Original air date: 3/19/2000
Production code: BABF-13
In the second "look-into-the-future" episode, the Simpsons visit an Indian casino after their camping trip to Larval Lake gets canceled due to an insect infestation (that has eaten the comment book and stolen the park ranger's class ring — followed by the skin, fat, and muscle off his hand), where Bart gets a vision of his future as a DeVry Institute dropout looking to hit the big time as a musician, while Lisa is the first female President of the United States, trying to get the country back on track after Donald Trump's disastrous stint as President.note
Tropes:
- 20 Minutes into the Future: Everything's pretty much the same with some random Zeerust-y tech like hoverbuses (with regular busses still running), newscasts beamed into the brain at will via ray gun, and "virtual fudge."
- The All-Solving Hammer: Bart's manipulative ploy of preference is to tell people who refuse him what he wants that they "used to be cool." This fails on Lisa, who was never cool.
- As You Know: Lisa begins the discussion of the budget crunch inherited from Trump with these words.
- Bad Future:
- Homer says, "What a bleak and horrible future we live in!" when he gets shocked by the cord feeding him virtual fudge. Bart corrects him that he means "present."
- It's also this in Ned Flanders' opinion: he's blind and Rod and Todd are Camp Gay and still living with him.
- The United States of America has gone to hell thanks to the bungling of the administration before Lisa: the attempts at improving the quality of life of inner-city children instead turned them into literally superhuman criminals and the debt to other countries is so bad that one of Lisa's advisors tells her, dead serious, that committing suicide is a better option than dealing with it.
- Bad News in a Good Way: Lisa mentions Marge losing $20,000 via gambling and Homer pushing a waitress as if she's talking about the weather.
- Bait-and-Switch: At the dinner, Lisa enquires as to the whereabouts of Maggie, at which point Marge pulls out what is an apparently unaged baby Maggie. And then she clarifies that this one is the daughter of Maggie Sr.
- Bait-and-Switch Suicide: Upon finding himself evicted and penniless, Bart says despondently, "There's only one way out of this mess" and aims a futuristic ray gun at his head. Turns out it's a device for beaming the news directly into your brain and he just wanted to check his lotto numbers.
- Body Horror: The mosquitoes eating the park ranger's hand down to his bone.
- Bowdlerization: On the UK's Channel 4, the part with Krusty's Pakistan joke ("What's the difference between Pakistan and a pancake? I don't know any pancakes that were nuked by India!") was cut due to India and Pakistan being on the brink of nuclear war at the time the episode premiered on that channel.
- Call-Back:
- Marge's gambling problem from "$pringfield, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling", and Arthur Crandall and his ventriloquist dummy, Gabbo, who had their own kids' show in "Krusty Gets Kancelled".
- The episode also extrapolates Bart's Odd Friendship with Ralph from "This Little Wiggy", another Dan Greaney-penned episode.
- This episode isn't the first time that a possible future showed Lisa becoming the American President. In "Lisa on Ice", Lisa had a nightmarish Imagine Spot where she imagined that an F in second grade gym class would mean that she'd lose the presidency while she was sworn in and be sent to Monster Island.
- Camp Gay: After Bart applies to a reluctant Ned for a loan, Ned relents but says it's only because he hasn't "outed Rod and Todd." If Ned weren't blind, he would probably realize that Bart doesn't exactly need to.
- Continuity Nod: The adult Bart wears an earring in his left ear, which he pierced back in "Simpson Tide."
- Couch Gag: The living room is set up like a trendy night club. The bouncer lets in Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie, but sends Homer away.
- Dude, Not Funny!: Bart tries to come up with a coolness plan at Camp David, and Krusty suggests opening with a joke: "What's the difference between Pakistan and a pancake?" The punchline: "I don't know any pancakes that were nuked by India!" Bart and the others just stare at Krusty in shock, to which Krusty replies, "What? Too soon?"
