The Simpsons Don’t Live in Vermont

“The Simpsons Movie” opens today, but this isn’t a review of the film. For one thing, all the tickets for the week-end are in the sweaty hands of 12-year-olds, and this journal doesn’t believe in reviews for films, TV programs or books that one hasn’t seen or read. For another, there is an awful fraud being perpetrated on Simpsons fans, and one has a duty to report it like it is (or even better, as it is). The marketing people have decided that the Springfield that Homer, Bart and the rest call home is in Vermont. This is demonstrably a lie.

When he created the jaundiced-fleshed characters for the marvelous and too-short-lived “Tracy Ullman Show,” cartoonist Matt Groenig didn’t need a town name because the action took place in the Simpson’s home. As the series grew, the increased number of characters needed what all settlers need – a name for their new town. Mr. Groenig chose “Springfield” because it is one of the most common names for a municipality in all of the US. Wikipedia has it third on the list of most common place names after Franklin and Salem. There are 28 Springfields in 28 different states.

Naturally, the people in marketing decided to let the American people vote on which of the 28 was the “real” Simpson’s home as part of a hype campaign to launch the film. Naturally, they chose USA Today as the outlet for the polling because that is the type of hard hitting news for which that title is known. Naturally, the combination of marketing, the American public and USA Today resulted in howling stupidity. Springfield, Vermont, won.

Now, Vermont is a lovely place, if a bit on the cold side, but it isn’t Simpson country. For one thing, no one in the TV Springfield talks like they are from Vermont. Mayor Quimby’s accent is pure Boston, close but no cigar. Moreover, Simpson’s lore clearly holds that “Springfield was founded in 1796 by Maryland settlers trying to find a course to ‘New Sodom’ after misinterpreting a passage in the Bible.” Even fictional settlers from Maryland went west, not north.

No, the real Simpsons Springfield is in Illinois. The AA minor league Springfield Isotopes baseball team is a thinly disguised version of the AA Springfield Cardinals. Vermont has only a Single-A Team (the Lake Monsters). Moreover, Springfield has a long-standing rivalry with a burg called Shelbyville. There’s no evidence of a Shelbyville in New England. But there is a Shelbyville in both Illinois and nearby Indiana. And above all, north and east of Springfield, IL, along Interstate-72, there is a town called Homer. Case closed.

© Copyright 2007 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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