Grampa Simpson
Template:Short description Template:Use American English Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox character Abraham Jebediah "Abe" Simpson II,<ref>Template:Cite episode</ref><ref>Template:Cite episode</ref> better known as Grampa Simpson, is a recurring character in the animated television series The Simpsons. He made his first appearance in the episode entitled "Grandpa and the Kids", a one-minute Simpsons short on The Tracey Ullman Show, before the debut of the television show in 1989.
Grampa Simpson is voiced by Dan Castellaneta, who also voices his son, Homer Simpson. He is the paternal grandfather of Bart, Lisa and Maggie Simpson. In the 1,000th issue of Entertainment Weekly, Grampa was selected as the "Grandpa for The Perfect TV Family".<ref name="List 2008">"TV: Breaking Down the List," Entertainment Weekly, #999/1000 June 27 & July 4, 2008, 56.</ref> Grampa is a World War II veteran and retired farmer who was later sent to the Springfield Retirement Castle by Homer. He is known for his long, rambling, often incoherent and irrelevant stories and senility.
BiographyEdit
Grampa Simpson is the father to Homer Simpson, father-in-law to Marge Simpson and the paternal grandfather to siblings Bart, Lisa and Maggie. Grampa has also fathered two illegitimate children; a daughter named Abbey by a British woman named Edwina while in the United Kingdom during World War II,<ref>Template:Cite episode</ref> and Herbert Powell by a carnival prostitute.<ref>Template:Cite episode</ref> Grampa has an older brother named Cyrus, who lives in Tahiti and has multiple native wives.<ref>Template:Cite episode</ref> He also has a younger brother named Chet, who owns an unsuccessful shrimp company. Other siblings of his include Hubert, Tyrone, Fester, Bill, and Hortense.<ref name="oakley">Template:Cite video</ref> Grampa was briefly married to Amber, the same woman Homer married on a drinking binge in Las Vegas.<ref>Template:Cite episode</ref> Grampa has also been briefly married to Marge's sister, Selma Bouvier,<ref>Template:Cite episode</ref> and was once romantically linked to Marge's mother, Jacqueline Bouvier (his son's mother-in-law). Grampa Simpson is also married to Rita LaFleur.
Almost all of Grampa's biographical information is supplied by himself and seems to be made up, although this could be likely due to his old age. Many of his stories seem to be wildly inaccurate, often physically or historically impossible, and occasionally inconsistent even with each other, suggesting that Grampa is quite senile. It is unknown where Grampa was born. He claims that he came to America as a boy from the "old country", but he cannot remember which country it was,<ref>Template:Cite episode</ref> although most likely it was the United Kingdom or Ireland. Grampa was raised in New York City with his parents, Orville J. Simpson and Yuma Hickman.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> He gives his age as 83 in the Season 17 episode "Million Dollar Abie," while in "Grampy Can Ya Hear Me" (season 29), the family celebrates his 87th birthday, although he is canonically 83. In the Season 25 episode "The Winter of His Content," Homer states that Grampa's father is still alive. Due to the show's floating timeline, his age remains the same over the years, and newer episodes still depict him as a World War II veteran.
Grampa is a veteran of World War II, where he served as Master Sergeant of the Flying Hellfish unit which included himself (the Unit Commander), Radio Operator Sheldon Skinner (Seymour Skinner's father), Private Fifth Class Arnie Gumble (Barney Gumble's father), Asa Phelps, Iggy Wiggum (Clancy Wiggum's father), Milton "Oxford" Haas, Etch Westgrin, Griff McDonald, Private Charles Montgomery Burns and Grey Fox.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> At the very end of the war in Europe, Grampa's unit "liberated" a stash of priceless art from surrendering German forces. The Flying Hellfish formed a tontine and buried the art in a trunk at sea. Decades later, Burns, the second surviving member of the unit, tried to murder Grampa in order to get the art, prompting Grampa to violate the tontine. When Grampa and Bart retrieved the art from Mr. Burns, the State Department arrived to return the art to its rightful owner.<ref>Template:Cite episode</ref> Grampa was a hated wrestler named "Glamorous Godfrey" in the 1950s, revealed in the episode "Gorgeous Grampa", starring him and Mr. Burns.
