The Simpsons is a series that changed our lives forever, with no turning back. With more than three decades behind them, the Simpson family has left us a huge list of episodes in which we can find authentic pearls and that built, without wanting it, a universe of memes and references that are still used today (“I want my sandwich!”).
In addition, the series includes a thousand “predictions” about our current world (its creator, Matt Groening, is considered by many as the Nostradamus of our time), such as Donald Trump becoming president of the United States. But, what we would never have expected, is that the American series would include a “reference” to a real company. And Spanish.
According to EFE, a telecommunications consulting company in Murcia called InnaTic has “suffered” in first person the consequences of appearing, in a completely involuntary and casual way, in an episode of The Simpsons. For a couple of years now, the company has received a multitude of messages in which people, always joking, ask about a “Spring Escudo”. But what exactly is Spring Escudo?
To understand this reference, as well as the origin of such a singular occurrence, we must go back to episode 22 of season 13 of The Simpsons, entitled “Papa’s Got a Brand New Badge”. In this episode. Our beloved Homer Simpson creates a citizen security patrol called “Spring Escudo” (lose the pun in English, where it is called “Spring Shield”, which sounds like “Springfield”).
While this company that Homer sets up after a scandal by Police Chief Wiggum bears no apparent relation to a real-world telecommunications company, the patrol’s ad that airs on Springfield TV makes it clear what’s going on: the fake phone number that comes up on screen for Springfielders to contact Spring Shield is the same as that of InnaTic.
Well, not exactly the same, since the number we can see, 636-555-3472 includes, as you can see, an extra number (which Homer highlights, coincidentally, in a humorous tone). But that has not discouraged many people who, upon discovering this phone number in an episode that already has 21 years behind it (which is soon to say), proceeded to contact the company.
Although, at first, InnaTic employees did not know what the people asking about this “Spring Escudo” were referring to, months later, an unknown phone number informed them via WhatsApp of this fortuitous coincidence. The company keeps the phone number for the time being, something that was recommended to them by one of the many people who contacted them, who told them to “keep it as if it were gold, because it appears in the best TV series ever”.
Undoubtedly, one more sample of the thousands and thousands of anecdotes and curiosities that come out of The Simpsons, a series still on the air that is now in its 34th season, and whose episodes are available on Disney+.
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