D’oh! The Simpsons is nearly 35 years old — but it feels like only yesterday that we met the cartoon family.
The Fox show debuted on December 17, 1989 and has aired over 700 episodes since. The Simpsons became the longest running prime-time animated series in 1997, surpassing The Flintstones.
It wasn’t until nearly 25 years into their run, however, that creator Matt Groening put one mystery about the Simpson family to bed: where they live.
“Springfield was named after Springfield, Oregon,” Groening, 65, told Smithsonian magazine in 2012. Over the years Groening, who grew up in Portland, Oregon, kept the show’s location a secret because he didn’t “want to ruin it for people” who thought it might be in Ohio, or Massachusetts.
“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,” Groening revealed. “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.”
Throughout its three-decade run there have been a lot of memorable performances and guest stars on The Simpsons — some of which you might not remember.
In fact, the show has had hundreds of guest stars, leading it to set the Guinness World Record for “most guest stars featured in a TV series” in 2016. High profile celebrities like Tom Hanks and Justin Bieber are some of the biggest stars to be given the Simpson makeover — but do you remember when Patrick Stewart or Glenn Close were made into animated characters?
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What about Paul McCartney or Meryl Streep? There are too many guest stars to keep track of, but we do have a list of some of the biggest names that you might’ve forgotten over the years, like the late Johnny Cash or Michael Jackson.
Fans tune in week after week to see what the OG family, which is made up of Homer (Dan Castellaneta), Marge (Julie Kavner), Bart (Nancy Cartwright), Lisa (Yeardley Smith) and Maggie, get into, but the guests who stop by Springfield are equally as loved.
Keep scrolling to see which high-profile actors and musicians you might’ve missed on The Simpsons over the past 30 plus years.
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