Difference between revisions of "Abraham Simpson"

{{Quote|Ahh!|Grampa's catchphrase}}

|name = Abraham Jay Simpson II

|alias = Abe<br>Grampa Simpson<br>Grampa<br>[[Glamorous Godfrey]]<br>[[Honest Abe]]

|age = 83<ref>"[[Million-Dollar Abie]]"</ref><br>86<ref>"[[Havana Wild Weekend]]"</ref><br>87<ref>"[[Grampy Can Ya Hear Me]]"</ref>

|relatives = '''Parents:''' [[Orville Simpson]] & [[Yuma Hickman]]<br>'''Brothers:''' [[Bill Simpson|Bill]], [[Chet Simpson|Chet]], [[Tyrone Simpson|Tyrone]], [[Cyrus Simpson|Cyrus]] and [[Hubert Simpson]]<br>'''Grandparents:''' [["Old Tut" Simpson]] & [["Happy" Dinsdale]]<br>'''Ex-wives:''' [[Mona Simpson]] (deceased), [[Amber Simpson]] (deceased), [[Selma Bouvier]] and [[Tallulah Winkelman]]<br>'''Children:''' [[Homer Simpson]], [[Herbert Powell]] & [[Abbey]]<br>'''Grandchildren:''' [[Bart]], [[Lisa]] & [[Maggie Simpson]]

'''Abraham "Abe" Jay'''<ref>"[[Wedding for Disaster]]"</ref> '''Simpson II''', usually referred to as '''Grampa Simpson''' or simply '''Grampa''', is the patriarch of the Simpson family, the father of [[Homer Simpson]], [[Herbert Powell]], and [[Abbey]] and the paternal grandfather of [[Bart]], [[Lisa]], and [[Maggie Simpson]]. Abe is a [[World War II]] veteran later sent to the [[Springfield Retirement Castle]] by Homer. He is known for his long, rambling, and often inaccurate stories and general incompetence.

Almost all of Grampa's biographical information is supplied by himself. Many of his stories seem to be wildly inaccurate, often physically or historically impossible, and occasionally inconsistent even with each other, suggesting Abe is senile. (Though his reaction to [[Bart]]'s reaction to one of his stories implies he is aware he is being inconsistent.) As such, all information provided is taken with a grain of salt. He is a member of the [[Stonecutters]], masons, communists, as well as being president of the gay and lesbian party for some reason. Additionally, he suffers from sporadic narcoleptic attacks.

Abraham Jedediah Simpson, perennially known as "Grampa" Simpson, was born in the "Old Country"; he apparently does not remember which country exactly. Most likely it was [[Canada]], as that is where his great-great-grandparents immigrated in 1860 to avoid being arrested for helping a slave ([[Virgil Simpson|his great-great-grandfather]], to be precise) escape. Otherwise, the country could have been [[Ireland]] or [[Scotland]]. Abe claims, when he was a young boy, he immigrated to America with his parents, and moved into the Statue of Liberty. For a few years they lived here, but they were forced to move out when they filled the head with too much garbage.<ref>"[[Much Apu About Nothing]]"</ref> He also says he served in the first World War and had to lie about his age, being around five at the time.<ref>"[[Special Edna]]"</ref> He worked as a shoeshine boy at [[Springfield Union Station]], and claims a not-yet-famous [[Clark Gable]] was one of his customers, whom he gave his copy of ''Gone With the Wind''.<ref name="Thursdays with Abie">"[[Thursdays with Abie]]"</ref>

In the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Abe was participating in the javelin event. His throw nearly hit [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]], watching in the stands. Luckily, (for Hitler) it missed and hit the man about to assassinate him. At a later date, Grampa claimed he and Hitler laughed about it.<ref name="Moe'N'a Lisa">"[[Moe'N'a Lisa]]"</ref>

[[File:Abe Simpson Flying Hellfish.png|thumb|left|200px|Abe fighting for the Flying Hellfish.]]

Abe's recollections of his [[World War II]] experiences are sometimes implausible. Abe was not initially keen to fight in Europe. After the United States declared war, he supposedly tried to avoid service by dressing in drag and playing for [[Springfield Floozies|a women's baseball team]] in 1942, which kept him from serving for a year before he was eventually discovered.<ref>"[[Marge and Homer Turn a Couple Play]]"</ref> Later on, he and his unit served in {{W|The Battle of the Bulge}}, where he nearly succeeded in assassinating Hitler (though Montgomery Burns thwarted it at the last moment). Almost a year later, they invade an abandoned castle owned by the Nazis and flushed the Nazis out, though Montgomery tries to remove some paintings. Although he opposed the decision, and was morally against the idea, he ended up deciding to let Burns do it, though only so he might have a nest-egg after retirement. After "liberating" a stash of priceless art from the Nazis, Abe's unit (the [[Flying Hellfish]]) formed a tontine, and buried the art in a trunk at sea. Decades later, [[Charles Montgomery Burns]] tried to murder Abe in order to get the art, prompting Abe to violate the tontine. When Abe and Bart retrieve the art from Burns after a spectacular confrontation, the State Department arrives to give the art to their "rightful" owner, [[Baron von Wörtzenburger]], a snooty young German aristocrat (this part implies this did actually happen).