Homer's mother, Mona Simpson, was married to Grampa for several years. According to "Let's Go Fly a Coot", they met in the 1950s and hooked up on the day Grampa allegedly broke the sound barrier. She became entranced with the hippie lifestyle after seeing Joe Namath's hair on television. She became a fugitive from justice after she abetted in the sabotage of a biological weapons research lab owned by Mr. Burns to deliberately poison everyone in Springfield. To explain this to his then-six-year-old son, Grampa said that Mona died while Homer was at the movies.<ref name=MotherSimpson>Template:Cite episode</ref> Grampa has a poor, but sometimes loving relationship with his son, who placed him in a nursing home as soon as he could, despite Grampa selling his house in order to provide Homer with a mortgage.<ref>Template:Cite episode</ref> It is recurringly suggested that, while caring, Grampa was a strict disciplinarian who could be very controlling, neglectful, and even emotionally abusive towards Homer when he was growing up and he still had not forgiven him for that.<ref>Template:Cite episode</ref><ref>Template:Cite episode</ref><ref>Template:Cite episode</ref> After Mona left Homer at a young age and ran off with a jester, Grampa brought up Homer by himself. In the season four episode, "The Front", Grampa tells Roger Myers Jr., head of Itchy and Scratchy studios, that he worked as a cranberry silo night watchman for forty years.
The Simpson family will often do their best to avoid unnecessary contact with Grampa. A running gag in the show usually has Grampa in a cameo appearance where he wonders where everyone is or wishes to be noticed by the family. One example of this was when the family thought they left something on the plane in the episode "Fear of Flying", which is revealed to be Grampa. Despite this, Homer has shown feelings of love for his father from time to time.<ref>Template:Cite episode</ref>
CharacterEdit
CreationEdit
Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons, wanted to have a character that was "really cranky" and old, and who complained a lot and invented stories to tell to children, so he created Grampa.<ref name=tvguide/> After naming the main characters after his own family members (except for Bart, an anagram of "brat", which he substituted for his own name),<ref name="americasfirstfamily">Template:Cite video</ref> Groening refused to name Grampa after his grandfather, Abraham Groening. He left it to the writers to choose a name and they ironically chose "Abraham", although not knowing that it was also the name of Groening's grandfather.<ref name="oldmoney">Template:Cite video</ref> Grampa first appeared in the Simpsons short "Grandpa and the Kids", which premiered on The Tracey Ullman Show on January 10, 1988. In the short, Grampa tells his grandchildren stories of "the good old days". When they stop paying attention to him, he feigns his own death to recapture their attention.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
The Simpsons writer Al Jean commented that Grampa is often the focus of pointed jokes about old people. He said the reason for that is because the staff is trying to illustrate how society mistreats the elderly, "and some of it is because people over 55 never watch our show".<ref name=tvguide>Template:Cite news</ref> Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein, former writers on the show, said that they liked to write episodes about Grampa because they are "obsessed" with old people.<ref name="Oakley">Template:Cite video</ref> Weinstein commented that they "both love [old people] and seem to really hate them at the same time".<ref name="Weinstein">Template:Cite video</ref> He also said that he "enjoys" writing for characters such as Grampa and Mr. Burns because of their "out-datedness", and because he gets to use dictionaries for looking up "old time slang".<ref>Template:Cite video</ref>
VoiceEdit
Grampa's voice is performed by Dan Castellaneta, who also voices numerous other characters, including Homer Simpson, Krusty the Clown, Barney Gumble, Groundskeeper Willie, Mayor Quimby and Hans Moleman. Castellaneta was part of the regular cast of The Tracey Ullman Show and had previously done some voice-over work in Chicago alongside his wife Deb Lacusta.<ref name="The Age">Template:Cite news</ref> Castellaneta likes to stay in character during recording sessions,<ref name="Tribune">Template:Cite news</ref> and tries to visualize a scene in his mind so that he can give the proper voice to it.<ref>Castellaneta, Dan. (2005). Commentary for "Homer the Great", in The Simpsons: The Complete Sixth Season [DVD]. 20th Century Fox.</ref> The episode "Grampa vs. Sexual Inadequacy" (season six, 1994) featured many interactions between Grampa and Homer, so Castellaneta therefore had to talk to himself when he recorded the voices for that episode.<ref name=Mirkin>Template:Cite video</ref> Castellaneta said it is hard for him to do Grampa's voice because it is "wheezy and airy".<ref>Template:Cite video</ref>
ReceptionEdit
CommendationsEdit
