The Simpsons Movie is having a so-called contest to see which city named Springfield gets to host the premier of the movie. I say “so-called” because it’s pretty obvious that Springfield Oregon is the inspiration for the city, given that Groening used to live in Oregon and lot of the character names can be found on the street signs of Portland predating the show. The contests involves each city making a video plea for their case. Why do we care? Because tony Hawk makes an appearance in Springfield Oregon’s video. [Source: Oregon Live]
Tony Hawk appears in Springfield Oregon’s video to win Simpsons Movie premier
Why on earth would Tony Hawk agree to appear in Springfield’s video? In 2003 Tony Hawk appeared as himself in an episode of the Simpsons. 2003 is also the year of the grand opening for Springfield Oregon’s skatepark, a winner of a 2002 Tony Hawk Foundation grant for $25,000. Tony must really like Springfield because he even came to the opening ceremony where he accepted the keys to the city of Springfield.
You can view all of the entries on USA Today or watch the poached version below.
What did Springfield Oregon get for their money? A fairly decent looking street-plaza-ish park from the looks of it. I grabbed this shot (below) of the Springfield Oregon skatepark from Skate Oregon but it turns out they origianlly came from the Willamalane Park and Recreation District. Harvest Boards has a 2003 interview with Tony’s brother Steve regarding the THF grant to Springfield’s skatepark.
There a bunch of videos on YouTube featuring the Springfield Oregon skatepark. Here’s a recent one of the 2007 Emerica tour stop there.
Emerica at Springfield Skatepark – Springfield, Oregon
Shot by YouTube user Gromsk8.
5 comments
orezona
After living in Springfield for a while, I can say that any other Springfield would be blasphemous to hold the Simpsons premier at…
…and as far as the park there in Springtucky, aka: Sprackfield it does look fun. When I lived there the only thing in the whole area to skate was Amazon (in Eugene). How things have changed.
Hey Dick, your rhetoric is getting pretty old. You are definitely putting the “annoy” in this site lately. Great job, asshat.
Danimal
screw you dick cancer, do you even skate. or do you even have fun skating? i never said they were the best parks in eugene but theyre fun. you’re a faggy park snob who can probably only skate concrete that has no imperfections and complains about every little crack. go hide behind a screen name and be a jerk. oh wait i know who you are, you’re the dude that stopped skating in the 90’s then started up again when parks came back cuz you couldnt handle street skating, had parks not made a come back you still be mountain biking.
wow portland has good parks, really, what a news flash.
Dick Cancer
Why don’t you just pack your cooler and stay the whole summer down there…SEVEN TURDS. HMMMMMM Portland 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 19 I can’t count any hire (higher) than that but I’m going to tell you there is no other place in the WORLD that has as many AWESOME skateparks in one area. As for those fags from emerica, they rode up on there little motorcycles stopped in Klamath Falls and PUSSED the PHUC out…emerica fags got scared of ole klamath.
That’s why you have footage of them in a turd, fag park in phucking SPRINGTUCKY. phuc you emerica fags. You’re a bunch of sissy’s that don’t want to wear helmets in Klamath, but you wear them on you little motor bike………go back to klamath and ride the best.
Danimal
The springfild park is actually pretty fun, there’s a few things that i would change but for a street park i had a good 2 hour session there and plan to go back this summer, eugene-springield area has 7 skateparks!
niel
Hey,
Thanks for the plug and posting the video. Remember to go to usatoday.com/life to vote for Springfield Oregon. If not – some other Springfield will win.