Springfield, Oregon is the Simpsons’ home

There are two kinds of people. Those who love the Simpsons and can quote Homer and Bart dialogue like they’re 12 year old boys. And those who don’t get it with the Simpsons. You don’t even have to wonder which group I’m in.

While I don’t get the Simpsons, I do find it interesting that the fictional characters were really his family members, and the fictional setting was really Springfield, Oregon.

The satirical cartoon’s creator Matt Groening just admitted that in an interview with Smithsonian magazine, of all places.

“My father’s name is Homer. My mother’s name is Margaret. I have a sister Lisa and another sister Maggie, so I drew all of them. I was going to name the main character Matt, but I didn’t think it would go over well in a pitch meeting, so I changed the name to Bart,” he says.

Bart was an unusual name, and it was the character in a novel he wrote in high school.

“I thought it was a very unusual name for a kid at the time. I had this idea of an angry father yelling ‘Bart’ and Bart sounds kind of like bark—like a barking dog. I thought it would sound funny,” he says.

The Simpson’s home, even I know, was Springfield. Springfield, Oregon, Groening says.

“The only reason is that when I was a kid, the TV show “Father Knows Best” took place in the town of Springfield, and I was thrilled because I imagined that it was the town next to Portland, my hometown. When I grew up, I realized it was just a fictitious name. I also figured out that Springfield was one of the most common names for a city in the U.S. In anticipation of the success of the show, I thought, ‘This will be cool; everyone will think it’s their Springfield.’ And they do,” he says.

Does it change your perception of the Simpsons that they’re Oregonians?

By LINDA THOMAS