- Dumbass No More: While he's still a bit quirky, Ralph Wiggum has outgrown his non-sequitur-spewing Cloudcuckoolander behavior to the point of acting as a voice of reason to Bart.
- Everyone Has Standards:
- Not even Bart and Nelson found Krusty's attempt at making a joke out of Pakistan being nuked by India funny.
- Despite the temptation, Lisa won't let Kearney discreetly murder Bart.
- Exact Words: When Lisa asked Bart what her future was like, he told her she'd have "some government job".
- Failed Future Forecast: One line in the episode offhandedly references the idea of Chaz Bono taking up a career in politics like his father, Sonny Bono, when in reality, he ended up becoming an actor. The episode also refers to the younger Bono by his deadname, as he didn't come out as a trans man until nine years after its premiere.
- Famous for Being First: When an adult Lisa is giving a press conference, she states she's proud to be "the first straight female president".
- From Bad to Worse: The park ranger at Larva Lake looks down and sees his hand is crawling with insects; he shakes them off and then protests the swarm stole his class ring. The bugs return the ring...and eat every bit of flesh off his hand.Park Ranger: (looking at his skeletal hand) Oh thanks a lot!
- Future Badass: Kearney becomes an agent of the Secret Service with (a not unsubtly implied) experience performing assassinations.
- Future Loser: Bart is a broke moocher that wastes his time on Frivolous Lawsuits, has an awful band that can't get a gig, and lives with Ralph Wiggum.
- The Ghost: Unlike in "Lisa's Wedding" where she was merely The Voiceless, we never see the future version of Maggie, with her identical infant daughter appearing instead.
- Gone Horribly Wrong: According to Lisa's advisers, the previous administration's decision to invest in the nation's children backfired big time.Aide: The balanced breakfast program just created a generation of ultra-strong super-criminals!
Milhouse: And midnight basketball taught them to function without sleep. - High Times Future: When Lisa asks Bart how she can repay him at the end, he asks her to legalize "it" and she says to consider it done.
- His Name Really Is "Barkeep": After the Indian chews Bart out for throwing a firecracker into the vision flame, Bart protests that he bought it from a guy on the Reservation, which the Indian calls “Crazy Talk”. He then clarifies that Crazy Talk is his brother’s name.
- Identical Grandson: Just to seal the deal on the White House version of the Simpsons household working exactly as it does in the show despite everybody having aged several decades, Maggie's future self doesn't make it onscreen at all, but Marge is babysitting her identical baby daughter, also named Maggie.
- Insane Troll Logic: Homer's plan to find Abraham Lincoln's gold:Homer: ... fourscore four, fourscore five, fourscore six, fourscore and seven paces.Marge: Wait! How do you know this is where Lincoln buried the gold? You just started counting from an arbitrary place!Homer: I just started what from a what?Marge: Your plan makes no sense!
- Kick the Dog: An angry Lisa strangles Bart for disrupting her broadcast. Instead of helping the latter, a security guard who was after him joins her.
- Logo Joke: This was one of the episodes that repeated characters' lines for the Gracie Films logo.Bart: Moochie-moochie!
- Magical Native American: Double Subverted.Casino Owner: Unless you change your deceitful ways, I foresee a life of bitterness and failure for you...Bart Simpson.
Bart: How do you know my name?
Casino Owner: Your father just took out a second mortgage downstairs. You're listed as collateral.
Bart: Oh. I thought maybe you were some kind of Indian mystic who could tell the future.
Casino Owner: [mysteriously] Who says I'm not? - Manchild: Bart. He brings this out in Lisa when he moves into the White House with her along with the rest of the family, with the resulting household and its pivotal Sibling Rivalry functioning exactly as in the show despite several decades having passed.Bart: I knew you'd need some help keeping it real, so I figured I could be, like, your...copresident.Lisa: Copresident? Are you crazy?Bart: Mom, Lisa won't share!Marge: (carrying a basket of laundry through the hallway) Be nice to your brother, Lisa!
