Will Forte Is Sorry for the Pandemic Jokes in ‘Last Man on Earth’

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https://observer.com/2021/01/will-fo...-man-on-earth/

While The Simpsons has a knack for predicting the future, another Fox sitcom may actually have predicted the public health crisis right now. The Last Man on Earth, which aired 2015-2018, predicted a debilitating virus in 2020 that would kill huge swaths of the population. Throughout the show there were continued references to quarantines, homemade PPE and deaths of public figures — all this in a sitcom that ended just under three years ago.

If you are unfamiliar with the show, it’s quite simple: a virus wipes out just about everyone on the planet. Phil Tandy Miller, as portrayed by Will Forte, thinks he is the last person on earth until he meets Carol Pilbasian, portrayed by Kristen Schaal. They meet several different people and build a tribe of sorts, migrating as needed.

The similarities between the Last Man on Earth pandemic and ours are quite close. One stand-out episode that guest-starred Kristen Wiig flashed back to the earlier days of the disaster. She played socialite Pamela Brinton, and while in a limo, she passes by pedestrians all wearing masks. Later on, she goes to a grocery store wearing homemade PPE. Then at dinner with her husband, she explains that several of her wealthy friends bought a bunker to ride out the pandemic.

In that episode, there is a montage of the two of them as they watch a series of funerals for various elected leaders in the line of presidential succession.

Most notably, Tom Hanks was one of the first celebrities who caught COVID-19. As Fox executive Jonathan Gabay later pointed out, Hanks was also the first to get sick with the fictional virus on the show. While an exaggeration of the reality plaguing society, the sitcom does help put the situation in perspective, as producer Payman Benz quipped on Twitter.

Now, nearly a year into the pandemic, Observer spoke with star and creator Will Forte about his take on the show’s legacy and surreal closeness to the coronavirus pandemic.