In keeping with a cursory Google search, there are a grand complete of 67 locations in America often known as Springfield. But, The Simpsons doesn’t happen in any of them. Whereas Matt Groening named the city Springfield after Springfield, Oregon, the state the place the Simpsons dwell has by no means been revealed on the present.
The Simpsons is much from the one present to do that, nonetheless. Various different reveals have saved their actual setting a secret, too, normally in an try and make it seem to be “Anytown, USA” and maintaining it relatable to everybody. Listed below are 5 such examples, not together with the disaster-prone hometown of Homer Simpson…
The Surprise Years (1988)
The Surprise Years was extremely particular about when it takes place — in 1968, simply following the assassination of Robert Kennedy — however the the place isn’t talked about. When you can spot New York and California license plates all through the collection, and Fred Savage’s Kevin Arnold is a Jets fan, neither state is ever formally confirmed because the setting.
Batman (1966)
Batman has at all times been the protector of the fictional Gotham Metropolis, however for many of the character’s historical past, they by no means say the place Gotham resides. Apparently, the comics finally revealed that it’s in New Jersey; that stated, in lots of different items of Batman media, it appears to take the place of Manhattan. The unique Batman TV present with Adam West instructed that Gotham was the substitute for New York Metropolis through the use of the Massive Apple for its backdrops, but in an early episode, Cesar Romero’s Joker says, “Gotham Metropolis’s having an influence outage identical to New York!” This should imply that New York Metropolis is a separate place, so the place, precisely, is Gotham? It’s a riddle even the Riddler can’t clear up.
The Powerpuff Women (1998)
At the start of each episode of The Powerpuff Women, the narrator proudly pronounces that the present takes place in “The Metropolis of Townsville,” which, like many superhero-protected cities, is a giant metropolis always beneath siege by villains. Regardless of the town being so central to the present, the creators exit of their technique to conceal which state it belongs to. For instance, in a single episode, the coordinates for Townsville are given as 32 levels latitude by 212 levels longitude, however longitude solely goes as much as 180 levels!
Gilligan’s Island (1964)
The entire level of Gilligan’s Island is that you simply don’t know the place it takes place, no matter the truth that the Harlem Globetrotters managed to search out the island by chance in 1981. Very similar to The Powerpuff Women, the present makes use of unimaginable coordinates to disguise the placement, stating in a single episode that the island is situated at 140 levels latitude by 10 levels longitude, however latitude solely goes as much as 90 levels.
Regardless of this, the castaways have been finally discovered within the 1978 TV film Rescue from Gilligan’s Island, however only a yr later, they determined to return to the island in The Castaways on Gilligan’s Island to construct a resort the place the aforementioned Harlem Globetrotters crashland in 1981 and find yourself combating robots. It’s bizarre.
Petticoat Junction (1963) and Inexperienced Acres (1965)
The basic Nineteen Sixties sitcoms Petticoat Junction and Inexperienced Acres each happen within the rural city of Hooterville. As for which state Hooterville is in, one of the best guess is Missouri, as an episode of Inexperienced Acres says that Hooterville is 300 miles from Chicago’s O’Hare Worldwide Airport. The issue is, it doesn’t specify by which path. Within the 2006 e book Prime-Time Tv: A Concise Historical past, Hooterville is described as “a spot concurrently Southern and Midwestern, however in a obscure kind of manner.” The particularly irritating factor about that is that, within the opening theme to Inexperienced Acres, it says, “Inexperienced Acres is the place to be.” However in case you by no means inform us the place it’s, how are we speculated to get there?
