Wednesday, 10 August 2016
Sunday, 20 March 2016
History of 'The Simpsons'
BART SIMPSON
This article is about the cartoon character. For the filmmaker, see Bart Simpson (filmmaker). For the sailor nicknamed "Bart Simpson", see Andrew Simpson (sailor).
| Bart Simpson | |
|---|---|
| The Simpsons character | |
 | |
| Information | |
| Voiced by | Nancy Cartwright |
| Gender | Male |
| Occupation | 4th grade student at Springfield Elementary School |
| Relatives | Parents: Homer and Marge Sisters: Lisa and Maggie Aunts: Patty and Selma Bouvier Grandparents: Abe, Mona Simpson, Jacqueline Bouvierand Clancy Bouvier (See also Simpson family) |
| First appearance | |
| Shorts | "Good Night" (1987) |
| The Simpsons | "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire" (1989) |
Bartholomew JoJo "Bart" Simpson is a character in the American animated television series The Simpsons and part of the Simpson family. He is voiced by Nancy Cartwright and first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987. Cartoonist Matt Groening created and designed Bart while waiting in the lobby of James L. Brooks' office. Groening had been called to pitch a series of shorts based on his comic strip, Life in Hell, but instead decided to create a new set of characters. While the rest of the characters were named after Groening's family members, Bart's name is an anagram of the word brat. After appearing on The Tracey Ullman Show for three years, the Simpson family received its own series on Fox, which debuted December 17, 1989.
At ten years old, Bart is the eldest child and only son of Homer and Marge, and the brother of Lisa and Maggie. Bart's most prominent character traits are his mischievousness, rebelliousness and disrespect for authority. He has appeared in other media relating to The Simpsons – including video games, The Simpsons Movie, The Simpsons Ride, commercials, and comic books – and inspired an entire line of merchandise.
In casting, Nancy Cartwright originally planned to audition for the role of Lisa, while Yeardley Smith tried out for Bart. Smith's voice was too high for a boy, so she was given the role of Lisa. Cartwright found that Lisa was not interesting at the time, so instead auditioned for Bart, which she thought was a better role.
Hallmarks of the character include his chalkboard gags in the opening sequence; his prank calls to Moe; and his catchphrases "Eat my shorts", "¡Ay, caramba!", and "Don't have a cow, man!"
During the first two seasons of The Simpsons, Bart was the show's breakout character and "Bartmania" ensued, spawning Bart Simpson-themed merchandise touting his rebellious attitude and pride at underachieving, which caused many parents and educators to cast him as a bad role model for children. Around the third season, the series started to focus more on the family as a whole, though Bart still remains a prominent character. Time named Bart one of the 100 most important people of the 20th century, and he was named "entertainer of the year" in 1990 by Entertainment Weekly. Nancy Cartwright has won several awards for voicing Bart, including a Primetime Emmy Award in 1992 and an Annie Award in 1995. In 2000, Bart, along with the rest of his family, was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
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[hide]Role in The Simpsons[edit]
The Simpsons uses a floating timeline in which the characters do not age at all, and as such, the show is always assumed to be set in the current year. In several episodes, events have been linked to specific times, though sometimes this timeline has been contradicted in subsequent episodes. Bart's year of birth was stated in "I Married Marge" (season three, 1991) as being in the early 1980s.[1] He lived with his parents in the Lower East Side of Springfield until the Simpsons bought their first house. When Lisa was born, Bart was at first jealous of the attention she received, but he soon warmed to her when he discovered that "Bart" was her first word.[2] Bart's first day of school was in the early 1990s. His initial enthusiasm was crushed by an uncaring teacher and Marge became worried that something was truly wrong with Bart. One day during recess, Bart met Milhouse and started entertaining him and other students with various gestures and rude words. Principal Skinner told him "you've just started school, and the path you choose now may be the one you follow for the rest of your life! Now, what do you say?" In his moment of truth, Bart responded, "eat my shorts".[3] The episode "That '90s Show" (season nineteen, 2008) contradicted much of the backstory's time frame; for example, it was revealed that Homer and Marge were childless in the early 1990s.[4]
Bart's hobbies include skateboarding, watching television (especially The Krusty the Clown Show which includes The Itchy & Scratchy Show), reading comic books (especially Radioactive Man), playing video games and generally causing mischief.[5] His favorite movies are Jaws and the Star Wars Trilogy. For the duration of the series, Bart has attended Springfield Elementary School and has been in Edna Krabappel's fourth grade class. While he is too young to hold a full-time job, he has had occasional part-time jobs. He works as a bartender at Fat Tony's social club in "Bart the Murderer" (season three, 1991);[6] as Krusty the Clown's assistant in "Bart Gets Famous" (season five, 1994);[7] as a doorman in Springfield's burlesque house, the Maison Derrière in "Bart After Dark" (season eight, 1996);[8] and briefly owns his own factory in "Homer's Enemy". (season eight, 1997)[9]
Homer Simpson
Homer Simpson is also the name of a character in the book The Day of the Locust and the film based on the book.
