Grampa Simpson
Senile World War II veteran and retired farmer.
Abraham "Abe" Simpson, known as Grampa Simpson, is a fictional character from The Simpsons. He debuted in 1988 on a Simpsons short for The Tracey Ullman Show, a year before the main series began. Dan Castellaneta, who also plays Homer Simpson, provides his voice. Grampa is the father of Homer and the grandfather of Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. Entertainment Weekly once named him the ideal TV grandfather. A World War II veteran and former farmer, he lives in the Springfield Retirement Castle after Homer put him there. He is famous for telling long, confusing, and often nonsensical stories, a trait linked to his senility.
Quick Facts
- Series
- The Simpsons
- First minor
- Grandpa and the Kids
- First major
- The Tracey Ullman Show
- First date
- January 10, 1988
- Creator
- Matt Groening
- James L. Brooks
- Sam Simon
- Designer
- Matt Groening
- Voice
- Dan Castellaneta
- Full name
- Abraham Jay Simpson II
Facts from the source article.
Biography
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, and Herbert Powell by a carnival prostitute. Grampa has an older brother named Cyrus, who lives in Tahiti and has multiple native wives. 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. Grampa was briefly married to Amber, the same woman Homer married on a drinking binge in Las Vegas. Grampa has also been briefly married to Marge's sister, Selma Bouvier, 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, 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. 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. In 'The Color Yellow,' he reveals that he is the great-great-grandson of Mabel Simpson, a family ancestor who lived during the time of the American Civil War, and Virgil, an escaped slave whom she married after divorcing her first husband Hiram. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.
Character
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. After naming the main characters after his own family members (except for Bart, an anagram of 'brat,' which he substituted for his own name), 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. 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. 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.' 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. Weinstein commented that they 'both love [old people] and seem to really hate them at the same time.' 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.' 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. Castellaneta likes to stay in character during recording sessions, and tries to visualize a scene in his mind so that he can give the proper voice to it. 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. Castellaneta said it is hard for him to do Grampa's voice because it is 'wheezy and airy.'
Reception
Nancy Basile of About.com named Grampa the fifth best character of The Simpsons, calling him a 'perfect stereotypical old person.' In the 1000th issue of Entertainment Weekly, Grampa was selected as the 'Grandpa for The Perfect TV Family.' 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.' 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,' and the second in 2004 for 'Today I Am A Clown.'
Merchandising
Playmates Toys made two Grampa Simpson figures for the World of Springfield line. The first came out in May 2000 with his standard look, and a second “Sunday Grampa” version in June 2002 dressed for church. He shows up regularly in Simpsons Comics, which ran from November 29, 1993, to October 17, 2018. Grampa also appears in The Simpsons Ride, which opened in 2008 at Universal Studios in Florida and Hollywood. In 2014, LEGO included him in their Simpsons Minifigures set. The next year, he was a non-playable character in Lego Dimensions, using archived voice clips from Dan Castellaneta.
More in The Simpsons Characters
Spotted an error? Know more?
Reader corrections go straight into our review queue. Suggest an edit · How this site is sourced