Springfield (The Simpsons)

Springfield is the fictional city where the TV series The Simpsons is set, founded by Jebediah Springfield, located near Shelbyville.

The city seems to be a small town rather than a megalopolis. Its features include one nuclear power plant, an elementary school, a minor league baseball stadium, Moe's, a bar run by Moe Syzslak. Springfield was nearly chosen as the host for the Summer Olympic Games, until Bart Simpson's antics angered representatives from the IOC.

The location of Springfield is a long-running joke in the series, based in the fact that nearly every state in the United States has at least one community with that name. In addition, Matt Groening, the creator of the Simpsons, grew up in Eugene, Oregon. From Groening's childhood perspective, Springfield was "the next town over". Groening also lived in Portland, Oregon and one can see the connection between Portland and characters in the series - Terwilliger Street (Sideshow Bob), Lovejoy Street and Park (Rev. Lovejoy), one of the founders of Portland, and Northeast Flanders St. where the signs say "NE Flanders St." Some people have vandalized them to say "NED Flanders St." (Ned Flanders).

The City

Springfield was founded in 1796 by settlers who were trying to find a passage to Maryland after mis-interpreting a passage in the bible. In its early days, the city was the target of many Indian raids, and to this day many forts and trading posts remain (including Fort Springfield and Fort Sensible.)

Springfield's nearest neighboring town is Shelbyville. There is a strong rivalry between the towns, dating back to a rivalry between their founders -- Jebediah Springfield and Shelbyville Manhattan. Lisa Simpson discovered that Jebediah Springfield was in fact Hans Sprungfeld, a murderous pirate and enemy of George Washington, but decided that the myth of Springfield should be preserved. The town motto "a noble spirit embiggens the smallest man" is attributed to Jebediah.

The Mayor of Springfield is Democrat Joe Quimby. He was briefly thrown out in favor of Sideshow Bob, but was later re-instated when Bob was impeached for electoral fraud.

For a brief period Springfield divided itself into two cities, Olde Springfield and New Springfield on the basis of an area code division. Wealthy Olde Springfield, which featured Mayor Quimby, anchorman Kent Brockman, and bullies such as Nelson, erected a wall to separate itself from poor New Springfield. Mayor Quimby maintained control of Olde Springfield while Homer Simpson ran New Springfield. The cities were later re-united.

In one epsiode, Bart accidentally moons the U.S. flag, and the Simpsons appear on a talk show to explain the matter. However, the show's host, by deceptive editing, makes it appear that Springfield hates America. When the rest of the U.S. reciprocates this loathing, Mayor Quimby changes the name of Springfield to "Liberty-Ville". An enormous patriotic craze ensues, wherein all items are priced at $17.76.

Culture

The geographic location of Springfield is never stated, but Springfield is generally considered to depict, in a lampooning manner, "bread-and-butter" Middle America, culturally somewhere between a suburb and a small town. Springfieldians are not, for the most part, cosmopolitan, and most are of lower-middle to middle income (excluding the nefarious, extravagant Montgomery Burns).

In one episode, the "small-town nastiness" of Springfield is made evident by a benighted tradition of "snake-whacking" whereby, annually, Springfieldians bludgeon snakes to death. Lisa Simpson, a proto liberal disgusted by this activity, encourages the people of Springfield to quit the tradition.

Springfieldians have a very bad reputation. They are all very stupid and also quick to anger. There is a riot almost every single day. Springfield also has a strange smell that is uncomfortable to new residents. It is usually about six weeks before they adjust.

Springfield's State

Though the exact geographic location of Springfield is much disputed, many episodes make it clear that Springfield exists in some non-existent state, and not one of the actual 50 that exist in the real world.

There is a strong case for the non-existent state being west of the Mississippi River, assuming that the Federal Communications Commission of the Simpsons' universe mirrors the real world FCC. Springfield's local radio station uses the call letters KBBL. Typically K as the first call letter indicates a radio station west of the Mississippi River, whereas the FCC predominantly assigns W as the first call letter to radio stations east of the Mississippi River. There are a few exceptions to this rule such as station KDKA in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Springfield is near a junction of five states (in real life, no such junction exists), yet it borders the ocean; it has a canyon, a desert, and mountains. Sometimes it snows in Springfield, and the town once experienced a hurricane.

The flag of Springfield's state showed (prior to a redesign contest) a Confederate Battle Flag floating on (or sinking into) a body of water in front of a sunrise reminiscent of the southern South Carolina civil war state flag (The flag needed to be redesigned because they live in a "northern state.") The state bird is the potbellied sparrow; the state pasta is bowtie. The state slogan is "Not Just Another State," and the longtime governor is Democrat Mary Bailey.

