'The Simpsons' predicted Donald Trump's presidential run 16 years ago

In a case of life imitating art, it appears "The Simpsons" predicted Donald Trump's bid for presidency exactly 16 years ago today, on March 19, 2000.

In the season 11 episode titled "Bart to the Future," Bart sees his future in a vision where his band plays a gig for popcorn shrimp and Lisa becomes the first "straight female" president of the United States.

In a clip from the episode, Lisa tells her staff, "As you know, we've inherited quite a budget crunch from President Trump."

"Simpsons" writer Dan Greaney recently told The Hollywood Reporter, "It was a warning to America."

He added, "And that just seemed like the logical last stop before hitting bottom. It was pitched because it was consistent with the vision of America going insane."

Greaney, who now works on the show as a consulting producer, cannot remember exactly who pitched the idea of a Trump presidency, but told The Hollywood Reporter, "The important thing is that Lisa comes into the presidency when America is on the ropes and that is the condition left by the Trump presidency. What we needed was for Lisa to have problems that were beyond her fixing, that everything went as bad as it possibly could, and that's why we had Trump be president before her."

He says he has gotten many calls about the Trump line in recent months, but that the attention isn't exactly of the sort he had hoped for.

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"The Simpsons has always kind of embraced the over the top side of American culture … and [Trump] is just the fulfillment of that."