While Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie may get the lion’s share of credit for making “The Simpsons” work, the extended family also plays a vital role in the show’s humor. No character better exemplifies this than Abraham “Grampa” Simpson. To celebrate this endearing old coot’s sensibility and what he has brought to the show for the past 31 years, we’ve put together 20 hilarious instances of Grampa’s crazy and rambling diatribes.
“The Simpsons” originated from the mind of cartoonist Matt Groening and first started airing as shorts on “The Tracey Ullman Show” in the late 1980s. With the assistance of Oscar and Emmy winner James L. Brooks and Sam Simon, Groening developed the concept into a half-hour program that debuted on Fox in December of 1989. To date, the show has aired over 670 episodes, making it the longest running scripted series in primetime television.
Groening first came up with the idea for Abe Simpson when he wanted to add a crotchety old character who complained a lot and dreamed up incredulous stories. Grampa Simpson has been around since the Tracey Ullman shorts with his voice being provided by Dan Castellaneta. He made his first appearance in January of 1988 in “Grampa and the Kids.” In the short, Grampa is telling Bart and Lisa about the good old days but when they start to ignore him, he pretends to die to get their attention back.
Since then, our favorite resident of the Springfield Retirement Castle has been keeping us amused on a regular basis with complaints about modern culture, a constant need for attention and a laundry list of exaggerated stories from his past. Whether he’s remembering the time he took a ferry to Shelbyville, complaining that the president is a “Demy-crat,” or telling of how he filled the Statue of Liberty’s head with garbage, it’s a presence that we know we will never get tired of even if the rest of the family is well beyond being able to tolerate it. Check out the list below and see if you’re favorite invective made the list!
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LAST EXIT TO SPRINGFIELD (S. 4, E. 17)
Image Credit: Fox “We can’t bust heads like we used to—but we have our ways. One trick is to tell them stories that don’t go anywhere like the time I caught the ferry over to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe, so I decided to go to Morganville which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So, I tied an onion to my belt which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel. And in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on ‘em. ‘Give me five bees for a quarter,’ you’d say. Now, where were we? Oh, yeah! The important thing was that I had an onion on my belt which was the style at the time. They didn’t have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones.”
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THE FRONT (S. 4, E. 19)
Image Credit: Fox Grampa’s letters to the editor: “When I read your magazine, I don’t see one wrinkled face or a single toothless grin. For shame! To the sickos at Modern Bride magazine” and “Dear Mr. President there are too many states nowadays. Please eliminate three. I am NOT a crackpot.”
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WHACKING DAY (S. 4, E. 20)
Image Credit: Fox “Well, most of the story is true. I did wear a dress for a period in the ‘40s. Oh, they had designers then!”
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LISA VS. MALIBU STACY (S. 5, E. 14)
Image Credit: Fox “You see, back in those days, rich men would ride around in zeppelins, dropping coins on people. And one day, I seen J. D. Rockefeller flyin’ by– so I run out of the house with a big washtub, and—Anyway, about my washtub. I just used it that morning to wash my turkey which in those days was known as a ‘walking bird.’ We’d always have walking bird on Thanksgiving, with all the trimmings. Cranberries, ‘injun eyes,’ and yams stuffed with gunpowder. Then we’d all watch football, which in those days was called ‘baseball.’”
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LISA VS. MALIBU STACY (S. 5, E. 14) – Part 2
Image Credit: Fox “Bah! Why didn’t you get something useful, like storm windows? Or a nice pipe organ? I’m thirsty. Ew, what smells like mustard? There sure are a lot of ugly people in your neighborhood. Oh, look at that one! Oh, my glaucoma just got worse. The president is a Demy-crat! Hello? I can’t unbuckle my seat belt. Hello? There are too many leaves in your walkway.”
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SIDESHOW BOB ROBERTS (S. 6, E. 5)
Image Credit: Fox “Hot diggety damn. Me first! Not many people know I owned the first radio in Springfield. Weren’t much on the air then. Just Edison reciting the alphabet over and over. ‘A,’ he’d say. Then ‘B.’ ‘C’ would usually follow.”
