Get Smart

 

Those who were lucky enough to grow up when Get Smart was broadcast, remember at least 3 things from the TV show: the openning sequence, the shoe phone and the cone of silence.  The wireless phone hidden in the shoe is clearly a predecessor of the cell phone which generated many funny momments when used and was developed 40 years after  (the Star Trek Communicator was also an ancestor of the mobile device, besides, it had some intelligence that enabled to call someone just by naming the person). The cone, an acrylic gadget intended to assure top secret communications that actually made them impossible to achieve causing us hilarity, has inspired designs for security solutions for restaurants in pandemic times.

Many technological stuff that we currently use were sketched in comics or cartoons: 3D printer, Superman (1964); smart watch, Dick Tracy (1946); telecommuting, online gym classes, telemedicine and video calls, The Jetsons (1962);  personal computer, tablet, GPS and giant flat screens, Stark Treck (1966).

The Simpsons, has been proficient in generating predictions that have been exactly fulfilled. The cartoon also predicted various inventions that at first make you laugh and then make you think; later, someone thought it over and applied those silly ideas to accomplished useful tools.

During a meeting, in a 1999 episode, Professor Frink puts a sarcasm detector to work, causing an  explosive ending. "Sarcasm requires some shared knowledge between speaker and audience; it is a profoundly contextual phenomenon. Most computational approaches to sarcasm detection, however, treat it as a purely linguistic matter, using information such as lexical cues and their corresponding sentiment as predictive features". Carnegie Mellon University researchers David Bamman and Noah A. Smith have developed an algorithm capable of detecting sarcasm within a text written on Twitter.

Hungry? Tummy pain? Pee? Poop? In a 1992 episode, Homer's stepbrother creates a device that translates Maggie's cries for him. For more than a decade there have been developments that approach a similar solution, using Artificial Inteligence for this purpose. To check it, just look for the apps available to download on your cell phone. I've already passed that stage ... D'oh! it might come back...

Plandemic fundamentalists may claim that the conspiracy's seed stems from another creation by Matt Groening. Futurama is the universe in which Fry (a pizza delivery guy who is frozen by accident in the 20th century) awakens in the year 3000. There is one episode where he catches some kind of flu that ends up spreading throughout Manhattan, producing a catastrophe. Symptoms include fever, chills, and perspiration, similar to those of Covid-19; likewise, the virus spreads all over the country, forcing the inhabitants to undergo a quarantine and to have the need to get vaccinated, for it could be letal. The list of crazy ideas that emerge from the series is long; an example is the tubes that transport people replacing the NY subway. Tesla, Elon Musk's company, has been working since 2013 on Hyperloop, a transportation system that is developed in a tube and where one can travels exceeding 600 mph.

An 2007 Archie magazine story predicts virtual high school classes, for year 2021! It pictured  parents  who seem happy with this modality, but it is not quite what actually happened, for everything else, it nailed it.

In a story passage, the kids decide to visit the 'Museum of Presentiality', which is what the old High School has become. The students arrived to the same conclution that now a days kids are thinking, or not?