‘The Simpsons’ Showrunner on the Show’s Method to Predicting Future Events (Exclusive)

The Simpsons have been right about a lot over the years.

Fans of the show have long witnessed the FOX program’s writers’ abilities to predict several major current events. From Disney buying 20th Century Fox to Donald Trump’s presidency, and, more recently, Vice President Kamala Harris’ purple pantsuit outfit, The Simpsons has been on a winning streak.

But, the method to their magic isn’t as glamorous or eerie as fans might envision.

“Well, the sourpuss answer I always give that no one likes is that if you study history and math, it would be literally impossible for us not to predict things,” showrunner and executive producer Matt Selman tells PEOPLE exclusively. “If you say enough things, some of them are going to overlap with reality, and then that’s the math element. And then, the history element is if you make a show that is based on studying the past foolishness of humanity, you are surely going to anticipate the future foolishness of humanity as it sinks further into foolishness fair. So we don’t really think about it.”

Noting that the list of things the series has predicted (which currently stands at 34) is “completely unregulated,” Selman — who has worked on the series since 1997, beginning as a writer — says the only thing writers “hate” is when fans “put obviously fake images online and say, we predicted things that we didn’t.”

“It was nicer when the predictions were just predicting real horrible events, not people pretending we predicted horrible events,” he says, adding that it’s “very depressing and dispiriting that people want the magic to be true so bad that they just start” making up scenarios that never appeared on the show.

The Simpsons, created by Matt Groening, made its debut on FOX on Dec. 17, 1989. Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria and Harry Shearer have rounded out the show’s primary voice cast.

Now, the long-running animated program is in its 36th season, which premiered on Sept. 29 with an episode it dubbed a “series finale,” sparking confusion amongst viewers who tuned in. Selman raves about the episode’s “bold premise,” saying it “really worked beautifully.”

“What we lost in maybe eyeballs for the premiere on linear TV, I think we will probably get some good streaming numbers and people would be like, ‘Whoa, I heard this is crazy. I got to check it out,'” he says, reiterating that it was “not a finale, just a playful experiment with silliness.”

There are plenty more surprises the new season has in store, though Selman thinks that to “tease” what’s to come could have an adverse effect.

“My worry is if we let anyone know this idea before it aired, the internet would get confused and it would say The Simpsons is actually ending,” he says. “And then, somehow that would manifest. We would’ve predicted our famous predictions — we would’ve predicted our own demise.”

However, what Selman can share is that there are several special upcoming episodes, including one airing on Sunday, Oct. 6 that will “parody” several popular shows. The series will also return with the 35th edition of its iconic “Treehouse of Horror” Halloween-themed anthology episode, as well as some specials exclusively premiering on Disney+.

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The Simpsons airs Sundays at 8 p.m. ET on Fox.