-miss-it gag but one which showed amazing foresight, with a $71 billion (£56 m) merger in 2019.
3. Censoring Michelangelo’s David
In series two episode Itchy & Scratchy & Marge, Mrs Simpson successfully lobbies for limits on cartoon violence. However, she steps back from leading a mob of protestors when the group changes its target to Michelangelo’s David, when it is announced the masterpiece sculpture will, oddly, be exhibited in Springfield.
The mob had called for David’s private parts to be covered with a pair of jeans, a comically sheltered idea that took off in St Petersburg, and in Florida recently, where images of the statue were deemed “pornographic” and parents objected to their children studying the masterpiece.
4. A three-eyed fish
Another series two episode sees Mr Burns in hot (or toxic) water when a three-eyed fish is discovered in a pond near his nuclear power plant.
But Blinky, as the fish was called, had a real-life counterpart. In 2013, a real- life three-eyed fish was discovered in Argentina… near to a nuclear power plant.
5. President Trump
Lisa Simpson made the craziest prediction of them all. In series 11 episode Bart to the Future, Lisa is shown in the future to have become president of the United States — while her brother is a struggling musician.
While the 2000-released episode came at around the time the show began to decline in quality, it showed writers were still spot-on in their predictions. Lisa, as “the first straight female president”, says: “We have inherited quite a budget crunch from President Trump.” Sixteen years later, guess who was taking office?
However, it looks like America is still not ready for a female president, although maybe that prediction will one day become true as well...
6. Winter Olympics
The Simpsons won the gold eight years before the US men's Olympic team's victory in the 2018 Winter Olympics. The episode had Homer and Marge forming a curling team and competing all the way to the finals of the 2010 Winter Olympics aired. After almost conceding a loss due to injury, they defeated Sweden, but Marge came up big and led them all the way to the top of the podium.
7. Lady Gaga’s Super Bowl
During the 2017 Super Bowl halftime act, Lady Gaga was lowered onto wires into the stadium.
The stunt strikingly resembled Gaga's performance from the 2012 episode Lisa Goes Gaga. In the episode, which showcased Gaga's musical abilities, the Poker Face singer performed in Springfield following her friendship with Lisa.
8. Greece’s economic crash
This one is spooky.
A 2012 episode featured a throwaway joke that foresaw how absurd the scenario would turn out, three years before Greece became the first country to fail on an IMF loan repayment and cause a government debt catastrophe."Europe puts Greece on eBay" is a ticker that Homer sees on a rolling news programme.
9. Horse meat
In a 1994 episode, the students at Springfield Elementary School were eating horse flesh for lunch without realising it.
And so were we, some two decades later. The European horse meat scandal exposed the presence of different meats, notably equine flesh, in products marketed as beef.
10. Faulty voting
When Homer attempts to vote for Barack Obama at an electronic polling machine in the 2008 Halloween special, the system fails and casts a vote for his opponent, John McCain.
Four years later, after it was shown on camera casting votes meant for Obama but instead going to his actual opponent Mitt Romney, a Pennsylvania voting system was taken out of commission.
