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Does Springfield still exist in the Futurama future? I don't expect to see the characters travel to the future, but if Fry's descendant could survive, so could the Simpsons.

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    In he Simpsons episode 350 Future-Drama, Bender makes a short cameo appearance.
    – user7439
    Jun 29, 2012 at 5:04
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    There's arguments for both sides of this question, on the on hand the Simpsons timeline effects the future for futurama in the cross over episode, but in the future episodes of the Simpsons they go though teleporters all the time, but in futurama they haven't been invented, one thousand years in the future.
    – user55439
    Nov 6, 2015 at 16:16

6 Answers 6

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In the episode "A Big Piece of Garbage" Fry finds a pile of Bart Simpson dolls and he comments about them as if he is aware that "The Simpsons" is a TV show. Also in the episode "Mars University" you can see Simpson dolls hanging in one of the booths when Fry has his flashback to the carnival. These seem to indicate that The Simpsons is a show in the Futurama universe, and not a real place. In the crossover books w/ the Simpsons the Futurama cast gets projected into Simpsons merchandise and the creator states in the foreword that The Simpsons is a fictional TV show in the Futurama universe.

Oddly enough, Futurama merchandise shows up in The Simpsons indicating it's a show in that universe. When Bender showed up in The Simpsons they went through a dimensional gateway, indicating that it's not the same universe.

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    Ok, but here's the important question: in the Futurama universe, is The Simpsons a cartoon or a live-action show?
    – Kaz Dragon
    Jun 29, 2012 at 14:11
  • @KazDragon As stated in the answer, When Bender showed up in The Simpsons they went through a dimensional gateway, indicating that it's not the same universe.
    – Izkata
    Jun 29, 2012 at 14:14
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    @Izkata, That wasn't the question.
    – user606723
    Jun 29, 2012 at 14:18
  • @user606723 Oops, I think I read "live-action" as "live" ("show" is on its own line). Sorry!
    – Izkata
    Jun 29, 2012 at 14:38
  • @KazDragon: This is a good question! I'm going to ask it. Jun 29, 2012 at 16:49
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I agree with Andres that they do not exist in the same universe. In A Big Piece of Garbage there are Bart Simpson dolls as an indicator of 20th century culture(specifically 20th century not 21st century). This means that The Simpsons are a TV show in the Futurama universe just as they are in ours.

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Actually, in the audio commentary for I believe Mars University (it has been a long time since I've watched early eps) Matt Groening explains alongside David Cohen that the Simpsons is technically "fake" while Futurama is "real" as in multiple episodes, you see Simpsons characters as stuffed dolls.

Originally, the character designs for all humans for Futurama were also going to have 5 fingers, but in the end, it was harder to animate, and looked strange.

So no, in the world of Futurama (read: our world) the Simpsons, and the town of Springfield are fictitious.

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Note that Springfield is referenced in The Simpsons as being in all the states that there is actually a Springfield (as a running gag). So, if The Simpsons is just a show in Futurama, then it is likely that there are just as many Springfields as there are in our time. But there hasn't been any reference to any of them in Futurama so far.

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Another note that supports that The Simpsons and Futurama are different universes is that the characters have different physiologies. This is clear because Futurama characters have natural skin tones, while Simpsons characters do not.

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I don't think the Springfield from the Simpsons TV show exists in Futurama's future at all.

Why? Because I don't think the Simpsons and Futurama exist in the same universe at all. In The Simpsons' world, people are yellow. In Futurama, they aren't. Of course, that doesn't preclude some tongue-in-cheek TV show reference ;)

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