Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Entertainment
  3. News

Simpsons faithful can now visit Springfield (sort of) thanks to Universal Studios

By

The exact location of the Simpson’s hometown of Springfield has been debated for nearly as long as the show has been running. And while there is still no definitive answer, a replica of Springfield has now opened where anyone can find it. Where? Hollywood, of course.

Unveiled today, “Springfield, U.S.A.” can be found on the lot at Universal Studios. The life-sized town has many familiar landmarks: Moe’s Tavern, the cooling towers of Springfield’s power plant, the convenience store Kwik-E-Mart, Krusty Burger, and more. The town was built around the pre-existing Simpsons Ride.

The theme park is definitely in line with everything a hardcore Simpsons fan would be interested in, with plenty of nostalgic nods filling the expanse. Krusty Burger sells actual Krusty burgers and the infamous Ribwich, and if you venture upstairs you’ll also find the signatures of animators scrawled on the walls. You can grab a Duff Beer at Moe’s Tavern, with pennants from The Isoptopes, Springfield’s minor league baseball, hanging behind the bar.

Stars Yeardley Smith (aka Lisa Simpson), Nancy Cartwright (Bart), and Joe Mantegna, who voices the mob boss Tony and various other characters, were all on hand to walk the “Yellow Carpet” at the grand opening.

“It’s very strange … I feel very much a part of Lisa Simpson and she feels like she is in me but the world feels very two-dimensional to me so this is actually all very new,” Smith said.

The opening of the park comes at an interesting time, coinciding with news today that series regular Harry Shearer, who voices Ned Flanders, Mr. Burns, Smithers and a dozen more, is leaving the show after 26 years. Shearer also reportedly turned down $14 million for a two-season guarantee. It is likely that the characters whom Shearer lent his voice will be recast, but replacing those iconic pipes will be a mighty task indeed.

Could we be seeing the beginning of the end for the show that just keeps on going? If so, it won’t be for at least two years, as Fox just recently announced that The Simpsons will be coming back for a 27th and 28th season. That will bring its episode count to a whopping 625 episode.

We’ll have to wait and see whether or not the show can live on without one of its seminal voice actors. But even when the show inevitably does pull the final curtain, thanks to the latest attraction, there are still other ways to get that special Springfield feeling. Springfield U.S.A is now open for business.

Editors’ Recommendations

Topics
Steve Smith
Steve Smith
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Steve doesn’t really like to write about himself in the third person. He’s not The Rock. He is, however, a writer who has…
In September 1994, American television changed forever thanks to these four shows
The cast of ER looking at the camera.

Television today is very much broken. Between eight-episode seasons with two-year waits in between and the industry's trigger-happy approach to green-lighting and canceling shows, our current landscape is bleak at best. The rise of streaming has led to a radically different TV world than we had 10 years ago. Don't get me wrong, streamers like Max, Hulu, and Netflix have great shows for the most part, but their business model is just too short-term focused, designed to combat churn, to suggest a hopeful future. Compare that to the early 2000s, the early days of the so-called Golden Age of Television, when seasons were still 20 or so episodes yearly and somewhat consistent, and you'll see just how different things are.

I bring up the early 2000s because, in hindsight, it was very much the end of an era, the end of 20th-century television. The shift had begun in the late '90s with the rise of cable, but circa 2004, network television was still raging on, thanks largely to two juggernauts, the last vestiges of the 20th-century era. It's hard to truly explain just how major Friends and ER were during their heydays. During seasons 3 and 4 between '96 and '98, ER reached ratings of over 30 million per episode. Meanwhile, Friends' finale in 2004 attracted a whopping 50+ million viewers, making it the fifth-highest-watched in TV history. These two shows redefined the way we consumed serialized content and, in more ways than one, acted as the last hurrah for TV's initial model, which started way back in the 1950s. Interestingly, both Friends and ER premiered in September 1994, only days apart and on the same network; hardly anyone expected them to be such titans, but their astounding legacies as true game-changers in their medium are even more impressive in hindsight.
A day in the life

Read more
If you have to watch one Netflix movie in September, stream this one
A man and a girl lie in the sun in Aftersun.

One of the tricky things about Netflix, and streaming services more generally, is that movies can come to and leave the service, and if you're not obsessively following this, you can be totally unaware. Netflix only surfaces stuff that it thinks you'll watch through its algorithm, and there's plenty of great content that gets buried as a result.

If you're looking for a great movie to watch (and there are plenty of great movies on Netflix), then we've got you covered with one title that you should definitely check out this September. Aftersun tells the story of Calum and his daughter Sophie as they take a vacation together, but from the perspective of the adult daughter looking back at the trip and realizing exactly what was going on with her father. Here are three reasons you should check it out.
Its central performances are beautiful

Read more
The best action movies on Netflix right now
Three men stand in a boat and stare into the ocean in Jaws.

While Deadpool & Wolverine was the action hit of the summer, our list of the best action movies on Netflix is chock-full of additional action hits to keep you entertained through the fall! Netflix has heavily invested in its action collection in recent years by creating high-quality originals and acquiring hits from other studios.

This September is no exception as Netflix serves up four new additions to this list: 300, The Expendables franchise, Jaws (plus 2 and 3), and Edge of Tomorrow. Read on for the complete list of the best action movies on Netflix now.

Read more