Abe fathered an illegitimate daughter in the [[United Kingdom]] the day before he joined the D-Day operations in {{W|Normandy}}. Years later, Abe and his family met his daughter, lending further credence to the idea he served in Europe. Moreover, he once showed Bart and Lisa an album with photos of Germans killed by his platoon. He was also awarded the Iron Cross for accidentally directing U.S. jeeps into Nazi minefields. Another piece of information to support this idea is the fact he visited [[Simpson & Son Pub|O'Flanagan's Pub]] in Ireland a long time ago in his WWII sergeant's uniform.<ref>"[[In the Name of the Grandfather]]"</ref> Abe once dressed as a woman dancer in disguise and made sexual motions toward Adolf Hitler, but when he leaned in, one of the fruits in his bra fell on the stage and Adolf Hitler gagged.

Abe also claims to have served in the Navy during World War II. He served as a pilot on an aircraft carrier with his brother, Cyrus, and Montgomery Burns.<ref>"[[Simpsons Christmas Stories]]"</ref> He also served on a destroyer called the USS ''World War One'' during World War II. The USS World War One was sunk by a heat seeking torpedo they fired the other day. After the ship sunk, Abe and his fellow sailors rode on the back of sharks to avoid being eaten by them and had them swim in formation to spell a rescue message. It is also implied they tamed and befriended the sharks in question as a result.<ref name="Thursdays with Abie"/>

Abraham also says he served on PT boat 109, where he heard John F. Kennedy speaking in German ("Ich bin ein Berliner"). Abe proclaimed Kennedy was a Nazi and he and the fellow sailors tackled Kennedy.<ref>"[[Simpson Tide]]"</ref>

He boasts of having been a watchman at Pearl Harbor (falling asleep on duty), and claims President {{W|Grover Cleveland}} spanked him on two nonconsecutive occasions.<ref>"[[Two Bad Neighbors]]"</ref> Also, in 1947, he met future Itchy creator and bum [[Chester J. Lampwick]], and he offered him a plate of corn muffins under the condition Lampwick paint his chicken coop. However, he never did, resulting in Abe carrying a grudge against him for many years. Lampwick later revealed this was because the corn muffins were "lousy."<ref>"[[The Day the Violence Died]]"</ref>

==== Life in the air force ====

[[File:Abe Mona 1950s.png|200px|thumb|right|Abe and Mona in the 1950s.]]

In the 1950s, Abe joined the air force. Here, he met his future wife, Mona, a cocktail waitress at the main diner near the base, where she was known as Sunny. Abe fell in love with Mona, but wasn't brave enough to attract her attention, so he stopped his regular maintenance job and took a supersonic flight that nearly killed him, but won Mona over.<ref>"[[Let's Go Fly a Coot]]"</ref>

Afterwards, he went to the carnival, and encountered a prostitute, thus resulting in the procreation of his illegitimate son, Herb Powell. He married Mona and, after having a bit of his tonic with her, they made love and accidentally procreated Homer Simpson. Mona, shortly after Homer's birth, made Abe swear not to tell Homer he has a half brother. He continued to use the Simpson farm until the bank foreclosed the farm due to the cows producing sour milk, theorizing something must have spooked them good. (Unknown to Abe, the reason why the cows were spooked was Homer traumatized them by running around and yelling at them.) When Homer aspired to become President of the United States (more specifically President Kennedy), Abe beat Homer down for thinking Homer even had a chance of becoming President.<ref>"[[Grampa vs. Sexual Inadequacy]]"</ref> After moving from the farm, they settled in an apartment, and watched the third Super Bowl, which indirectly made him responsible for his wife becoming a hippie. He was dragged to {{W|Woodstock Festival|Woodstock}}, and after scolding Homer for emulating the hippie lifestyle, attempted to send him off to the Vietnam War. After Mona was forced to run away from home after destroying Mr. Burns's Germ Warfare Lab, he lied to Homer by claiming Mona died when he was at the movies.<ref>"[[Mother Simpson]]"</ref>

 

He started work at [[Spiro's]] and wrote songs. [[Rita LaFleur]] heard his songs, liked them, she started singing his songs, and they married. When Rita was going to go on a tour of Europe, Abe stayed in the U.S. to raise Homer.<ref>"[[Gone Abie Gone]]"</ref>

