A 28-year-old joke made on 'The Simpsons' will come true tonight when a seminal hip-hop group performs with an iconic orchestra.
For most of its record-setting 35-season run, The Simpsons has been known for its eerie and uncanny predictions of bizarre future events. Tonight, an event the sitcom prophesied 28 years ago is set to come to fruition, per the BBC.
In the 1996 episode “Homerpalooza,” the 24th episode of season seven, Homer takes Bart and Lisa to a music festival to prove how hip he is. His plan backfires when he’s asked to travel with the festival’s freak show, humiliating his children.
The episode culminates in a gag where a roadie delivers the London Symphony Orchestra to the green room and inquires which artist ordered the backing band. “Who is playing with the London Symphony Orchestra?” he asks. “Somebody ordered the London Symphony Orchestra, possibly while high? Cypress Hill, I’m looking in your direction.”
After a nervous consultation, Cypress Hill says they’re “pretty sure” they ordered the orchestra. They ask if the LSO knows “Insane in the Brain,” to which the conductor responds: “We mostly know classical.”
On July 10, that gag is set to come true. Cypress Hill has booked a one-night-only show at Royal Albert Hall with the London Symphony Orchestra playing the band’s celebrated Black Sunday album, including hits such as “Insane in the Brain” and “I Wanna Get High.”
Cypress Hill stormed the West Coast rap scene in the ‘90s, largely setting the template for acts that followed in their footsteps. The band has sold more than 20 million albums in the U.S., with Black Sunday selling three million.
Vocalist B-Real, whose real name is Louis Mario Freese, told the BBC that the LSO show has “been something that we’ve talked about for many years since the Simpsons episode first aired. So it’s very special for us. And it’s coming off the heels of our 30th anniversary for our Black Sunday album. We’ve played a lot of historical venues throughout our career and stuff like that, but nothing as prestigious as this.”
LSO first violin and board vice-chair Maxine Kwok said "People are beyond excited at the idea of these diverse musicians mixing on the stage,” LSO first violinist Maxine Kwok told the outlet. "Being a child of the nineties I remember the episode well," she said, adding that it’s long been a “running joke” amongst LSO members.
The one-night-only event kicks off tonight at 6:45 p.m. at London’s Royal Albert Hall. The Simpsons is streaming on Disney+.