Nancy Basile of About.com named Grampa the fifth best character of The Simpsons, calling him a "perfect stereotypical old person".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In the 1000th issue of Entertainment Weekly, Grampa was selected as the "Grandpa for The Perfect TV Family".<ref name="List 2008"/> Joe Rhodes of TV Guide considered Grampa's most memorable line to be "If I'm not back at the home by nine, they declare me legally dead and collect my insurance."<ref name=tvguide/> Dan Castellaneta has won two Primetime Emmy Awards in the Outstanding Voice-Over Performance category for voicing various characters, including Grampa. The first was awarded in 1992 for the episode "Lisa's Pony",<ref name="Emmys">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and the second in 2004 for "Today I Am A Clown".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 2010, Castellaneta was nominated for the award for voicing Grampa and Homer in the episode "Thursdays with Abie".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
The Simpsons writer David Mirkin said that one of his favorite jokes on the show is the one where Grampa cycles down the street in high speed and shouts that he feels young again, and is then knocked flying from his bicycle after a doll's head flies into the spokes and falls into an open grave.<ref name="Mirkin"/> In a review of the Grampa-centric episode "Lady Bouvier's Lover", Patrick Bromley of DVD Verdict said that he is "never terribly interested" in episodes that revolve around Grampa, because he believes Grampa is "great as a background character, but less so when he takes center stage."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> DVD Movie Guide's Colin Jacobson said in a review of the same episode that Grampa is "always fun" and "it’s nice to see him in an ebullient mood, at least for a while."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
AnalysisEdit
Mirkin thinks it is hard to make a "boring" and "tedious" character, such as Grampa, funny. He believes that what ultimately makes Grampa funny is that the things he says are "actually funny" in the context of the boredom and the tedium.<ref>Template:Cite video</ref> Anne-Marie Barry and Chris Yuill, the authors of the book Understanding the Sociology of Health, commented that in episodes in which Grampa appears, the comedy content is often generated by Grampa falling asleep at "inopportune" moments or "embarking" on long rambling stories about his youth. "Instances such as these match popular stereotypes that all old people are 'demented' and in poor health," they wrote.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Alan S. Brown and Chris Logan wrote in The Psychology of The Simpsons that Grampa has the least amount of "power" in the Simpson family, and that he is treated as little more than a child and is often ignored. The family frequently laughs at his "failing" memory and his "ineffectual" attempts to get what he wants. They added that Grampa is left behind, forgotten, and rarely invited to spend time with the family. The authors commented that he is "not without influence, but he certainly does not play the traditional grandfather role in the family hierarchy."<ref name="brown"/>
Brown and Logan also wrote that Grampa had a considerable influence in the formation of Homer's character, and that flashbacks in The Simpsons show what an "angry", "critical" father he was to Homer. "He yelled, used corporal punishment, and constantly belittled Homer's attempts to have fun, date, and excel at various activities," they added. The authors said that Homer tries "in vain" to repair his relationship with Grampa and continuously seeks for his approval, but Grampa continues to be "as critical as ever". However, in some episodes, he does show a loving side to Homer. Such as the episode "Grampa vs. Sexual Inadequacy", he and Homer watch the farm burn, or the episode "To Cur with Love", where he does everything to protect Homer's dog from Mr Burns in a flashback.<ref name="brown">Template:Cite book</ref> In his book Understanding the Psychology of Diversity, author Bruce Evan Blaine wrote that Grampa is typically portrayed as a "doddering", "senile", and "dependent" person who is a "trivial" and "often disposable figure" in his son's life.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
MerchandisingEdit
Playmates Toys created two Grampa Simpson action figures for the World of Springfield series. The first, released in May 2000, depicts Grampa in his usual appearance.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The second, "Sunday Grampa", was released in June 2002, and depicts Grampa in his Sunday church clothes.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Alongside the television series, Grampa regularly appears in issues of Simpsons Comics, which were first published on November 29, 1993.<ref name="gazette">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="msnbc">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The final issue was published on October 17, 2018.
Grampa also plays a role in The Simpsons Ride, launched in 2008 at Universal Studios Florida and Hollywood.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In 2015, Grampa appeared as a non-playable character in the toys-to-life video game Lego Dimensions. In game, he only appears in the Simpsons levels and all his voice lines are archive audio from Dan Castellaneta.
ReferencesEdit
External linksEdit
- Grampa Simpson's profile at TheSimpsons.com
- Grampa Simpson on IMDb