A Tale of Two Springfields

Everything We Learned From The Simpsons

This Week Tom's very excited about the change of Dial Codes that happened in the UK in the mid 90's and Mark is bringing Tandy back from the place where retail electronic shops went to die.

Now, whatever happened to Pete Townshend's book?

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"A Tale of Two Springfields" is the second episode of the twelfth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons, and the 250th episode of the series overall in both broadcast and production order. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on November 5, 2000. In the episode, Homer discovers that Springfield has two different area codes and ends up leading a revolt that splits the town in two.

The episode was written by John Swartzwelder and directed by Shaun Cashman and guest starred the Who. The episode was inspired by Don Payne, based on the area where his mother lived, where one side of town would spread rumors about the other side. Larry Doyle then pitched that the two sides of Springfield would be divided because of a telephone area code. The episode features cultural references to the Who and the Norman Rockwell painting Freedom of Speech, and has received positive reviews from critics.

In November 2004, Channel 4 chose this episode to be the first episode to be broadcast on the channel, having taken the terrestrial rights to air the show from BBC Two.