| Homer Simpson | |
|---|---|
| The Simpsons character | |
 | |
| Information | |
| Voiced by | Dan Castellaneta |
| Gender | Male |
| Occupation | Safety Inspector at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, former Nuclear Technician |
| Relatives | Wife: Marge Children: Bart, Lisa and Maggie Parents: Abraham and Mona Half-Siblings: Herbert Powelland Abbie (see also: Simpson family) |
| First appearance | |
| Shorts | "Good Night" (1987) |
| The Simpsons | "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire" (1989) |
Homer Jay Simpson is the protagonist of the American animated television series The Simpsons as the patriarch of the eponymous family. He is voiced by Dan Castellaneta and first appeared on television, along with the rest of his family, in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987. Homer was created and designed by cartoonist Matt Groening while he was waiting in the lobby of James L. Brooks' office. Groening had been called to pitch a series of shorts based on his comic strip Life in Hell but instead decided to create a new set of characters. He named the character after his father, Homer Groening. After appearing for three seasons on The Tracey Ullman Show, the Simpson family got their own series on Fox that debuted December 17, 1989.
Homer and his wife Marge have three children: Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. As the family's provider, he works at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant. Homer embodies several American working class stereotypes: he is crude, bald, overweight, incompetent, clumsy, lazy, a heavy drinker, and ignorant; however, he is essentially a decent man and fiercely devoted to his family. Despite the suburban blue-collar routine of his life, he has had a number of remarkable experiences.
In the shorts and earlier episodes, Castellaneta voiced Homer with a loose impression of Walter Matthau; however, during the second and third seasons of the half-hour show, Homer's voice evolved to become more robust, to allow the expression of a fuller range of emotions. He has appeared in other media relating to The Simpsons – including video games, The Simpsons Movie, The Simpsons Ride, commercials and comic books – and inspired an entire line of merchandise. His signature catchphrase, the annoyed grunt "D'oh!", has been included in The New Oxford Dictionary of English since 1998 and the Oxford English Dictionary since 2001.
Homer is one of the most influential characters in the history of television. The British newspaper The Sunday Times described him as "the greatest comic creation of [modern] time". He was named the greatest character "of the last 20 years" in 2010 by Entertainment Weekly, was ranked the second greatest cartoon character by TV Guide, behind Bugs Bunny, and was voted the greatest television character of all time by Channel 4 viewers. For voicing Homer, Castellaneta has won four Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance and a special-achievement Annie Award. In 2000, Homer and his family were awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
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[hide]Role in The Simpsons[edit]
Homer is the bumbling husband of Marge and father of Bart, Lisa and Maggie Simpson.[1] He is the son of Mona and Abraham "Grampa" Simpson. Homer held over 188 different jobs in the first 400 episodes of The Simpsons.[2] In most episodes, he works as the Nuclear Safety Inspector at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, a position he has held since "Homer's Odyssey", the third episode of the series.[3] At the plant, Homer is often ignored and completely forgotten by his boss Mr. Burns, and constantly falls asleep and neglects his duties. Matt Groening has stated that he decided to have Homer work at the power plant because of the potential for Homer to wreak havoc.[4] Each of his other jobs has lasted only one episode. In the first half of the series, the writers developed an explanation about how he got fired from the plant and was then rehired in every episode. In later episodes, he often began a new job on impulse, without any mention of his regular employment.[5]
The Simpsons uses a floating timeline in which the characters never physically age, and, as such, the show is generally assumed to be set in the current year. Nevertheless, in several episodes, events in Homer's life have been linked to specific time periods.[1] "Mother Simpson" (season seven, 1995) depicts Homer's mother, Mona, as a radical who went into hiding in 1969 following a run-in with the law;[6] "The Way We Was" (season two, 1991) shows Homer falling in love with Marge Bouvier as a senior at Springfield High School in 1974;[7] and "I Married Marge" (season three, 1991) implies that Marge became pregnant with Bart in 1980.[8] However, the episode "That '90s Show" (season 19, 2008) contradicted much of this backstory, portraying Homer and Marge as a childless couple in the early 1990s.[9]
Homer's age has changed as the series developed; he was 36 in the early episodes,[10] 38 and 39 in season eight,[11] and 40 in the eighteenth season,[12] although even in those seasons his age is inconsistent.[1] During Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein's period as showrunners, they found that as they aged, Homer seemed to become older too, so they increased his age to 38.[13]