The whole family went on a visit to Wet 'N' Wacky World. When the rest of the family were watching [[Slimu]], Grampa stayed on a shark bench and recalled how he once rode a shark. Then a newspaper columnist named [[Marshall Goldman]] turned up, and was interested in his stories. Soon the whole of [[Springfield]] was reading them. Despite being offered a chance for [[Mitch Albom]] to write about him, Grampa sticks with Marshall, constantly with him writing what he says. Homer comes to visit his father, but Abe rejects him. While Homer is submitting a column to the shopper about [[Mr. Burns]] (who Homer uses as an adoptive father to get back at Abe), he sneaks into Marshall's office, and finds out Marshall is planning to kill Abe at precisely 3pm on the Tinseltown Starliner, and even has the article and award application ready. Meanwhile at Springfield Union Station, Abe is aboard the train with Marshall, and despite Homer's many attempts to warn him, Abe has no idea because of hearing problems. When he is sleeping, Marshall is just about to suffocate him when Homer jumps aboard and stops him, not expecting Marshall to pull out a knife, and retrieve a gun form the pillow. They both wrestle for control of the gun when Abe gets up and hits Marshall on the head with a bottle, but this has no effect. When putting his hands up to surrender, he grabs the trains emergency brake lever, which sends Marshall flying back and causes him to be crushed by luggage. Both Homer and Grampa embrace, and the family is back together. In the end Abe decides to let Homer tell the story of how he saved Homer's life (his first ramble) and Homer ends up talking about Godzilla and The Rolling Stones.<ref name="Thursdays with Abie"/> Abe also showed he is good at sporting activities even though he is old, winning the Senior Olympics.<ref name="Moe'N'a Lisa"/>

Due to his apparent senility, Abe is often ignored by Homer and other family members, and is alternatively content with this, resentful of this, or completely unaware of his being ignored. Abe is very friendly with Jasper and the Jewish Old Man. Like Hans Moleman, Abe often appears in recurring gags. He is also very unlucky and forgetful at times sometimes forgetting where he lives or where his son lives. Abe also had a number of affairs, most notably with [[Beatrice Simmons]], who died and left Abe an inheritance of $106,000. He also had an affair with [[Jackie Bouvier]] [Marge's mother], who broke up with him after she was wooed by Mr. Burns.<ref>"[[Lady Bouvier's Lover]]"</ref> He was also briefly married to Marge's sister Selma.<ref>"[[Rome-Old and Juli-Eh]]"</ref> Abe also acted as a good father to Homer at times and also acted as a good grandfather to Bart and Lisa. However, he does not like cheekiness from Homer, Bart, or Lisa. He also demands to be treated right and he reckons he is just as important as the others.

 

An actor played Abraham Simpson in the film ''{{ap|Bart's Not Dead|film}}''.<ref>"[[Bart's Not Dead]]"</ref>

For forty years, Abe worked as a security guard at a cranberry silo.<ref>"[[The Front]]"</ref> Within his elderly years, he was a Wal-Mart greeter, a cartoon writer, and a traveling salesman of an aphrodisiac.

Abe was not a particularly caring father to Homer, as evidenced at one point when he tells his son, ''"Homer, you're dumb as a mule and twice as ugly. If a strange man offers you a ride, I say take it!"'' Homer does not normally appear to resent these casual abuses, though in one episode Abe calls Homer an accident, years of pent up anger on Homer's part leads to a temporary estrangement. Homer also takes every opportunity to ignore or reject his father, whom he placed in a dilapidated retirement home. Abe held a variety of postwar jobs, including a farmer in Homer's early childhood until the bank foreclosed. Abe was also a watchman at a cranberry silo for forty years. He spent most of this time living in a house he won on a crooked 1950s game show until he sold it to help Homer buy a house for his family. Abe moved in with the family, but was sent to a [[Springfield Retirement Castle|retirement home]] some three weeks later. Abe was also angered about Homer's role in ensuring the [[Trappuccino]] incident, yelling "I'm part of the mob!" when Homer inquired on his safety.

Abraham Simpson is the estranged husband to [[Mona Simpson]], father to [[Homer Simpson]], father-in-law to [[Marge Simpson]] and grandfather to siblings [[Bart]], [[Lisa]] and [[Maggie]]. He also fathered two illegitimate children; a daughter named [[Abbey]] by a British lady named [[Edwina]] while in England during World War II and [[Herbert Powell]] with a carnival hooker. He was briefly married to [[Amber Simpson|Amber]], the same woman Homer married on a Vegas binge. Also in [[The Simpsons Uncensored Family Album]], the family tree shows his parents' names to be [[Orville Simpson]] and [[Yuma Hickman]]. Abe's brother, [[Cyrus Simpson|Cyrus]] lives in Tahiti with multiple wives.

 

[[File:Abe Mona present.png|right|200px|thumb|Abe and Mona are reunited during Mona's return to Springfield.]]

