Review: The Simpsons “Gorgeous Grampa”

grandpa_01141410

Spoilers Below

After Homer gets inspired to watch a Storage Wars show, he decides to try bidding units on his own and he comes across Grampa’s old locker that contained a box with a blonde wig inside of it. After trying to call him out as gay, Marge and Homer find out that Grampa was actually a famous pro wrestler named ‘Gorgeous Godfrey’. This causes Abe to tell his story of being a one-time wrestler. Turns out Grampa was the biggest heel in wrestling, but being a heel affected his home life so he quit and became an old guy. That said, his two biggest fans are now Bart and Mr. Burns, both of whom take Grampa out to regale them with tales of the squared circle. Burns eventually becomes so enamored with Grampa being a bad guy, that he convinces him to revive the gimmick because its made him a zillionaire.

Alas, Gorgeous Godfrey makes his hallowed return to the ring and it isn’t long before Grampa is hated again, only now he has a friend in Burns to share it with. Soon, Bart starts to yearn for the same type of heat that his grandfather gets and as a result he starts acting like a heel at school. Turns out Bart does such a great job that he decides to join up with Grampa in the ring to be a pro wrestler despite Homer’s misgivings about the whole thing.  As Grampa and Bart are gearing up for their first match, the old man is starting to see what Homer and Marge were talking about as Bart starts to bring his character outside of the ring. To counteract this, Abe turns both himself and Bart face, and as a result Burns new wrestling promotion looks as though it is finished, but Bart and Grampa still make a great team.

No joke, if you read the first story of Simpsons Comics #199, it starts out the exact same way as this episode. The rest of it sets up pretty similar, too but this was a bit funnier. I loved the pro wrestling story line as I thought it was fresh, funny, and full of life. Yea, we’ve gotten a bunch of Grampa’s stories over the years but this one was a body slam. I stopped watching wrestling a while ago because the story lines were lame, if I am the WWE I am maybe commissioning these guys during their offseason, maybe then we can get some decent promos.

(8.5 out of 10)