Character[edit]
Creation[edit]
Naming the characters after members of his own family, Homer was named after Groening's father Homer Groening, who himself had been named after ancient Greek poet Homer.[14][15][16] Very little else of Homer's character was based on him, and to prove that the meaning behind Homer's name was not significant, Groening later named his own son Homer.[17][18] According to Groening, "Homer originated with my goal to both amuse my real father, and just annoy him a little bit. My father was an athletic, creative, intelligent filmmaker and writer, and the only thing he had in common with Homer was a love of donuts."[19] Although Groening has stated in several interviews that Homer was named after his father, he also claimed in several 1990 interviews that a character in the 1939 Nathanael West novel The Day of the Locust was the inspiration for naming Homer.[1][20][21] Homer's middle initial "J", which stands for "Jay",[22] is a "tribute" to animated characters such as Bullwinkle J. Moose and Rocket J. Squirrel from The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, who got their middle initial from Jay Ward.[23][24]
Homer made his debut with the rest of the Simpson family on April 19, 1987, in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night".[25] In 1989, the shorts were adapted into The Simpsons, a half-hour series airing on the Fox Broadcasting Company. Homer and the Simpson family remained the main characters on this new show.[26]
Design[edit]
The entire Simpson family was designed so that they would be recognizable in silhouette.[27] The family was crudely drawn because Groening had submitted basic sketches to the animators, assuming they would clean them up; instead, they just traced over his drawings.[14] Homer's physical features are generally not used in other characters; for example, in the later seasons, no characters other than Homer, Lenny, and Krusty the Clownhave a similar beard line.[28] When Groening originally designed Homer, he put his initials into the character's hairline and ear: the hairline resembled an 'M', and the right ear resembled a 'G'. Groening decided that this would be too distracting and redesigned the ear to look normal. However, he still draws the ear as a 'G' when he draws pictures of Homer for fans.[29] The basic shape of Homer's head is described by director Mark Kirkland as a tube-shaped coffee can with a salad bowl on top. Bart's head is also coffee-can shaped, while spheres are used for Marge, Lisa, and Maggie.[30]During the shorts, the animators experimented with the way Homer would move his mouth when talking. At one point, his mouth would stretch out back "beyond his beardline"; but this was dropped when it got "out of control."[31] In some early episodes, Homer's hair was rounded rather than sharply pointed because animation director Wes Archer felt it should look disheveled. Homer's hair evolved to be consistently pointed.[32] During the first three seasons, Homer's design for some close-up shots included small lines which were meant to be eyebrows. Matt Groening strongly disliked them and they were eventually dropped.[32]
In the season seven (1995) episode "Treehouse of Horror VI", Homer was computer animated into a three-dimensional character for the first time for the "Homer3" segment of the episode. The computer animation directors at Pacific Data Images worked hard not to "reinvent the character".[33] In the final minute of the segment, the 3D Homer ends up in a real world, live-action Los Angeles. The scene was directed by David Mirkin and was the first time a Simpsons character had been in the real world in the series.[33] Because "Lisa's Wedding" (season six, 1995) is set fifteen years in the future, Homer's design was altered to make him older in the episode. He is heavier; one of the hairs on top of his head was removed; and an extra line was placed under the eye. A similar design has been used in subsequent flashforwards.[34]
Lisa Simpson
| Lisa Simpson | |
|---|---|
| The Simpsons character | |
 | |
| Information | |
| Voiced by | Yeardley Smith |
| Gender | Female |
| Occupation | 2nd grade student at Springfield Elementary School |
| Relatives | Parents: Homer and Marge Siblings: Bart and Maggie Grandparents: Abraham Simpson, Mona Simpson, Jacqueline Bouvier and Clancy Bouvier Aunts: Patty and Selma Bouvier (See also Simpson family) |
| First appearance | |
| Shorts | "Good Night" (1987) |
| The Simpsons | "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire" (1989) |
Lisa Marie Simpson is a fictional character in the animated television series The Simpsons. She is the middle child and most intelligent of the Simpson family. Voiced by Yeardley Smith, Lisa first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987. Cartoonist Matt Groening created and designed her while waiting to meet James L. Brooks. Groening had been invited to pitch a series of shorts based on his comic Life in Hell, but instead decided to create a new set of characters. He named the elder Simpson daughter after his younger sister Lisa Groening. After appearing on The Tracey Ullman Show for three years, the Simpson family were moved to their own series on Fox, which debuted on December 17, 1989.