He was married for several years to Mona, who became entranced with the hippie lifestyle after watching {{W|Joe Namath}} on TV. She became a fugitive from justice after she abetted in the sabotage of a biological weapons research lab owned by Montgomery Burns. Abe had no interest in this, instead focusing on the TV. Abe tells a six-year-old Homer Mona died while Homer was at the movies. Abe would point out her supposed grave (which actually belonged to [[Walt Whitman]]) every time the family drove past it. However, after Homer went to the Springfield Hall of Records to prove he was still alive (after faking his death in order to avoid having work on Saturday), he learnt from the record that his mother was still alive.  

[[File:Springfield Retirement Castle.png|left|200px|thumb|The Springfield Retirement Castle, Abe's home.]]

Grampa Simpson is an old, grizzled, periodically incontinent and quite senile man, who lives in the [[Springfield Retirement Castle]]; a sad, lonely place filled with demented, crippled and depressed old people (a sign near the entrance says "Thank you for not discussing the outside world"). Abe also informs Lisa residents are not allowed to read newspapers because "they angry up the blood". His closest friend appears to be [[Jasper]], a fellow Retirement Castle resident.

He spends a good deal of his time writing letters of complaint on his old-fashioned typewriter. He once wrote to the President, complaining there were too many states, and requesting they get rid of three of them (simultaneously insisting he was "not a crackpot"). He also wrote to "the sickos at ''Modern Bride Magazine''" about his disgust at not seeing "one wrinkled face" or "a single toothless grin" in the publication. He also owns a 49-star American flag, because of his undefined hatred of the state of [[Missouri]]: ''"I'll be deep in the cold, cold ground before I recognize Missoura."''

He also is soundly rooted in his antiquated ways: "The {{W|metric system}} is the tool of the devil! My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it." Like many of his fellow Retirement Castle residents, Abe is a devoted follower of ''[[Matlock]]''. He even supports tearing down the Simpsons' house in order to complete construction of the proposed "Matlock Expressway". He seems to believe Matlock is a real person, suggesting they call him in to solve real-life crimes: "I say we call Matlock. He'll find the culprit. It's probably that evil [[Gavin MacLeod]] or [[George Lindsey|George "Goober" Lindsey]]." During a ''Matlock'' public appearance, Abe and Jasper swipe Matlock's pills, needed to prevent him from having a spastic heart failure. Once, reflecting on his lifetime, he lamented it as terribly boring and full of unruly teenagers, but decided it was alright because "we did have two shows with [[Andy Griffith]]." He joins the mob when it was revealed Homer contaminated Lake Springfield and barely refrained from killing Marge, Lisa and Bart with a shotgun.

In "[[Treehouse of Horror IV]]", in the section Bart Simpson's Dracula, the Simpsons have to kill the head vampire. The Simpsons are eating dinner and Lisa finds out her whole family are vampires, including Grampa, who pretends to be the head vampire when in reality Marge is. Lisa mistakenly killed Burns but she should've killed Marge. The Simpsons say Happy Halloween while going through a Charlie Brown Christmas Special ending parody.

==== Grampa ====

==== Costumes ====

File:Tapped Out Gorgeous Grampa artwork.png|{{Ch|Gorgeous Grampa}}

File:The Rambler.png|[[The Rambler]]

File:Fast Food Grampa.png|[[Fast Food Grampa]]

</gallery>

==== Standalone ====

File:Young Grampa Simpson.png|[[Young Grampa Simpson]]

File:Grampasaurus.png|[[Grampasaurus]]

File:Old Man Winter.png|[[Old Man Winter]]

</gallery>

Groening famously named the five main Simpson characters after his parents and his two younger sisters. Claiming it was a bit too obvious to name a character after himself, he chose the name "Bart," an anagram of brat.<ref name="americasfirstfamily">{{cite video|people=BBC|year=2000|title=The Simpsons: America's First Family (6 minute edit for the season 1 DVD)|url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0250735/|format=DVD|location=UK|publisher=20th Century Fox}}</ref><ref name="radiotimes">{{cite web |last=Duncan |first=Andrew |title=Matt Groening |work=Radio Times | url=http://www.simpsonsarchive.com/other/interviews/groening99c.html | date=September 18–24, 1999 | accessmonthday=September 19 | accessyear=2007}}</ref> When it came time to give Grampa Simpson a first name, Groening says he refused to name him after his own grandfather, Abram Groening, leaving it to other writers to choose a name. By coincidence, the writers went with Abraham, shortened to Abe, because in the [[Season 2]] episode "[[Old Money]]" they wanted his name to be similar to his new girlfriend [[Bea]] unaware Groening's grandfather was named Abram Groening.<ref name="oldmoney">{{cite video | people=Groening, Matt|year=2002|title=The Simpsons season 2 DVD commentary for the episode "Old Money"| medium=DVD|publisher=20th Century Fox}}</ref>

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