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HOMER BADMAN (S. 6, E. 9)
Image Credit: Fox On why he’s hanging up a flag with only 49 stars: “I’ll be deep in the cold, cold ground before I recognize Missour-ah!”
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GRAMPA VS. SEXUAL INADEQUACY (S. 6, E. 10)
Image Credit: Fox “What’s so unappealing about hearing your elderly father talk about sex? I had sex!”
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A STAR IS BURNS (S. 6, E. 18)
Image Credit: Fox “The metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead, and that’s the way I likes it!”
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WHO SHOT MR. BURNS? PART 2 (S. 7, E. 1)
Image Credit: Fox “Uh-uh-uh. You never know what you’re capable of. I never thought I could shoot down a German plane, but last year I proved myself wrong.”
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MOTHER SIMPSON (S. 7, E. 8)
Image Credit: Fox “What do you expect? You left me to raise the boy on my own! It was either tell him his mother’s dead or tell him his mother was a wanted criminal! You were a rotten wife, and I’ll never ever forgive you……….Can we have sex? Please?”
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SIDESHOW BOB’S LAST GLEAMING (S. 7, E. 9)
Image Credit: Fox “You’re ignorant! That’s the Wright Brothers’ plane. At Kitty Hawk in 1903, Charles Lindbergh flew it 15 miles on a thimbleful of corn oil. Single-handedly won us the Civil War, it did. I [know history from] piecing it together mostly from sugar packets.”
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SIDESHOW BOB’S LAST GLEAMING (S. 7, E. 9) – Part 2
Image Credit: Fox After being discovered in a port-a-potty: “This elevator only goes to the basement. And someone made an awful mess down there.”
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TWO BAD NEIGHBORS (S. 7, E. 13)
Image Credit: Fox “Big deal! When I was a pup, we got spanked by presidents ‘til the cows came home. Grover Cleveland spanked me on two nonconsecutive occasions!”
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RAGING ABE SIMPSON AND HIS GRUMBLING GRANDSON IN ‘THE CURSE OF THE FLYING HELLFISH’ (S. 7, E. 22)
Image Credit: Fox “Hey, listen! Now, my story begins in 19-dickety-2. We had to say ‘dickety,’ ‘cause the Kaiser had stolen our word ‘twenty.’ I chased that rascal to get it back but gave up after dickety-six miles…What are you cackling at, fatty? Too much pie. That’s your problem. Now, I’d like to digress from my prepared remarks to discuss how I invented the ‘terlet.’ Stop your snickering! I spent three years on that terlet!”
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MUCH APU ABOUT NOTHING (S. 7, E. 23)
Image Credit: Fox “Okay, you twisted my arm. The Simpson story begins back in the old country. I forget which one exactly. My father would drone on and on about America. He thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread—sliced bread having been invented the previous winter. Later that day, we set sail for America. We had to move out [of the Statue of Liberty] once we’d filled the head with garbage. The end.”
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HOMERPALOOZA (S. 7, E. 24)
Image Credit: Fox “I used to be ‘with it.’ But then they changed what ‘it’ was. Now what I’m with isn’t ‘it’ and what’s ‘it’ seems weird and scary to me. It’ll happen to you!”
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LISA’S SAX (S. 9, E. 3)
Image Credit: Fox “Homer, you’re dumb as a mule and twice as ugly. If a strange man offers you a ride, I say take it.”
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LISA’S SAX (S. 9, E. 3) – Part 2
Image Credit: Fox “Oh, I know this story. The year is 19-ought-6. The president is the divine Miss Sarah Bernardt. And all over America, people were doing a dance called the Funky Grandpa. [Singing.] Oh, I’m the—[Snoring.]”
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SIMPSON TIDE (S. 9, E. 19)
Image Credit: Fox “My Homer is not a Communist. He may be a liar, a pig, an idiot, a Communist—But he is NOT a porn star!”