Pretty, meddlesome, and only eight years old, Lisa Simpson is the second child of Homer and Marge, younger sister of Bart and older sister of Maggie. She is known as "The Reporter Girl" by most bullies, but that is because of herself being highly intelligent, and always getting into other people's business and reporting details of everything, she also plays the baritone saxophone. Lisa is one of the most prettiest girls in Springfield Elementary, but even though she is pretty, she is still a social outcast because of herself being the top student, and trying to ruin people's lives. Lisa is the only main character to be allowed to change and develop over the years, she has been a vegetarian since season 7 and converted to Buddhism in season 13. Lisa advocates for a variety of political causes and is a strong liberal and stands with the Tibetan independence movement. She has appeared in other media relating to The Simpsons – including video games, The Simpsons Movie, The Simpsons Ride, commercials and comic books – and inspired a line of merchandise.
Yeardley Smith originally tried out for the role of Bart, while Nancy Cartwright (who was later cast as the voice for Bart) tried out for Lisa. Producers considered Smith's voice too high for a boy, so she was given the role of Lisa. In the Tracey Ullman Show shorts, Lisa was something of a "female Bart" who mirrored her brother's mischief, but as the series progressed she became a more sophisticated and intellectual character. Because of her unusual pointed hair style, many animators consider Lisa the most difficult Simpsons character to draw.
Lisa is one of the most enduring characters on the series. TV Guide ranked her 11th (tied with Bart) on their list of the "Top 50 Greatest Cartoon Characters of All Time". Her environmentalism has been especially well received; several episodes featuring her have won Genesis and Environmental Media Awards, including a special "Board of Directors Ongoing Commitment Award" in 2001. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals included Lisa on their list of the "Most Animal-Friendly TV Characters of All Time". Yeardley Smith won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Performancein 1992, and in 2000, Lisa and her family were awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
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[hide]Role in The Simpsons[edit]
The Simpsons uses a floating timeline in which the characters do not physically age;[1] as such, Lisa is always depicted as 7–8 years old.[2] The show itself is perpetually set in the year of broadcast (except for occasional flashbacks and flashforwards). In several episodes, events have been linked to specific time periods, although this timeline has been contradicted in subsequent episodes.[3] Lisa's year of birth is given in "Lisa's First Word" (season 4, 1992) as 1984, during the Summer Olympics.[4] The episode "That '90s Show" (season 19, 2008), however, contradicts much of the established backstory; for example, it presents Homer and Marge as being childless in the late 1990s.[5][6] Lisa is a lover of music, especially jazz. She enjoys playing the saxophone and became friends with jazz musician Bleeding Gums Murphy, whom she regards as an idol. Murphy helps pull Lisa out of her depression in "Moaning Lisa" (season 1, 1990).[7] She is later deeply saddened by Murphy's death in "'Round Springfield" (season 6, 1995).[8]
Lisa has been friendly with several boys, including Ralph Wiggum in "I Love Lisa" (season 4, 1993),[9] Nelson Muntz in "Lisa's Date with Density" (season 8, 1996)[10] and Colin in The Simpsons Movie (2007).[11] Bart's best friend Milhouse Van Houten has a crush on her, but despite dropping unsubtle hints about his feelings, he has been unsuccessful in winning her affection.[10]
Lisa is the most intellectual member of the Simpson family (IQ 156), and many episodes of the series focus on her fighting for various causes.[12] Lisa is often the focus of episodes with "a real moral or philosophical point", which according to former writer David S. Cohen is because "you really buy her as caring about it."[13] Lisa's political convictions are generally liberal and she often contests other's views. She is a vegetarian, feminist, environmentalist and a supporter of gay rights, and the Free Tibet movement.[14][15] In a special Christmas message for the UK in 2004 Lisa showed her support for Cornish nationalism, even speaking the Cornish language to get her message across.[16] While supportive of the general ideals of the Christian church in which she was raised, Lisa became a practicing Buddhist in the episode "She of Little Faith" (season 13, 2001) after she learned about the Noble Eightfold Path.[17]
Character[edit]
Creation[edit]
