The Simpsons Predicted Tom Brady's Ugly, Expensive Clothing Line with Supernatural Accuracy
That loud, rumbling, sonic boom that was heard around much of the world over the weekend was caused by either the volcanic eruption off the coast of Tonga, or was the thud from Tom Brady's launch of his new clothing line. Simply put, in the middle of an economic collapse marked by unemployment, record inflation, a supply chain crisis, and store shelves bare of basic items like poultry, eggs and pasta, your public tends to not be in the mood for $75 t-shirts and $100 hoodies that say the word "BRADY" across the front in plain letters.
First of all, he's already blanketed the continent in TB12 merch. So how many brands and logos are we going to be subjected to on his way to winning seven more rings? Second, "BRADY"? That's what his design team came up with? What inspired them? The outfits Batman supervillain henchmen wore?
Allow me to answer my own rhetorical question. Because like every other aspect of life in the 2000s, it was predicted by "The Simpsons."
Maybe it was intentional. Maybe Brady's business partners liked the joke so much they decided to run an experiment where they slap a $100 price tag on the thing to see how many suckers are, in fact, born every minute. After all, in a world where Springsteen was able to charge the highest prices in the history of Broadway to sing the same songs and tell the same stories about working all day in his daddy's garage then driving the Rattlesnake Speedway all day to the elites of Manhattan society, maybe there is no limit to how much you can milk your target audience's loyalty. So this could just be the opportunity to cash in on his fans who remember this episode from 17 years ago.
Or maybe, this is just another example of "The Simpsons" Effect. When you've done 731 episodes like they have, perhaps you've just simply predicted everything. In that way that if you put enough monkeys at enough keyboards they'll eventually type the world's greatest novel. Which is something else "The Simpsons" addressed:
But I'm going with the premise that the writers have, for 33 years now, understood the world better than anyone else. In the best comedy there is truth. And the show's absurdist point of view is exceeded only by our even more absurd reality. Which is how they predicted Trump's presidency. The US beating Sweden in Olympic Curling. Sigfried & Roy getting attacked by their own white tiger. The Covid pandemic and Murder Hornets. And Tom Hanks being one of the first people to get it.
Which leads me to the conclusion the showrunners are either time travelers, or they can alert our reality to make their satirical predictions come true in order to keep us watching old episodes on Disney+ and keep the program on the air until the sun goes nova. It makes more sense than thinking people will pay a hundred bucks just to wear the word "BRADY" across their chests.
