Difference between revisions of "Frank Grimes"

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"This place is a palace! I mean, I live in a single room above a bowling alley and below another bowling alley!"

―Frank Grimes, referring to the Simpsons' house^[src]

Frank "Grimey" Grimes, Sr. was an employee of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant and the self-declared enemy of Homer Simpson.

Biography

Childhood

Frank Grimes was a hard worker, who had to earn everything the hard way. He was also short-tempered, grumpy, and easily frustrated.

As a young boy, Frank was abandoned by his parents on the roadside. This forced him to fend for himself, which he did by getting a job as a delivery boy (delivering toys to happier children). On his 18th birthday, he was severely injured in a silo explosion.

College

At 35 years old, Frank received a degree in nuclear physics from a correspondence college (which a bird attempted to steal from him when it arrived). A week later, he was featured in an episode of "Kent's People", which highlighted his lifelong determination; Mr. Burns saw the report and insisted that Frank be hired to work at the Power Plant as Executive Vice President.

Family

Frank Grimes never married, but he "happened to like hookers." One of them became pregnant and had a son, Frank Grimes, Jr.. When he grew up, he became a mechanic and went by "Junior"^[1].

Job at the Springfield Power Plant

By the time Grimes arrived, Mr. Burns had wanted to give the position to a Dog he saw on "Kent's People" having forgotten all about Frank and said that he should be "put somewhere out of the way".

Enemies

Frank took an instant dislike to Homer Simpson, finding him idiotic and dangerous. Strangely enough, Homer took a shine to him, even giving him the nickname "Grimey" (which he thinks Frank liked, when in fact Grimes despised the moniker). After Homer unintentionally blamed Frank for an accident involving spilled acid, he told Homer that they would be mortal enemies from that point on.

Homer tried to patch things up by inviting Frank to dinner at his house. He arranged everything to be perfect (much more than usual), telling the neatly-dressed kids to behave and having Marge cook an exuberant amount of lobsters. Unfortunately, it only served to further enrage Frank as he sees Homer's possessions as satisfying yet undeserving for an incompetent person like him. He has had a wonderful life, a polite family, a genius daughter, a beautiful wife, a son who owned a factory (at the time), a dream home, two cars, could afford lobster for dinner, won a Grammy, toured with rockstars, was friends with Gerald Ford and had even been to space. While Grimes had to struggle for everything all his life, was working two jobs and all he had was his briefcase, his haircut and an apartment wedged between two bowling alleys. He accused Homer of being a "total fraud" who leeched off hard-working people like him, being overly rewarded for a lifetime of sloth and ignorance while he himself had nothing.

"Grimey" also isn't fond of a heroic dog Mr Burns told Smithers to collect when he presented him to Mr Burns. During Frank's discipline by Mr Burns, the dog was continuingly barking at him angrily.

Death

Back at work, in an effort to prove that Homer was a undeserving buffoon, Frank tricked him into entering a nuclear power plant model-building contest for kids. When Homer won the contest, Frank snapped. He ran through the plant, psychotically impersonating Homer, and ultimately spotted some high-voltage power cables, saying, "What's this? 'Extremely high voltage.' Well, I don't need safety gloves, 'cause I'm Homer Simp--". Frank was then instantly electrocuted as he grabbed the wires.

Frank Grimes was killed by Homer and buried in Springfield Cemetery. Homer unintentionally managed to make a mockery of the funeral ceremony by falling asleep.

Sometime later, Homer is subject to repeated attempts on his life. It is revealed that these were carried out by Frank Grimes' illegitimate son; Frank Grimes, Jr.. Junior revealed the previously unknown fact that while his father never married, he did "happen to like hookers", leading the viewer to assume that one of them was his mother. Junior was trying to avenge his father's death by killing Homer, but ultimately failed and was arrested^[1].

Physical Appearance

Frank has yellow skin, crew-cut black hair and bushy eyebrows. He wears large glasses, a blue-gray suit, and a short-sleeved white shirt with black tie. He has a slim build.

Behind the Laughter

Creation

Frank was created as a surrogate for the audience, a real person with a realistic personality designed to highlight how absurd it would seem to a "real-world" hard worker, just how lucky Homer is to be alive, let alone so well off.

In an interview with Simpsons fansite "NoHomers.net", Josh Weinstein said:

"We wanted to do an episode where the thinking was "What if a real life, normal person had to enter Homer's universe and deal with him?" I know this episode is controversial and divisive, but I just love it. It really feels like what would happen if a real, somewhat humorless human had to deal with Homer. There was some talk [on NoHomers.net] about the ending—we just did that because 1. it’s really funny and shocking, 2. we like the lesson of "sometimes, you just can't win"—the whole Frank Grimes episode is a study in frustration and hence Homer has the last laugh and 3. we wanted to show that in real life, being Homer Simpson could be really dangerous and life threatening, as Frank Grimes sadly learned."

―[Josh Weinstein

Trivia

• His gravestone has been shown with several different inscriptions: Grimes ("Homer's Enemy"), Frank "Grimey" Grimes, and Frank Grimes (Homer's enemy) ("The Great Louse Detective").
• He prepared himself a "special Dietetic lunch" each day (Homer eats it).
• While working at the plant he also had a second job, working nights at a foundry.
• When he received his diploma, the film showed him to be living in a small house on a terrace. However when in Homer's house, Frank says that he lives "in a single room above a bowling alley, and below another bowling alley".

• His appearance was similar to Noah Levenstein, played by actor Eugene Levy, in the American Pie film series. However he was originaly based on the charecter William Foster (played by Michael Douglas) from the movie Falling Down
• In the new series Ugly Americans on Comedy Central, the police officer of the DOI is named Frank Grimes. This most likely due to the fact that one of the workers on this series used to work on The Simpsons.

Appearances

• Episode – "Homer's Enemy"
• Episode – "Natural Born Kissers" Funeral program
• THOH – "Treehouse of Horror X" Tombstone
• Episode – "Alone Again, Natura-Diddily" Tombstone
• THOH – "Treehouse of Horror XII" Tombstone
• Episode – "The Great Louse Detective" Flashback
• Episode – "C.E.D'oh" Tombstone
• Episode – "My Mother the Carjacker" Tombstone
• Episode – "The Seemingly Never-Ending Story" Tombstone

References