The Simpsons

Grampa has always been a entertaining character, but lately it feels like The Simpsons Season 24 has been trying to cram way too much into his background.

Both "Gone Abie Gone" and "To Cur With Love" have highlighted unknown information about the man's past.

"Gorgeous Grampa " continued the trend of growing Grampa's legend and I think it's taking things a little too far. Now Grampa was also a pro wrestler as well as a songwriter and war veteran. That's quite a life!

As a comedic animated series, the show is definitely going to push the strains of credibility from time to time. Normally, this isn't a problem because the gags are funny. Grampa claiming to have enlisted in World War I as an infant was ridiculous, but hilarious because it fits with his vaguely senile characterization. But the Glamorous Godfrey background doesn't do much to make Grampa either a likable or humorous as a character. It's just pretty silly.

That doesn't mean the episode was a complete loss. The family's assumption that Grampa was gay, based upon the contents of his storage locker, created some comedic situations. Particularly amusing was the online ad Marge posted for him (Wrinkled and Romantic, indeed), which drew the somewhat closeted Waylon Smithers to the "casual encounter" park.

Smithers's sexuality has always been a running gag on the show and referencing it again did make me giggle, but it was the type of gag that mostly drew on nostalgia for the earlier jokes about Smithers and his strange relationship with Mr. Burns.

Similarly, Mr. Burns song about the joys of being hated only served to remind me of his former glory singing "See My Vest" back in Season 6. The show can never escape the shadow of its former glories, and each new episode will only pale in comparison.

However, Homer's flipping through the various reality TV series (and fascination with "Storage Battles") was a successfully amusing and pointed commentary about the sad state of television today.

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