Springfield, Vermont, winner of the Springfield Challenge with 15, 367 votes, hosted the world premiere of The Simpsons Movie on Saturday, July 21, 2007.Matt Groening and the Simpson family were in attendance.
For more information, a quick search turns up plenty of news stories, photos, and videos of the event.
However, I have yet to find a photo of any "Duff & D'oh-Nuts," the beer-and-donut-flavored ice cream created by Ben & Jerry's for the movie premiere. It was available for one day only, and only in Springfield.
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I am one of 200 volunteer actors and extras who appeared in the now famous Springfield Vermont Simpsons video. On the day of the movie premiere, I talked separately with our two leading ladies outside the theater, about an hour apart. Both brought up how unfair it was that we as a group were not invited to any of the four premiere screenings scheduled for that day. One made the point, "They wouldn't have won without us." Ninety-eight percent of our fellow townspeople had declined to answer the casting call.
I asked the local coordinator for the big event why we weren't invited. She said they thought about it but there were just too many of us. Hard to understand when they had over 600 tickets to give away after the first showing for VIPs.
I also asked why not at least invite the few the public would recognize from their featured roles in the video to represent the group. "No," she said, "that wouldn't be fair to the others."
A number of local business and community leaders did get invitations. It wouldn't be fair to make that group compete with thousands of ordinary folks in the random drawings for free tickets. Less than 10 percent of the elite would have gotten seats that way. Some got extra tickets to quietly pass on to friends and associates.
It would have been nice if one of the community leaders who spoke in the public ceremony had taken a moment to acknowledge and thank us for our contribution. And maybe have some of us lined up down in front of the stage to turn and take a bow. But I guess they thought since they weren't inviting us to see the movie, it would look better for them if there was no mention of us at all. Getting attention off from us wasn't difficult for them. Any talk of the video itself could be focused on the two main stars, outside professionals from northern Vermont. Keep us off the yellow carpet and swept under the rug.
Quite a few out-of-towners who never did any volunteer work for our community won the honor of free seats at the big premiere while most of us in the winning video who gave up to four hours of our time to complete it would have to wait a week and pay to see the film. That's just not right.
The chairman of the Governor's Travel and Recreation Council says the heavy media attention Springfield has received and will continue to receive could bring in $3 million dollars in "tourism residuals" over the long term. Wasn't our part in all this worth 200 seats at the premiere, especially with 20th Century Fox making available all 600 plus tickets for free?
A special thanks to all the many thousands of you who viewed and voted for our video on the USA Today website. It seems we were better appreciated on the internet so I have created a website of our own.
Please visit http://vtvid.110mb.com
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