On this week’s Rewind-A-Wai, OSW’s @jaykhunter has chosen 2 wrestling-themed episodes of The Simpsons for us to review:
The Simpsons “The Old Man and the Lisa” (S8E21) | Original Airdate: 20-Apr-1997
Penniless from a series of bad investments and counsel from yes men, Burns asks help from Lisa, who turns him into a profitable recycler. Then Burns takes things a nasty step further to increase his dividends. Pro wrestler Bret “The Hit Man” Hart has a voice cameo. (TV Guide)
The Simpsons “Gorgeous Grampa” (S24E14) | Original Airdate: 3-Mar-2013
Homer buys a storage locker, only to discover that it’s Grampa’s, from the days when he was wrestler Glamorous Godfrey, the most hated wrestler in the business, but Mr. Burns’s favorite; Burns talks him into wrestling again, but how long can Grampa put up with it when he sees that Bart is starting to act like Godfrey in real life? (SimpsonsArchive.com)
If you live in the US and have access to FX, you can watch the shows on Simpsons World.
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This show will be released on Friday, March 29th for members. Leave us your feedback and questions for the show.
1 Like
Chris from Queensland, Australia.
Well I made the mistake of watching the better episode first,
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"The Old Man and the Lisa" (S08E21)
While Bret’s cameo is very brief it’s very memorable all the same. Bret’s quote when inspecting Burns Manor of “Ew, this place has old man stink” got said almost every time we visited my grandparents when I was younger, much to my mothers displeasure.
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"Gorgeous Grampa" (S24E14)
While the more wrestling heavy of the two episode it is also the weaker of the two. It takes the first 3rd of the story implying that Wrestling Fans may possibly be gay, while the second 3rd takes cheep shots at the fans with lines like “Fake, well if professional wrestling were fake that would make every fan in the history of the sport a complete and utter moron”. I understand they are trying to tell a story in under 30-minutes but felt a pro-wrestling but felt it could have been handled better.
Overall this is a good snapshot of how the mainstream thinks of professional wrestling across 16-years, form the ends of the “New Generation era” in 1997 to the beginnings of the “Network era” in 2013.
Questions
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What were you viewing habits of the Simpsons when these episodes came out, and what are they today?
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Wrestler Gorgeous George (1915-1963) seems to be the inspiration for Abe’s “Gorgeous Godfrey” persona, for people like myself who only know very little about Gorgeous George could you please explain his importance to wrestling at the time?
Chris from Carlisle, England
The two episodes Jay has picked are snapshots of the show at its peak and on it’s decline. “The old man and the Lisa” is one of my favourite episodes with some fantastic writing and is both funny and has a message about the environment which was ahead of its time for a mainstream show. Also Bret’s cameo, while short, was enjoyable.
“Gorgeous Grampa” on the other has is none of those things. The series has become formulaic and is now a shell of the show it was in the early days. The jokes about wrestling were tired stereotypes and the lazy “wrestling is fake” jokes were a real turn off to an audience that have the most interest in a wrestling episode.
Question: What are your favourite wrestling themed episodes elsewhere in tv?