Abe Simpson II

Abraham Jebediah "Abe" Simpson II, commonly known as Grampa Simpson or simply Grampa, is a major recurring character in The Simpsons and a supporting character in The Simpsons Movie. He is the oldest patriarch of the Simpson family, husband of Rita LaFleur,Gone Abie Gone ex-husband of the late Mona Simpson, father of Homer Simpson, Herbert Powell and Abbey, father-in-law of Marge Simpson and paternal grandfather of Bart, Lisa and Maggie Simpson. He is also the ex-boyfriend of Jacqueline Bouvier.
Abe was a World War II veteran who was later sent to the Springfield Retirement Castle by Homer. He is known for his long, rambling, and often inaccurate stories.
==Biography==
===Childhood===
Abraham Simpson II was born and raised in 1900 in the "Old Country" to his father, Orville Simpson and his mother, Yuma Hickman, before immigrating as a young child to the United States and briefly living inside the Statue of Liberty."Much Apu About Nothing" His great-great-grandmother Mabel Simpson helped a slave (his great-great-grandfather, Virgil Simpson, to be exact) escape to Canada."The Color Yellow"
===Before World War II===
In the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Abe was participating in the javelin event. His throw narrowly missed Hitler, who was watching in the stands. Unfortunately, it missed and hit the man who was about to assassinate him. At a later date, Grampa claimed that he and Hitler laughed about it."Moe'N'a Lisa"
===Life in the armed forces===
By the time he retired, Abe served in every branch of the United States Armed Forces,"Havana Wild Weekend" including the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps,"Let's Go Fly a Coot" and Coast Guard, from which he claimed to have resigned on the day the Spanish Civil War broke out."The Secret War of Lisa Simpson"
After the United States declared war, he supposedly tried to avoid service by dressing in drag and playing for a women's baseball team in 1942, which kept him from serving for a year before he was eventually discovered during a game."Marge and Homer Turn a Couple Play" Abe got separated from his platoon after he parachuted into Dusseldorf. He disguised himself as a cabaret singer, making sexual motions towards Hitler, but when he leaned in down, one of the fruits in his bra fell onto the stage and Hitler was disgusted."Whacking Day"
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 that they fired the previous day. After the ship was 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."Thursdays with Abie"
In 1944, Abraham fathered an illegitimate daughter named Abbey in England on the day before he joined the D-Day operations in Normandy."The Regina Monologues" He hided England in 1945. Then D-Day by covertly hiding on the back of a landing ship as it returned to England While he claimed to the soldiers that he would see them in 1946,"The Yellow Badge of Cowardge" one account showed he and his unit (the Flying Hellfish) were involved in the Battle of the Bulge, narrowly avoided assassinating Hitler, and flushed out an abandoned castle occupied by Nazis and stole works of art, forming a tontine with the other members."Raging Abe Simpson and His Grumbling Grandson in "The Curse of the Flying Hellfish""
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.
Abraham also says that he served on PT Boat 109 where he heard John F. Kennedy speaking in German ("Ich bin ein Berliner"). Abe claims that he is a Nazi and he and the fellow sailors tackle Kennedy.
He boasts of having been a watchman at Pearl Harbor (falling asleep on duty), and claims that President Grover Cleveland spanked him on two nonconsecutive occasions.
====After World War II====
In 1947, he met future Itchy creator and bum Chester Lampwick, and he offered him a plate of corn muffins under the condition that Lampwick paint his chicken coop. However, he never did, resulting in Abe carrying a grudge against him. Lampwick later revealed that this was because the corn muffins were "lousy."
During the 1950s, Abraham was a professional wrestler known as Glamorous Godfrey."Gorgeous Grampa"
===Fatherhood===
Abe had a sexual relationship with a woman named Edwina, which resulted in the pregnancy with his illegitimate daughter Abbey before he was shipped out during World War II. Several years after the war, he went to the carnival, and encountered a prostitute named Gaby, thus resulting in the he procreation of his illegitimate son, Herb Powell.
