Throughout the book, I’ll be answering the questions most often asked by Simpsons fans.
Let’s start with the big one:
The name Springfield was chosen by creator Matt Groening for its generic blandness. It was the name of the hometown in the generically bland 1950s sitcom Father Knows Best and is one of the most common place names in America—only Riverside and Five Points beat it. There are forty-eight Springfields in forty-three U.S. states, which means there are five states that have two Springfields. Great imagination, folks.
But Matt Groening’s version of Springfield wasn’t intended to be a guessing game; like most things on The Simpsons, we didn’t plan it. And by this point, we’ve put in enough clues as to where it might be that it can’t possibly be anywhere. Let’s recap what we know: Springfield has an ocean on its east side and its west side. We once said that East Springfield is three times the size of Texas. And in one episode we see Homer shoveling snow in the morning and lying in a hammock sipping lemonade that afternoon. This raises the question: what planet is Springfield on?
The Emmy-winning episode “Behind the Laughter” ends by calling the Simpsons a family from northern Kentucky. There’s your answer. Except that in the closed-captioning, we said they’re from Missouri. In the rerun, we changed it to Illinois. And it’s referred to as “a small island” on the DVD.
In The Simpsons Movie, Ned Flanders says that Springfield’s state is bordered by Ohio, Nevada, Maine, and Kentucky. There was even a contest to coincide with the release of the movie that invited different Springfields in the United States to make a video explaining why they’re the one the Simpsons live in. Thirteen cities entered, competing for the honor of being America’s fattest, dumbest, most polluted town. Springfield, Massachusetts’s film featured a guest appearance by Senator Ted Kennedy; he invited his soundalike character Mayor Quimby to come visit. This was a big concession by Kennedy, since I’ve heard that he hated that character. And yet despite all this effort, Massachusetts lost. The winner was Springfield, Vermont. (Comedian Henriette Mantel is from Springfield, Vermont, and she told me it’s nothing like the town on the show.)
I like the answer given by John Swartzwelder, the quirky writer of fifty-nine quirky Simpsons episodes; he says, “Springfield is in Hawaii.” But a few years ago, Matt Groening said the show is set in a city near where he grew up: Springfield, Oregon. What does he know?