When we first started planning this roadtrip, DH had expressed serious interest in only three of the many, many odd ball attractions spread all over the U.S. and Canada: the Lucille Ball Museum in New York, the worlds largest perogy in Saskatchewan, and Springfield Oregon, world famous home of the cartoon Simpsons. Our first crack at her relatively short list wish list (mine sits at 1,857 and growing) was Springfield Oregon.

Two TV shows make DH giggle like a teenage girl- Modern Family and The Simpsons, so the idea of going to the home of Homers "Doh!" was high on the list for her. She was hooked after an episode in which Homer, as a coach, started cutting everybody included the voice-over guy who was trying to shush him as the credits rolled- she was belly laughing so hard she forgot to breath and nearly passed out. More alarmingly than this is her growing perception that not only is Homer a comedic genius but he is something of a modern day philosopher (note to DH- it's just a cartoon). Some of his more memorable thoughts include

"Everyone knows rock n' roll attained perfection in 1974; It's a scientific fact.
You tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try.
Always give in to peer pressure.
Operator! Give me the number for 911!
Facts are meaningless. You can use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true!
Because they're stupid, that's why. That's why everybody does everything.
You're saying butt-kisser like it's a bad thing!
If something's hard to do, then it's not worth doing.
Weaseling out of things is important to learn! It's what separates us from the animals. Except the weasel...
Trying is the first step towards failure.
Stupid gravity!"

The producer of the cartoon series says he picked the name Springfield for the Simpsons hometown because it was such a common name that it could be everyone's town- the reality is that he was from Springfield, Oregon, and many of the Simpsons landmarks are relatively easy to trace back to his hometown (which, of course, we did). That said, it's another of those towns that surprisingly doesn't revel in its link to a cartoon series so our scavenger hunt was brief, and before DH could say D'oh! (for the hundredth time), we were leaving her cartoon town for another famous movie set.

Salem is home to the Oregon State Mental Hospital which was filming location for One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest (one of three films to ever win all five major Academy Awards). Many of the extras were real mental health patients which created filming challenges. Even letting the producers use the hospital was a relatively courageous decision since the central message of the film was an indictment of the abusive behaviour of authoritarian groups like hospital administrators and staff (and it had been criticized as providing substandard mental health care before the film).

Built in 1883 as the "Oregon State Insane Asylum," much of the original structure remains in use. The museum portion does have a number of references to the film but it is also a chilling walk through the history of the way psychology and psychiatry were being approached in America in the first half of the century. The 1960s began the controversial movement towards deinstitutionalization (the book that the movie was based on was published in 1962) and many would argue that this may be even less humane.

Jack Nicholson did for electro-convulsive therapy what Jaws did for sharks (apparently ECT can be lifesaving but the over the top portrayal in the movie limited its use), but unlike the movie, the hospital museum does seem to present the facts and let people make their own decisions.

Even with this additional information, I’m still undecided as to whether or not the promotion of Homer Simpson as a comedic genius and deep philosopher is rubber-room worthy or cutely eccentric??