Grandpa

Abraham Jebediah ”Abe” Simpson II, in Albany, New York also known as "Grifty McGrift" and commonly known as "Grampa Simpson", or simply as "Grampa" is a major character in The Simpsons and a supporting character in The Simpsons Movie. He is the patriarch of the Simpson family, the father of Homer, Herbert and Abbey Simpson, father-in-law of Marge Simpson, and the paternal grandfather of Bart, Lisa, and Maggie Simpson. He is also the ex-boyfriend of Jacqueline Bouvier, his daughter-in-law's mother.
Abe is 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 and general incompetence.
==Biography==
===Family Life===
Almost all of Grampa's biographical information is supplied by him. Many of his stories seem to be wildly inaccurate, often physically or historically impossible, and occasionally inconsistent, even with each other, suggesting that Abe is senile though it's often implied that he is aware of the inconsistency. As such, all information provided by Grampa is often to be taken with a grain of salt.
He is a member of the Stonecutters, Masons, and Communists, as well as being president of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance for some reason.
===Childhood===
Abraham Jebediah Simpson was born on May 25, 1907, 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. Eliza Simpson, an indirect relative of his, apparently helped a slave (his great-great-grandfather Virgil Simpson, to be exact) escape to Canada: another possible location of the "Old Country". However, due to the questionable accuracy of Abe's stories and memory, some or all of this is possibly false and Abe may simply have been born in the U.S.
===Life in The Army===
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
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 a women's baseball team in 1942, which kept him from serving for a year before he was eventually discovered during a game. Later on, he and his unit served in The Battle of the Bulge, where he nearly succeeded in assassinating Hitler (though Charles Montgomery Burns thwarted it at the last moment). In the closing days of the war in Europe, they then invade an abandoned castle owned by the Nazis and flushed the Nazis out, though Mr. Burns tried to remove some of the paintings. Although he opposed the decision, and was morally against the idea, he ended up deciding to let Mr. 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, Mr. Burns tried to murder Abe in order to get the art, prompting Abe to violate the ton tine. 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 Herzenberger, a snooty young German aristocrat (this part implies that this did happen).
According to "The Regina Monologues", Abraham fathered an illegitimate daughter named Abbey in the United Kingdom on the day before he joined the D-Day operations in Normandy. She was seen again later in the same episode at the airport, ending further credence to the idea that 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 in "In the Name of the Grandfather", when he came to O'Flannigan's pub in Ireland a long time ago in his WWII sergeant uniform. Abe once disguised himself as a female dancer and made 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.
====Life in the Navy====
Abraham 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 Mr. Burns in "Simpsons Christmas Stories". He also served on a destroyer called the USS World War One during World War II in "Thursdays with Abie". The USS World War One was sunk by a heat seeking torpedo that they fired the other 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. It is also implied that they also tamed and befriended the sharks in question.
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. 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.
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.
====Life in the Air Force and Marine Corps====
In "Looking for Mr. Goodbart", Abraham asks Principal Skinner if he is capable of punishing a Marine Corps veteran.
In "Havana Wild Weekend", Marge mentions that Abraham is a veteran of every branch of the military. This is consistent with a conversation he had with Bart and Lisa in "Let's Go Fly a Coot":
Abraham Simpson II also served in the United States Coast Guard if he is to be believed he mentions it when talking to Lisa on the phone in "The Secret War of Lisa Simpson".
:Abe: That's Mock Rickly, my old Air Force buddy.
:Bart: You said you were in the Army.
:Lisa: You said you were in the Navy.
:Abe: That's the kind of mix up that used to happen when I was in the Marines.
====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 1950’s, Abraham was a professional wrestler known as Glamorous Godfrey.
=== 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 Two. Several years after the war, he went to the carnival, and encountered a prostitute named Gaby, thus resulting in the procreation of his illegitimate son, Herb Powell.
He then married Mona, and after having a bit of his tonic with her, they made love and procreated Homer on May 12, 1956. 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. If he was a better father, Homer would have been better, 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 not a good 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 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. Abe was also a watchman at a cranberry silo for forty years. 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. 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.
However, Abe was shown to have genuine care for Homer, as seen in "Gone Abie Gone" when Homer was a boy, he was hospitalized after an accident at Abe's wedding (where he married Rita LaFleur) and decide to remain with Homer at the hospital, as she went to Europe for a tour instead of Abe going aside her.
====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.
====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 Homer 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 an old, grizzled, periodically incontinent and quite senile man 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, 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 complaint. 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 his undefined hatred of the state of Missouri: "I'll be deep in the cold, cold ground before I recognize Missouri."
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 Castle residents, Abe is a devoted follower of Matlock. He even supports tearing down the Simpsons's 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 'Goober' Lindsey." During a Matlock public appearance, Abe and Jasper swipe Matlock's pills, which were 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 then decided it was alright because "we did have two shows with Andy Griffith." He joins the mob when it was revealed that Homer contaminated Springfield Lake and barely refrained from killing Marge, Lisa and Bart with a shotgun.
Grampa also had a habit of telling stories about his past though a lot of the time these stories 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 one of his stories was true: the one about the Flying Hellfish.
==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 Burns, but she should've killed Marge. The Simpsons then say "Happy Halloween, everybody!" 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.
===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 "Holidays of Future Passed", Homer has Abe frozen in order to prevent a disease from killing him. Homer keeps him in Springfield Cryogenic Facility due to it being much cheaper than a nursing home.
In "Days of Future Future", he is shown to be present at Homer's last clone funeral at age of 113.
In "Barthood", while Bart was hiding at the Retirement home after breaking street lights, Grandpa gives him a BMX bike. Later, at some point when Bart is between the age twelve and fifteen Grandpa dies.
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. With Homer being 39, this information, if correct, would mean that Abe is presently around 68.
*However, in "Grampy Can Ya Hear Me", the Simpson family were celebrating Abe's 87th birthday.
*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==
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==Citations==
==External links==
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