Barking Up the Wrong Bush

19 April 1987: The first-ever appearance of The Simpsons on television, in a short in The Tracey Ullman Show, "Good Night".
8 November 1988: George H.W. Bush defeats Michael Dukakis in that year's Presidential election.
20 January 1989: Bush is inaugurated as the 41st President of the United States.
14 May 1989: The last-ever Tracey Ullman Simpsons short, "TV Simpsons", is aired.
17 December 1989: The first ever full-length episode of the half-hour Simpsons series, "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire", is broadcast.
11 October 1990: The first episode of the second season of The Simpsons, "Bart Gets an 'F'", is viewed by 33.6 million viewers in the US - a record which has never been beaten by any episode of the show, before or since.
26 September 1991: President Bush has a cameo (not voiced by himself, but by Harry Shearer) in "Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington".
27 January 1992: On his re-election campaign, President Bush gives a speech in which he says that he plans "to make American families a lot more like the Waltons and a lot less like the Simpsons".
30 January 1992: Fox airs a repeat of the Simpsons episode "Stark Raving Dad". A hastily created comeback to Bush's speech is added as a cold opening - the Simpsons are seen watching the (live-action) speech on their television (using footage recycled from "Simpson and Delilah" rather than new animation), to which Bart responds "We're just like the Waltons. We're praying for an end to the depression, too!"
3 November 1992: Bush loses the Presidential election to Bill Clinton.
19 November 1992: Bush appears in a dream sequence of Homer's in "Mr. Plow", where he is trying to smuggle valuable artwork out of the White House and Homer uses his snowplough to get rid of the protesters outside. This is presumed to be a jibe at Bush's recent ousting, but it was recorded and animated months before the result of the election would be known.
20 January 1993: Bill Clinton is inaugurated as the 42nd President of the United States.
11 February 1993: President Clinton is seen attending Krusty's anniversary show in "I Love Lisa".
21 October 1993: In the premiere of "Rosebud", George H.W. Bush is barred from Mr. Burns' birthday party (along with Jimmy Carter): "No one-termers". He also makes a cameo in Bart's video game in "Boy Scoutz 'N the Hood", is accused (along with Clinton) of having an affair by Kent Brockman in "The Last Temptation of Homer", and sits on the Stonecutters World Council in "Homer the Great", whilst Clinton is phoned by Homer about Tang in "Deep Space Homer", is a member of the Little White Girls' Blues Quartet in "Bart Gets an Elephant" and is happy Mr. Burns finally finds love in "Lady Bouvier's Lover".
9 October 1994: "Sideshow Bob Roberts" proves divisive with some fans due to its attacks on the Republicans.
14 January 1996: George H.W. Bush becomes the Simpsons' new neighbour in "Two Bad Neighbors". Executive producer Bill Oakley later clarifies that the episode is not meant as a political attack, just a personal one.
27 October 1996: The final segment of "Treehouse of Horror VII", "Citizen Kang", satirises that year's Presidential election as Kang and Kodos assume the identities of the two candidates. (Clinton is usually voiced by Dan Castellaneta, but here his voice is Phil Hartman's.)
5 November 1996: Clinton wins re-election (thus going against the prediction made in "Citizen Kang", as Kang won whilst masquerading as Dole).
19 December 1998: Clinton is impeached on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. The Simpsons naturally makes several references to this; at the close of "Treehouse of Horror IX", when Kang and Kodos threaten to destroy every leader in Washington, Bart implores them to not forget Ken Starr, and the blackboard gag for "D'oh-in' in the Wind", "Nobody cares what my definition of 'is' is", references Clinton's extreme hair-splitting during his testimony.
19 March 2000: In the flashforward episode "Bart to the Future", President Lisa Simpson has inherited quite a budget crunch from her predecessor, President Trump.
7 November 2000: The results of the Presidential election are thrown into chaos over the incredibly narrow result in Florida. George W. Bush will not be officially certified as President-elect until 12 December; the 19 November 2000 premiere of "Lisa the Tree Hugger" features the blackboard gag "I am not the acting President" in reference to this.
20 January 2001: Bush is inaugurated as the 43rd President of the United States. In part due to 9/11, references to the current President will be fewer than they were for the previous two, although December 2004's "She Used to Be My Girl" features a Fox News bus displaying the 2004 Bush/Cheney banner triumphantly playing "We Are the Champions" and May 2006's "Regarding Margie" shows pictures in the Simpsons' photo album of Homer beating up both former and current President Bushes; similarly, references to Obama are relatively far and few between (although Homer comes up against a rigged voting machine whilst attempting to vote for Obama in the opening sequence to "Treehouse of Horror XIX", aired just two days before the election.)
13 November 2016: The show responds to its March 2000 prediction with a blackboard gag: "Being right sucks". (An October 2017 one also reads "It's unfair to judge a president on its first 300 days".) Several online shorts have been produced in reference to the incumbent president; often these don't feature any of the show's characters and are just in its animation style.