The capital of the state that Springfield is in is called, simply, Capitol City. A recent episode showed jellyfish washing up on Springfield Beach, indicating that Springfield apparently has an ocean coastline, although that has not appeared previously on any maps. The other main reference to having a connection to an ocean takes place while Bart, Homer, and the Junior Campers float out to sea during a rafting trip. They are rescued by floating towards an unmanned oil rig which nevertheless features a failing Krusty Burger restaurant.

While the name of the state has never been mentioned, Homer Simpson's driver's licence shows that the state's abbreviation is "NT". According to producer/director David Silverman, Springfield is in the made-up state of "North Takoma" (a play on North Dakota). The two-letter abbreviation NT is legally used to refer to Canada's Northwest Territories, or Australia's Northern Territory, but it is clear Springfield is in the U.S.. U.S. flags are everywhere in Springfield; note the flag in the opening credits.

Episodes frequently make fun of these geographic contradictions by adding further conflicting descriptions, obscuring onscreen map representations, and interrupting conversational references. The revelation that Springfield was once entirely in the telephone area code 636 and that chaos erupted when half the town was switched to the new area code 939 does not clarify the situation; area code 636 is in Missouri, while 939 is in Puerto Rico. In one episode, someone refers to "south of the border" and Homer responds "You mean Tennessee?" (Tennessee is directly south of Kentucky.) In another episode, Superintendent Chalmers refers to Springfield school as "the most dilapidated in all of Missouri," and shocks everyone (viewers and characters alike) by this disclosure, before continuing with "and that's why it was shut down and moved here, brick by brick."

In the "Behind the Laughter" episode, a narrator describes the Simpsons as a "southern Missouri family." In reruns however, this was changed to northern Kentucky, purposely adding to the confusion. There are in fact Springfields and Shelbyvilles in both Missouri and Kentucky. However, this episode featured the Simpson family as actors "playing" roles of themselves, and the events depicted on the episode are not recognized as being part of the series' set continuity.

The couch gag sequence of The Simpsons episode entitled The Ziff Who Came to Dinner (FABF08, first aired March 14, 2004) again left the location of Springfield something of a mystery. The sequence featured a "zooming out" from the Simpson household to a satellite view, then a solar system view, and so on. The sequence contained plenty of cloud cover, but put Springfield somewhere in the Midwest, probably near the Mississippi River. Also, in a Treehouse of Horror episode, where it is revealed that Kang is Maggie's father, it also features a similar zoom-out sequence. This one, however, places Springfield on the southern coast of Louisiana. It should be noted that the Treehouse of Horror episodes have no continuity with the rest of the series and are not considered canon. Also, in the episode where a man tries to sell a defective monorail system to the town, he proclaims "I've sold monorail systems to Brockway, Ogdenville, and North Haverbrook! And, boy, it put them on the map!" He then holds up a map of the U.S. where Brockway, Ogdenville and North Haverbrook are the only cities shown. Marge then later drives to nearby North Haverbrook (where everybody resents there being a monorail there, despite the sign at the city limits saying "Where the Monorail is KING!"). The map shows North Haverbrook in the Midwest, approximately Iowa. However, in another episode, Marge is seen driving to Ogdenville, which adds confusion. Ogdenville was shown in the southwest, approximately Arizona.

In one episode, Chief Wiggum reported his location by noting the exact moment when the Sun was directly over his position, suggesting that the state lies at least partly in the tropics (Hawaii is the only known tropical U.S. state; it should be noted that the show has invented new states).

The episode New Kids on the Blecch establishes that Springfield is only a few minutes' sail from New York City by ship, while the episode Viva Ned Flanders (and other episodes in which characters visit Las Vegas) establishes that Springfield is within an easy day's drive of Las Vegas by car.

In the episode The Springfield Files, Mulder tells Scully that there has been "another unsubstantiated UFO sighting in the heartland of America," referring to Homer's close encounter with an alien; so, for that episode, Springfield was presumably somewhere in the Midwest.

Another fact that adds to the confusion is the mention of a central highway called Highway 401 in several episodes. There too is also a central highway named Highway 401 in the Province Of Ontario, Canada and that also goes through the City of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. This has also lead to speculation of Toronto being the inspiration to Springfield however as mentioned above the countless pieces of evidence of Springfield being in the United States automatically disprove this theory.

See also

• List of characters from The Simpsons