Matt Groening first conceived Lisa and the rest of the Simpson family in 1986 in the lobby of producer James L. Brooks's office. Groening had been called in to pitch a series of animated shorts for The Tracey Ullman Show and had intended to present an adaptation of his Life in Hell comic strip. When he realized that animating Life in Hell would require him to rescind publication rights, Groening went in another direction,[18] hurriedly sketching his version of a dysfunctional family, named after members of his own family. Lisa was named after Groening's younger sister, but little else was based on her.[19] In The Tracey Ullman Show shorts, Lisa displayed little of the intelligence for which she later became known. She was more of a "female Bart"[20] and was originally described as simply the "middle child", without much personality.[21]
Lisa made her debut with the rest of the Simpson family on April 19, 1987 in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night".[22] In 1989, the shorts were adapted into The Simpsons, a half-hour series on the Fox Broadcasting Company. Lisa and the Simpson family remained the main characters on this new show.[18]
Design[edit]
The entire Simpson family was designed to be easily recognized in silhouette.[23] The family was crudely drawn, because Groening had submitted basic sketches to the animators, assuming they would clean them up; instead, they just traced over his drawings.[18] Lisa's physical features are generally unique. In some early episodes, minor background characters occasionally had a similar hairline. However, in the later seasons, no character other than Maggie shares her hairline.[24]While designing Lisa, Groening "couldn't be bothered to even think about girls' hair styles".[25] At the time, Groening was primarily drawing in black and white; when designing Lisa and Maggie, he "just gave them this kind of spiky starfish hair style, not thinking that they would eventually be drawn in color".[26]
To draw Lisa's head and hair, most of the show's animators use what they call the "three-three-two arrangement". It begins with a circle, with two curving lines (one vertical, one horizontal) intersecting in the middle to indicate her eyeline. The vertical line continues outside of the circle to create one hair point, with two more added towards the back of her head. Three more points are then added in front (in the direction Lisa is facing), with two more behind it.[27] Several Simpsonsanimators, including Pete Michels and David Silverman, consider Lisa the most difficult Simpsons character to draw.[28] Silverman explains that "her head is so abstract" due to her hairstyle.[25]
Grampa Simpson
| Grampa Simpson | |
|---|---|
| The Simpsons character | |
 | |
| Information | |
| Voiced by | Dan Castellaneta |
| Gender | Male |
| Occupation | Retired farmer, World War II veteran |
| Relatives | Children: Homer SimpsonAbbie and Herb Powell Grandchildren: Bart, Lisa, Maggie and Ranel Wife: Mona (deceased), Amber Simpson (deceased), Rita LaFleur (See also Simpson family) |
| First appearance | |
| Shorts | "Grampa and the Kids" |
| The Simpsons | "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire" |
Abraham Jedediah "Abe" Simpson II,[1][2] often known simply as Grampa, is a fictional character in the animated television series, The Simpsons, he made his first appearance in the episode entitled Grampa and the Kids, a Simpsons short on The Tracey Ullman Show. Voiced by Dan Castellaneta, he is the father of Homer Simpson, and the grandfather of Bart, Lisa, and Maggie Simpson. In the 1000th issue of Entertainment Weekly, Grampa was selected as the Grandpa for "The Perfect TV Family".[3]
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[hide]Biography[edit]
Grampa Simpson is a World War II veteran and retired farmer who was later sent to the Springfield Retirement Castle by Homer. He is known for his long, rambling, often incoherent stories and senility. Grampa Simpson is the father to Homer Simpson, father-in-law to Marge Simpson and grandfather to siblings Bart, Lisa and Maggie. Grampa has also fathered two illegitimate children; a daughter named Abbie by a British woman named Edwina while in the United Kingdom during World War II,[4] and Herbert Powell by a carnival prostitute[5] (identified in The Simpsons Uncensored Family Album as "Gaby"). Grampa has an older brother named Cyrus, who lives in Tahiti and has multiple native wives.[6] He also has a younger brother named Chet, who owns an unsuccessful shrimp company.[7] Grampa was briefly married to Amber, the same woman Homer married on a drinking binge in Las Vegas.[8]Grampa has also been briefly married to Marge's sister, Selma Bouvier,[9] though Homer was against it, and was once romantically linked to Marge's mother, Jacqueline Bouvier. Abe Simpson is currently married to Rita LaFleur.