He then married Mona Simpson, and after having a bit of his tonic with her, they made love and created Homer. Shortly after Homer's birth, Mona also made Abe swear not to tell Homer that he has a half brother. He continued to use the Simpson Farm until the bank foreclosed the farm in 1963, due to the cows producing sour milk, theorizing that something must have spooked them good (unknown to Abe, the reason why the cows were spooked was because Homer had traumatized them by running around and yelling at them). When Homer aspired to become President of the United States (more specifically President Kennedy), Abe had beat Homer down for thinking that he even had a chance of becoming President. 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 then dragged to 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' Germ Warfare Lab, he lied to Homer by claiming that Mona died when he was at the movies.
It was Abe's mediocre fathering that caused Homer to turn out the way he is today. It was even stated that if he had been a better father, Homer would have been a better one too.
Abe was once arguing with Mona which she stormed out, which caused him to be a single father, suffering to pay the bills, and then resorting to alcoholism and completely ignoring Homer. Abe was a terrible father to Homer, but they both have shared their own moments of father/son relationship.
Homer was employed at Abe's laser-tag business while trying to pay for Marge's tuition fees. Homer presumably quit after he'd found fame with his Grunge band Sadgasm. In the music video for Sadgasm's song "Margerine", Abe is seen wearing a diaper.
===Rise to Fame===
During the family's visit to Wet 'N' Wacky World, when the rest of the family watches Slimu, Grampa stays on a shark bench and recalls how he once rode a shark. Then, newspaper columnist Marshall Goldman turns up, and is interested in his stories. Soon, the entire popularity of Springfield is reading them. Despite being offered a chance for Mitch Albom to write about him, Grampa sticks with Marshall, who is 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 that Marshall is planning to kill Abe at precisely 3pm on the Tinseltown Starliner, and even has the article and award application ready.
Meanwhile, at the Springfield Union Station, Abe is aboard the train with Marshall, and despite Homer's many attempts to warn him, Abe has no idea what is happening due to his hearing problems. Later, when Abe 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 then 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 had no effect. When putting his hands up to surrender, he grabs the train's emergency brake lever, which sends Marshall flying back and causes him to be crushed by luggage. Both Homer and Grampa then 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. In one episode, Abe won the senior Olympics.Thursdays with Abie
===Life today===
Due to his apparent senility, Abe is often ignored by Homer and other cast 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 Old Jewish Man, like Hans Moleman. Abe often appears in recurring gags as well, such as the couch gags. He is also very unlucky and forgetful at times sometimes forgetting where he lives or where his son lives.
Abe had many affairs with lots of women, such as Beatrice Simmons in "Old Money", where she died by fainting and left Abe an inheritance of $106,000. He had also married Selma in "Rome-Old and Julie-Eh". Abe has also had many relatives who he has mentioned in his stories several times. Abe has also acted as a good father to Homer at times and has also acted as a good grandfather to Bart, Lisa and Maggie. However, he does not like cheekiness from Homer, Bart or Lisa; he also demands to be treated right and he reckons that he is just as important as the others. He also had dated Jacqueline Bouvier, Marge's mother, in "Lady Bouvier's Lover".
====Occupations====
For forty-five years, Abe was a security guard. Within his elderly years, he was a Sprawl-Mart greeter in Eddystone Pa, a cartoon writer, and a traveling salesman of an aphrodisiac.
==Relationships==
===Homer===
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 "Grampa vs. Sexual Inadequacy", in which Abe calls Homer an accident, years of pent up anger on Homer's part leads to a temporary estrangement. Due to the rough childhood he has endured under Abe, Homer takes every opportunity to ignore or eject his father, whom he placed in a dilapidated retirement home.
