742 Evergreen Terrace

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742 Evergreen Terrace is the fictional street address of the home for the fictional Simpson family in the animated television series, The Simpsons.

The house to the left of the Simpsons' house is the Flanders family's house, at 744 Evergreen Terrace.[1][2] The house on the right, presumably 740 Evergreen Terrace, belongs to Ruth and Laura Powers.

Contents

[edit] Design

The house is a pink-orange two-story detached house with an attached garage, basement, and loft. On the ground floor, the front door leads straight into the hallway, with one arch in the wall to the left, leading to the sitting room, one to the right which leads into the dining room, a small cupboard and the stairs to the second floor. The sitting room and the dining room have bay windows. At the back of the house is the living room and the kitchen, with stairs that lead to the basement, replaced by a closet in some episodes. Although rarely seen, there is also a hallway leading to a "Rumpus room". Homer was seen relaxing in the Rumpus Room during the episodes "Three Men and a Comic Book" (where he could see the boys fighting in the treehouse), "Lady Bouvier's Lover" and "Brother from the Same Planet".

The second story of the house has Marge and Homer's bedroom (with an ensuite bathroom), Bart's bedroom, Lisa's bedroom, Maggie's bedroom, a bathroom and some 'empty' rooms, often shown in inconsistent places in different episodes. On the landing, there is a hatch which leads to the attic.

The back yard of the house is surrounded by a wooden picket fence and a low box hedge, and features a patio and the treehouse from which the Simpsons' annual Halloween specials take their name. Occasionally there is a hammock shown tied to two trees near the fence that borders Ned Flanders backyard.

An episode set in 2010 shows a wooden add-on to the second floor, built (rather poorly) by Homer. It functions as a guest bedroom, but Homer warns Lisa and her fiancé that "If the building inspector asks, it's not a room. It's a window box".

[edit] Features and furniture

The basement always includes a washing machine and a clothes dryer and a large Olmec statue of a head, which was a present from Mr. Burns after Bart donated blood to him in "Blood Feud". However, the appearance of other features such as a furnace, ping-pong table, air hockey set and water softener vary from episode to episode. The basement is often used as a "secret lair", where Homer has brewed alcohol to beat prohibition and hidden his superhero operation as Pie Man, and where Marge hid during a spell of agoraphobia. The house has two identical red sofas: One in the sitting room which is not seen very often in many episodes and a well-known one in front of the TV in the living room - the current sofa is a replacement of the old one which was destroyed (and had a fold-out bed the new one does not have). A simple painting of a boat hangs on the wall above this couch. On the episode "Homer and Ned's Hail Mary", Homer destroyed the painting over the couch and Marge retrieved a new just like the old one out of a closet. It seems that Marge has an extra supply of paintings just in case. Behind the painting there was a safe contanining a twinkie that's been there for 10 years. A tank full of fish is sometimes seen in the dining room, but it only seems to appear in episodes where it is prominent.

In the Simpsons "Treehouse of Horror VI" episode, there is a portal behind the bookcase in the sitting room that leads to the Third Dimension. This is a reference to The Twilight Zone episode, "Little Girl Lost". However, Treehouse of Horror episodes are not canonical. In Treehouse of Horror IV, the famous Dogs Playing Poker painting appears above the sofa.

[edit] Condition

The house itself is often shown as dilapidated; the walls are painted with lead paint, the roof leaks and in "All's Fair in Oven War", the kitchen was so badly damaged that it needed to be rebuilt. A running gag is that whenever the camera pans between floors or rooms, the interior of the walls are shown to be filled with dangerous and unusual items such as asbestos, toxic waste, hidden treasure, recording devices, baby dinosaurs and dancing mice. Even the family cat, Snowball II, is seen in between the walls from time to time. However, the lived-in spaces are usually kept neat by homemaker Marge. In one episode, it was described as a palace by Frank Grimes. In another episode, Moe Szyslak observed that it contained no silverfish.

The phone number is inconsistent between episodes, though always starting with 555. According to "A Tale of Two Springfields," the area code was 636 before the events of that episode and 939 thereafter.

In The Simpsons Movie, the house is completely destroyed with all possessions lost by a sink hole in Maggie's sandpit, which expands after the Simpsons make their escape through it and the Police shoot bullets into it. At the end of the film, the townsfolk and the family themselves rebuild the house in exactly the same manner as it was before, restoring the "status quo". The opening sequence of "He Loves to Fly and He D'ohs", shows the house still under construction, along with the whole town rebuilding after the events of the movie.

[edit] Real-life version

A real life approximation to the home depicted on the show was built in 1997 by Kaufman and Broad Home Corporation in a promotion sponsored by FOX and Pepsi. The house was painted and furnished with items to match the television show, although the scale of the house was smaller than the house on the series. The house was given away in a contest; the winner, Barbara Howard, was a retired factory worker from Richmond, Kentucky. The house was built at 712 Red Bark Lane in Henderson, Nevada; it has since been repainted.[3]

[edit] Address

The house's address was inconsistent in earlier seasons, being 94 Evergreen Terrace, 1094 Evergreen Terrace, 723 Evergreen Terrace, and 430 Spalding Way. In "Homer's Triple Bypass", 742 Evergreen Terrace is a completely different house where Snake hides from the police and Rev. Lovejoy lives next door.

[edit] References

  1. ^ BBC - Cult - The Simpsons: Season Nine Episode Guide - Realty Bites
  2. ^ (2006). The Simpsons The Complete Ninth Season DVD commentary for the episode "Realty Bites" [DVD]. 20th Century Fox.
  3. ^ Melissa Schorr (1997-08-12). Home Sweet Homer. Las Vegas Sun. Retrieved on 2008-04-11.

[edit] External links