I stumbled upon an old thread on the Straight Dope message boards discussing the naming of streets. Responsible parties included the usual cast of characters such as developers, county governments, planning commissions, city councils, working-level bureaucrats, and the like.
One contributor on that message board mentioned that:
“Several years ago, I was working with a developer that proposed a ‘Cartman Drive’ for their subdivision. After advising them that about a then-new cartoon called ‘South Park,’ telling them about the character associated with the name, and warning them that the sign might be a frequent target for liberation by the students at the nearby Colorado State University, they changed the name.”
I couldn’t find any Cartman-related streets in Fort Collins so the advice worked, apparently. I couldn’t fault the location though, not too distant from Colorado’s southern Park County and the South Park Basin which inspired the cartoon.
South Park
Nobody would be foolish enough or obnoxious enough to name a street after a South Park character on purpose, right? Certainly not an entire housing development? Well… we’re goin’ down to Garland (Texas) and have ourselves a time!
I’ll give the developers some credit for attempting to mask their intent by avoiding some of the main characters, obscuring others and incorporating minor characters. The giveaway was a combination of (Eric) Cartman Rd. with (Kenny) McCormick St. Throw in a Mr. Garrison, a Mr. Mackey and a Ms. Crabtree, and the intent became clear.
Someone in Garland, Texas had a wicked sense of humor and pulled a fast one on the local planning commission. A few lucky residents of Garland live at the corner of Cartman and McCormick. I know I’d go out of my way to photograph the sign. I’m surprised nobody stole it, actually.
Simpsons
That made me wonder about other cartoon-inspired suburbs. Well, an obvious one would be The Simpsons on 742 Evergreen Terrace, in Springfield, which may or may not be Springfield, Oregon. There aren’t any Evergreen addresses in Springfield, Oregon so don’t worry about checking. I’ve done that for you. However, a genuine Simpson’s house exists in Henderson, Nevada, built for a television contest in 1997.
Sadly, the person who won the contest took a cash prize option rather than physical possession of the home. The builder later repainted it to fit better with the rest of the neighborhood, and sold it. The home is located at 712 Red Bark Lane, Henderson, NV, for anyone in the 12MC audience who may ever want to visit it or perhaps place an offer for purchase.
Flintstones
The Flintstones was the granddaddy of all prime-time television cartoon series. It first aired in 1960 and TV critics consider this the beginning of an entire genre. I’d thought something Flintstones-related would be easy to find although maybe expecting someone to name streets after Fred, Wilma, Barney, Betty, Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm might have been a tad bit too obvious. Striking out, I focused on a couple of small towns called Flintstone. Neither contained character from the television cartoon, although both paid homage to the modern stone-age family’s fictional hometown, Bedrock.
- Bedrock Road in Flintstone, Maryland
- Bedrock Lane in Flintstone, Georgia
Uh… huh huh huh
On the other hand, I am pleased to report that there may still be some hope left in this world. I couldn’t find a single street or house inspired by Beavis and Butt-Head. Plenty of Beavis examples existed. Butt-Head was the problem. I could sort-of envision someone living on Cartman Drive and not minding that too much. However, Butt-Head anything would be considerably more problematic.
There seemed to be a plethora of Beavis streets and other variations in Australia, which I had to assume were completely unrelated. Maybe 12MC readers from Australia are familiar with an historical figure with the Beavis surname? I did find a Leslie Ellis Beavis, a general during the second world war, who might have inspired a few roads named in his honour. Most of the streets were quite minor (Beavis Street, Elsternwick, Victoria, for example) so I’d have to chalk them up to coincidence.
I did find Butt Hollow Road, Salem, Virginia, though. Uh… huh huh huh.
Completely Unrelated
There is a really interesting conversation going on in the 12MC comments section of Deadly Fog pertaining to airline flight numbers and round-the-world trips.
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