Abe held a variety of postwar jobs, including a farmer during Homer's early childhood until the bank foreclosed."Grampa vs. Sexual Inadequacy" Abe's exact job after he lost the farm, and later on, his wife, differed depending on the account. He told the writers of The Itchy & Scratchy Show that he was a night watchman at cranberry silo for forty years."The Front" However, in other flashbacks when Mona was still living with them, Abe appeared as a worker at a smokestack factory,"To Cur, with Love" and later on, after Mona left him, he was a busboy at the restaurant Spiro's, where he met Rita LaFleur."Gone Abie Gone"
He spent most of this time living in a house that 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 retirement home three weeks later."Lisa's First Word" Abe was also angered about Homer's role in ensuring of the Trappuccino incident, yelling "I'm part of the mob!" when Homer inquired on his safety.The Simpsons Movie
However, Abe was shown to have genuine care for Homer, as seen when Homer was a boy. Homer was hospitalized after an accident at Abe's wedding (where he married Rita LaFleur) and decide to remain with Homer, whom he believed would be killed by 220 volt outlets, rather than leave for Europe with Rita.
===Other family relationships===
Abraham Simpson is the estranged husband of Mona Simpson, father of Homer Simpson, father-in-law of Marge Simpson and paternal grandfather of 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 named Gaby. He was briefly married to 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 appeared in "Simpsons Christmas Stories", where it shows that Cyrus lives in Tahiti with multiple wives. In "Million-Dollar Abie", Abe mentions that he has a brother named Bill.
A family tree showing Abe's known family members can be seen here.
===Bart===
Out of his grandkids, he is closest with Bart, showing an affection for him he rarely shows for anyone else and essentially acting as his father figure due to Homer’s inability to properly do so because of his favoritism of Lisa and Maggie and his frequent abuse of Bart, along with his general lack of intelligence and parenting skills. Examples of this when he gave Bart a bike for his 12th birthday and letting him hide from the cops with him after he ran away due to feeling neglected because of Lisa, and when he goes on a journey with him for the German painting tontine, telling him stories and saying that Bart reminds him of himself and could have become sergeant of his squad. Abe's connection with Bart might also tie into how he must've realzied how he messed up alot as a father with Homer by not being supportive of him and being emotionally abusive. So he sees connecting with Bart as almost a second chance to make up for not being a good father figure. Bart (for the most part) returns this feeling, such as when he refuses to break the streetlight outside of his retirement home, and when he’s 15 and goes to his grave for comfort when he’s upset about homer and says he misses him and wishes he was there, even going as far as to kiss his tombstone in an unheard of show of affection from Bart. Despite this, he can be irritated by Bart's troubles and can even strangle Bart to punish him if Bart crosses the line.
====Mona Simpson====
He was married for several years to Mona, who became entranced with the hippie lifestyle after watching Joe Namath on TV. She became a fugitive from justice after she abetted in the sabotage of a biological weapons research lab on germs, owned by Charles Montgomery Burns. Abe had no interest in this, instead focusing on the TV. Mona was forced to leave to give the two a better life. Abe tells nine-year-old Homer that Mona died while he was at the movies. Abe and Mona also don't seem to get along with each other, as seen in several episodes where they are usually arguing among themselves.
==Personality==
Grampa Simpson is old, grizzled, periodically incontinent and quite senile to the extent of calling someone a fish tank. He lives in the Springfield Retirement Castle, which is 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 that residents are not allowed to read newspapers because "they angry up the blood". His closest friend appears to be Jasper Beardsley, a fellow Retirement Castle resident.
He is also shown to be something of a crackpot, as evident by the following letter from "Bart the General":
Dear Advertisers, I am disgusted with the way old people are depicted on television. We are not all vibrant, fun-loving sex maniacs! Many of us are bitter, resentful individuals who remember the good old days when entertainment was bland and inoffensive. The following is a list of words I never want to hear on television again. Number one: "Bra". Number two: "Horny". Number three: "Family jewels".
He spends a good deal of his time writing letters of complaints. He once wrote to the President, complaining that there were too many states, and requesting that they get rid of three of them (simultaneously insisting that 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 an undefined hatred of . Abe has many traits of stereotypical old men. These traits include back pain, the inability to hear, falling asleep suddenly, among other traits.
