Decades before The Simpsons predicted a President Trump, an obscure CBS Western from the 1950s called Trackdown featured a man who claimed he could prevent the end of the world by building a wall. The man’s name was Walter Trump, and he shares a number of similarities with the president-elect.
As pointed out by Snopes, in the episode “The End of the World,” which aired on May 8, 1958, the mysterious Trump was a confidence man, decked out in a cultish robe, who arrived in the town of Talpa and, “tells the townspeople that a cosmic explosion will rain fire on the town and that he is the only one that can save them from death.” The wall he wanted to build was designed to keep out certain doom, of course, but his mere presence arouses suspicion from some of the locals.
Trump’s plan never comes to fruition, and he’s eventually brought to justice by the show’s hero, Texas Ranger Hoby Gilman, for grand theft and fraud. YouTube user Marcy Brafman uploaded portions of the episode on November 4, 2016, just four days before the presidential election. You can check it out below to see the bizarre coincidence for yourself:
[h/t The Wrap]
January 11, 2017 – 11:00am