Jason & Susan

Back in 1989 to 1991, Susan’s family lived in Springfield, Illinois. Springfield is the capital of Illinois, but other than that, it is (or was) a small town with nothing special or interesting. In Susan’s mind, there were only two things worth mentioning about Springfield.

#1. It was the hometown of President Abraham Lincoln and his home has been turned into a tiny museum, one of the very few tourist attractions of the city. Every visitor of Springfield must go there. (There really isn’t much else to see in Springfield.) Susan must have visited the museum at least 5 times in the two years she lived there, but the only thing she remembered about the museum is that there are 13 steps on the stairs, the exact size of honest Abe’s feet!

#2 The Simpsons show premiered back in 1989, when Susan and her family were living in Springfield. As far as she’s always known, The Simpsons also live in Springfield, and despite the multiple Springfields in the country, Susan swore that it mentioned during one of the episodes that it was Springfield, Illinois. So everytime she tells people that she used to live in Springfield, Illinois, and upon receiving the blank-where-is-Springfield look, she would tell them it was home of The Simpsons (and Abe Lincoln). And people would nod with a curious acknowledgement, as if they knew where Springfield was.

But now everything has CHANGED! The Simpsons Movie premiered today and apparently, it was never mentioned in any of the episodes where exactly Springfield is in The Simpsons! Agad! Thus, they held a contest to see which one of the numerous Springfields in the country is fitting to be the hometown of The Simpsons and the winner would host the premier of the movie. Via video submission, each city put together the best video resemblance of the cartoon and the winner was… Springfield, Vermont! Second place was Springfield, Illinois. Darn Vermont! The glory of Springfield, Illinois is gone and it’s back to being just the hometown of Abraham Lincoln.