He also is soundly rooted in his antiquated ways: "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!" Like many of his fellow retirement home residents, Abe is a devoted follower of Matlock. He even supports tearing down the Simpson household 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 or ." During a Matlock public appearance, Abe and Jasper swiped Matlock's pills which were needed to prevent him from having a spastic heart failure. Once when reflecting on his life, he lamented it as terribly boring and full of unruly teenagers, but then decided it was alright because he "did have two shows with Andy Griffith."
He also had a habit of telling long stories about his past, though a lot of the time they didn't really happen. Presumably his senility caused him to think he really did have these experiences; alternatively he could have simply been lying about them. However, at least a few of his stories were true to an extent: namely the ones about the Flying Hellfish and Simpson Gene.
In flashbacks he was strict and commanding as a result of his military background and somewhat condescending towards his son Homer which resulted in him having self-esteem issues and other insecurities. However, he displayed knowledge of social pressure when he described his experiences of trying to be "with it" to Homer and Barney Gumble. He also seemed to have had a difficult relationship with his first ex-wife and Homer's mother Mona due to their opposing sociopolitical and parenting views, since Homer had long believed his mother dead and Abe was always an open detractor of people like hippies.
==Non-Canon Appearances==
===Treehouse of Horror===
*In "Treehouse of Horror III", during the segment a Clown Without Pity, he gives Bart all of his social security money for his birthday.
*In "Treehouse of Horror IV", in Bart Simpson's Dracula, the Simpsons had to kill the head vampire. Afterwards, when the family is eating dinner, Lisa finds out that her whole family is vampires, including Grampa, who pretends to be the head vampire, when in reality Marge is. Lisa mistakenly killed Mr. Burns, but she should've killed Marge. The Simpsons then say "Happy Halloween, everybody!" to the viewers before parodying the ending scene to A Charlie Brown Christmas.
*In "Treehouse of Horror V", in The Shinning, he appears in the car asleep while the Simpsons are driving their way to Mr. Burns' summer estate, but on Homer's third drive there (after driving back home twice; once to lock the front door, and again to lock the back door), he accidentally left Abe behind, according to Lisa. Later, Abe eventually arrived at the estate while Homer was insane. When Abe saw Homer (who was in the middle of breaking down doors with his ax, and here, he tried to do it a second time), he said "Hi, David. I'm Grampa!"
*In "Treehouse of Horror XI", he is killed by many mad people in the opening and eaten by a dolphin in Night of the Dolphin.
*In "Treehouse of Horror XIV", during the intro, Homer throws a burning log at Abe when he meant to get the kids after they were fighting. While on fire, Abe laments "I'm still cold".
*In second segment "Treehouse of Horror XXVI", he is mocked Springfield, Japan, is constantly mocked because everyday he drops a perfect doughnut into the ocean with his grandchildren (Bart and Lisa). When asked why he does such things, he says that is because if he doesn't, a huge sea monster will rise and destroy the city. Instead of understanding, they just laugh at him. One day, while he is preparing a doughnut for his "ritual", he chokes on the toppings and dies.
*In "Treehouse of Horror XXIX", in Geriatric Park he a dinosaur.
===Anthology episodes===
Abe once served in the navy with his brother Cyrus and Mr. Burns. Abe once got stranded on a deserted island with Burns after a plane he was piloting crash landed after being shot down by Japanese planes. During his time stranded on the island, Mr. Burns accidentally shot down Santa Claus thinking he was Japanese, so Burns and Abe helped Santa fix his sled and he left, saying that he would return to take him home. However, it never happened, and Abe held a grudge against Santa until he apologized to Abe."Simpson Christmas Stories"
===Video Games===
====The Simpsons Game====
He first appears in the level Mob Rules as one of the Springfieldians that Marge can bring into her mob to protest the sale of the Grand Theft Scratchy video game to minors. His younger self appears in Medal of Homer to give Bart and Homer orders as for what to do in each of the two missions.
