OceanGate Titan Submarine Becomes Latest Trending News Story To Get Hit With 'Simpsons Did It'

"The Simpsons Did It" is a familiar refrain that occurs whenever a real-life event vaguely aligns with a Simpsons gag. The observation is usually a quirky coincidence and not necessarily proof The Simpsons is some sort of modern-day fortune-telling bible, but in the case of the recent OceanGate tragedy, there is a remarkably strong case to be made in the eyes of many that The Simpsons, in fact, did it.

In 2006, season 17, episode 10 of The Simpsons, titled "Homer's Paternity Coot," originally aired on television. In the episode, Homer joins Mason Fairbanks on a deep-sea submarine adventure to find a sunken ship.

The pair have their own subs, and Homer eventually gets separated from Fairbanks. His sub loses oxygen and Homer goes into a three-day coma before the episode wraps up.

The circumstances surrounding Homer's ill-fated submarine exhibition seemed remarkably similar to the ill-fated OceanGate Titan, which imploded on its voyage to The Titanic, killing its five passengers.

In a remarkable coincidence, Simpsons writer Mike Reiss had four times traveled with OceanGate, once to see the Titanic, prior to the events of the last week. He has gone on record saying every time he traveled with OceanGate, there was some form of "communication hitch."

While this makes for a compelling idea that Reiss had written his fears aboard an OceanGate vessel into the episode, it simply isn't the case. For starters, Reiss didn't write "Homer's Paternity Coot" — Joel H. Cohen did. Furthermore, OceanGate was founded in 2009, three years after the episode aired.

Simpsons writers have copped to predicting events in years past, such as the 2020 Murder Hornet fiasco, but it seems the latest viral "Simpsons did it" claim is yet another case where the 660-plus-episode show once crafted a story that closely aligns with a real-world event that played out years later — an example of coincidence, not fortune-telling.