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 that Grampa is quite senile. It is unknown where Grampa was born. He claims that he came to America as a boy from the "old country", but he cannot remember which country it was,[10] although most likely it was the United Kingdom. Grampa was raised in New York City with his parents, Orville J. Simpson and Yuma Hickman.[11]
Grampa is a veteran of World War II, where he served as Master Sergeant of the Flying Hellfish unit. At the very end of war in Europe, Grampa's unit "liberated" a stash of priceless art from surrendering German forces. The Flying Hellfish formed a tontine, and buried the art in a trunk at sea. Decades later, Montgomery Burns, the second surviving member of the unit, tried to murder Grampa in order to get the art, prompting Grampa to violate the tontine. When Grampa and Bart retrieved the art from Mr. Burns, the State Department arrived to return the art to its rightful owner.[12]
Homer's mother, Mona Simpson, was married to Grampa for several years. According to "Let's Go Fly a Coot", they met in the 1950s and hooked up on the day Grampa allegedly broke the sound barrier. She became entranced with the hippie lifestyle after seeing Joe Namath's hair on television. She became a fugitive from justice after she abetted in the sabotage of a biological weaponsresearch lab owned by Mr. Burns to deliberately poison everyone in Springfield. To explain this to his then-six-year-old son, Grampa said that Mona died while Homer was at the movies.[13] Grampa has a poor relationship with his son, who placed him in a nursing home as soon as he could, despite Grampa selling his house in order to provide Homer with a mortgage.[14] Its recurringly suggested that, while caring, Grampa was a strict disciplinarian who could be very controlling, neglectful, and even emotionally abusive towards Homer when he was growing up and he still had not forgiven him for that.[15][16][17]
The Simpson family will often do their best to avoid unnecessary contact with Grampa, but Homer has shown feelings of love for his father from time to time.[18]
Character[edit]
Creation[edit]
Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons, wanted to have a character that was "really cranky" and old, and who complained a lot and invented stories to tell to children, so he created Grampa.[19] After naming the main characters after his own family members (except for Bart, an anagram of "brat", which he substituted for his own name),[20] Groening refused to name Grampa after his grandfather, Abraham Groening. He left it to the writers to choose a name and they chose "Abraham", not knowing that it was also the name of Groening's grandfather.[21] Grampa first appeared in the Simpsons short "Grampa and the Kids", which premiered on The Tracey Ullman Show on January 10, 1988. In the short, Grampa tells his grandchildren stories of "the good old days". When they stop paying attention to him, he feigns his own death to recapture their attention.[22]
The Simpsons writer Al Jean commented that Grampa is often the focus of pointed jokes about old people. He said the reason for that is because the staff is trying to illustrate how society mistreats the elderly, "and some of it is because people over 55 never watch our show".[19] Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein, former writers on the show, said that they liked to write episodes about Grampa because they are "obsessed" with old people.[23] Weinstein commented that they "both love [old people] and seem to really hate them at the same time".[24] He also said that he "enjoys" writing for characters such as Grampa and Mr. Burns because of their "out-datedness", and because he gets to use dictionaries for looking up "old time slang".[24]
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