====The Simpsons Road Rage====
He is one of the five characters that the player has at the start of the game. His car is The Shriner.
===Future===
In one possible future, 30 years from the present, Homer keeps Abe in Springfield Cryogenic Facility due to it being much cheaper than a nursing home."Holidays of Future Passed" He is present at Homer's last clone's funeral around the same time."Days of Future Future"
In one possible future, two years from the present, when Bart hides at the Retirement Castle after breaking street lights, Grampa gives him a BMX bike. Grampa dies between two and five years from the present."Barthood"
In "Mr. Lisa's Opus", at age 97 he is seen at the hospital in poor health.
===The Simpsons Guy===
During the crossover, Abe runs over Peter Griffin.
==="The Serfsons"===
Abe is shown to be a resident of The Webs at Giant Spider Acres.
==Behind the Laughter==
===Creation===
Matt Groening famously named the five main Simpson characters after members of his own family: his parents, Homer and Marge (or Marjorie in full), and his younger sisters, Lisa and Margaret (Maggie). Claiming that it was a bit too obvious to name a character after himself, he chose the name "Bart", an anagram of brat. When it came time to give Grampa Simpson a first name, Groening says that he refused to name him after his own grandfather, Abraham Groening, leaving it to other writers to choose a name. By coincidence, the writers chose the name Abraham, unaware that it was also the name of Groening's grandfather.
==Trivia==
*He once told the people at the bank that he was King Olaf of Sweden so he could get some money, and later went to explain.
*He mixes up facts and often when he tells his stories, so not everything in them is true.
*He is one of the few characters to have the beard line, the others include Homer, Lenny and Bart (future, Lisa's Wedding).
*He is angry about not dying. In "Holidays of Future Passed", he saw a reflection of himself with his face covered in mashed potato and exclaimed "I'm Santa!? Now I'll never die!".
*His age is uncertain and has fluctuated throughout the series.
**He has at least once been said to be 83 years old."Million-Dollar Abie"
**Although Abe's age is often put as 83, "Gone Abie Gone" indicates that he was 35 when Homer was around 6 years old, making his birth year in that 2012 episode circa the mid 1940s to early 1950s, making his previous appearances in World War I and II unlikely. Further confusing matters, Abe's footlocker of precious memories in "Gone Abie Gone" shows an adult Abe in what appears to be a European town in World War II as well as a voting badge opposing Thomas E. Dewey (Franklin D. Roosevelt's opponent in the 1944 presidential election, and Harry S. Truman's opponent in the 1948 election) which reads "Phooey to Dewey".
**However, in the 2016 episode "Love Is in the N2-O2-Ar-CO2-Ne-He-CH4", Abe mentions "the one happy moment in 80 years of life" and in the 2017 episode "Grampy Can Ya Hear Me", the Simpson family celebrates Abe's 87th birthday, suggesting a birth year of 1936 and 1930 respectively.
**A news report in The Simpsons Uncensored Family Album has Abe down as being four years older than Mr. Burns. Burns' age has varied between 81 and over 120 years old throughout the series.
*His voice sounds similar to an elderly goat.
*He is (or at least was) quite skilled at dancing, as proven in "In the Name of the Grandfather".
*Homer resembles him while dehydrated during the Springfield marathon race.
*The episode "Throw Grampa from the Dane" reveals that Abe has a tattoo of Mona's name on his upper chest with a purple heart. He wanted to get the tattoo removed for free in Copenhagen before he died. Instead of getting the tattoo removed, he redesigned it as an appreciation for the proverbial phrase "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade". His first official tattoo was the emblem for the "Flying Hellfish" and was revealed in "Raging Abe Simpson and His Grumbling Grandson in "The Curse of the Flying Hellfish"".
==Gallery==
==Appearances==
==Citations==
==External links==
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