- Multiple-Choice Future: The casino owner indicates that he's showing Bart a future he can avoid rather than an inevitable outcome, meaning the episode is still in continuity with the Ridiculously Successful Future Self depicted in "Itchy and Scratchy: The Movie"' and implied to still be going forward in "Lisa's Wedding."
- Never My Fault: Pretty much everything Bart says. He constantly mooches money from his parents and other family friends, and when they refuse tries to guilt-trip them, then attempts to do the same thing with Lisa by constantly trying to abuse her authority.
- Noodle Incident: Several events in future that are hinted at but never elaborated on; the presidency of Donald Trump (which led to the entire country going broke and a lot of programs to help underprivileged kids backfiring on an Epic Fail scale), Pakistan being nuked by India, Bart getting bit by a spider at Disneyland, something that happened to Bart involving over-salted fries, how Bart and Ralph came to be roommates, Homer getting a prostate implant, and Lisa mentions being the "first straight female president".
- Not So Innocent Whistling: The marching band that accompanies Lisa to dinner does this when she mentions wanting to cut something from the budget.
- Padding: Invoked when Bart asks the Indian why a vision from his own life included a B story about Homer and Marge searching for treasure around The White House. The Indian says, "I guess the spirits thought the main vision was a little thin."
- Pretender Diss: Bart's most common insult in the future is "What happened to you, man? You used to be cool!" It works on Homer and the Chinese ambassador, but not Lisa, who simply replies, "No I didn't."
- Product Placement: Bart's vision contains adverts. "It was Crazy Talk's idea."
- Ridiculously Successful Future Self: Lisa is President of the United States.
- Sequel Episode: Spiritually one to "Lisa's Wedding," a Flash Forward with the kids as adults but done more with a focus on Bart rather than Lisa.
- Shout-Out:
- When Bart comes out of Gabbo's box, Arthur Crandall assumes he wished for it so much Gabbo ended up becoming a real boy.
- The future Nelson is modeled after Biff Tannen from Back to the Future Part II.
- Future Bart's band is called Captain Bart and the Tequila Mockingbirds.
- Willie erects a shield to protect Bart and Ralph, but says it won't hold unless he gets more power.
- Skewed Priorities: After he and Ralph get kicked out of their home, all Bart cares about is that he left half a beer in there and not being able to watch Bewitched.
- Spanner in the Works: Lisa's attempt at lying in a State of the Union address that everything is okay and the U.S. will pay off its debt soon gets derailed by Bart barging into the Oval Office to try to use the address to advertise his music and saying that Lisa is lying.
- The Thing That Would Not Leave: Bart is a total nuisance when he moves into the White House, to the point of wrecking Lisa's efforts to deal with the U.S.'s massive debt crisis. Fortunately, when other world leaders demand that Lisa immediately pay the U.S.'s debts, Bart charms them into giving her more time.
- Who's on First?: Asked to throw a treasured possession into the fire in order to see his future, Bart, naturally, throws a firecracker, defending himself by saying he bought it from a guy on the reservation.Casino Owner: That's Crazy Talk.
Bart: No, it's true.
Casino Owner: No, I know. That's my brother Crazy Talk. We're all a little worried about him. - Worthless Treasure Twist: Homer's sub-plot is him digging all over the White House looking for Abraham Lincoln's hidden gold (a scheme that is running on nothing but Insane Troll Logic). In the final act, Homer does finds a chest hidden by Lincoln, but all that it's inside is a letter written by Lincoln about how his treasure is in the hearts of all Americans. Marge thinks it's sweet but Homer only gets angry.Homer: (kicking grass) That lousy! Rail-splitting! Freak!
- You Know the One: To repay Bart mollifying American's creditors, he request Lisa "Legalize it." Neither elaborate on what "it" is, but it's rather obvious he means cannabis.
