282. The Old Man and the Key

(originally aired March 10, 2002)
I normally don’t like to directly compare newer episodes to older ones, since it’s pretty unfair to compare a piece of crap to a bar of gold, but if you’re going to retread old ground story-wise, I’m going to be reminded of the goods times of memory’s past. Grampa has a retirement home romance, so of course I’m going to think of “Old Money,” and goddamn is there ever a stark difference between the two. But let’s get one thing out of the way first. The plot need to get the Simpsons to visit Grampa, so how can we do it? Have them think he’s dead. It’s something that we the audience know can’t be true, but the thing is that the characters do, and scenes must be treated as such. It’s fine that the retirement home has people informed of their loved one’s death via recorded message (“He died from… complications of a medical nature. The nursing home was not responsible,”) that’s funny. But what happens next could not feel more disingenous. Marge tells Homer his father is dead, and what does he do? Scream and wail uncontrollably on a dime, then spout out a joke (“And he never even lived to be a vegetable!”) I know Homer is impulsive and emotionally unbalanced, but even he can’t go zero-to-sixty on news this mind-shattering. Think of past reactions to death on this show: Abe in “Old Money” and Lisa in “‘Round Springfield,” they’re very quiet and internally devastated, it feels more real. Here, Homer’s reaction is treated as a complete joke.

It turns out another resident actually kicked the bucket, leaving his room open for new resident Zelda, whom Grampa is immediately smitten with. Now, let’s compare, shall we? Bea is a sweet grandmotherly type who bonds with Abe over their respective health disorders, family, and an incredibly disturbing sequence of them seductively downing their pills. She doesn’t even live past act one, yet her character is completely cemented in the few scenes she’s in. Who is Zelda? She’s the love of Grampa’s life, apparently. How many lines does she have? Guess. …six. Six lines, only two of which are actually in the same scene. The two don’t even have a back-and-forth conversation, why make an episode about a romance when you don’t even have the two fucking talking to each other? Well the “idea” of the episode I suppose is Grampa acting like a teenager, borrowing his father Homer’s car, acting belligerent, and ignoring his advice. Zelda is obviously just a user, wanting someone who’s got a sweet ride. The fact that Grampa can’t see that and keeps chasing her makes him out to be a sad, horny old man, and that just isn’t him. As senile and scatterbrained as he can get, Grampa has always been feisty and strong-willed, but I’ve never thought of him as pathetic… until this episode.

Grampa ends up wrecking Homer’s car in a drag race, and with no car, Zelda drops him like a sack of hot rocks. Finding out her and her new beau have headed off to Branson, Missouri, he hot wires Marge’s car and takes off to get her, with the Simpsons following suit. The only good part in the whole episode is the Branson musical “That’s Familiar,” a magnificent ode to the town as a mecca for Z-list celebrities (“They took Nick-at-Nite, and made it a town!”) Grampa interrupts the show to call out Zelda from the audience, bring her up on stage and tell her they’re through and she’s a “hootchie.” Where did this come from? Homer and Marge told him this once earlier in the episode, and he ignored them. Where’s the scene where Grampa had the realization that Zelda never loved him? This ending couldn’t be more random and knee-jerk. They knew they didn’t want to bring Zelda back but couldn’t cram in any change-of-heart with Grampa, then they just did the ending anyway. They could have cut the completely worthless scene of Grampa pointing out hobo carvings for Bart talking to him about his new girlfriend, and Grampa being unable to explain a good reason why she left him. That’s all you need. One scene. But the writers couldn’t even be bothered to do that. Whelp.

Tidbits and Quotes
– The “Grampa is dead” opening stops on a dime when the real story starts. Homer is relieved that his father is alive and promises he’ll do more things with him. Grampa is pleased to hear that, to which Homer immediately back pedals (“Yeah, yeah, we’ll call you, or send you some fruit.”) Again, completely disingenuous. Homer just thought his father was dead a minute ago, what a complete dickhead.
– I like Grampa’s pick-up line to Zelda (“Now that you’re here, I’m changing my instructions to do resuscitate!”)
– The bit where Grampa pretends to be dead to get what he wants is the scene that really strikes me as being pathetic. And it feels especially wrong considering the episode opened with the family thinking he was dead.
– I just mentioned this last episode with the “Li’l Grampa Simpson” joke, but I absolutely hate it when adults call Abe “Grampa.” Like Marge will refer to him as “Grampa” to other people when the kids aren’t around. Adults don’t do that, why would they do that? His name is Abe.
– The scene is kind of dumb, but I like Grampa’s dapper zoot suit at the start of the second act (“You don’t trust your old man? You ungrateful milkshake…”)
– There’s so much screen time where Zelda is silent. It’s like they only had Olympia Dukakis in for ten minutes and had to rap it up. She doesn’t say one word during the drive-in scene, and in many of her other longer scenes, she has one line of dialogue. One.
– Grampa needs to use Viagra! And one of his top hairs becomes erect! Dear Christ do I miss “Old Money” right now…
– This one bit makes my mind explode. Grampa returns with the car and Homer is furious. The entire scene is very clearly that Grampa is like the irresponsible teenager and Homer the demanding parent. This couldn’t be more clear. Grampa throws a tantrum and runs up to his “room,” plays his rebellious music (old time swing music, a cute gag), and Homer bangs on the door to get him to turn down that “racket.” Marge suggests he give him another chance, to which Homer counters, “No. He’s got to learn, Marge. The way my dad made me learn.” Now that line works, it wraps up the running joke in a nice little bow, end the scene there. But what’s this? Marge responds, “He is your dad.” NO, REALLY? THANK YOU FOR EXPLAINING THE INCREDIBLY OBVIOUS JOKE. It’s like programming for dummies. Then they have no way to end the scene and have Homer say, “Cosmic…” What? Absolute shit.
– Nothing about the drag race is funny. And we get the return of Gloria for some reason, who is still Snake’s girlfriend, dressed in a sexy tube top. I do like the second act break where Grampa smashes the car into a tree, revealed to be the Simpson backyard, and the tree where Homer is lying down in a hammock in. But when he registers that his car has been completely destroyed, his reaction? Flustered, and slightly annoyed. Homer’s reaction to hearing Abe died is an overreaction, this is an underreaction. When the beach kids glued seashells and starfish on his car in “Summer at 4 Ft. 2,” what was his reaction? “Sweet merciful crap! My car!!” Here, the car is absolutely wrecked, and he doesn’t seem all too upset.
– The Itchy & Scratchy old time radio program goes on sooooo long. I’m sure the animators loved that (“We’re going to have this minute long sequence of them listening to the radio.” “So… what should we have them do?” “I dunno, you figure it out.”) It’s clear they want to rush through it since they cut it at the very end, but there’s so much you could have done to condense it. Cut the opening theme, cut the joke about the sponsor, just get to the cartoon with the sound effects. It could have been half the length and still worked as a joke.
– The Branson bus pulling up in front of the house is a lazy joke. But then we get the best gag in the whole show, maybe the whole season, where they wind up in Bronson, Missouri, where everyone inexplicably looks and acts like Charles Bronson. It’s so absurd that I love it (“Hey ma! How ’bout some cookies!” “No dice.” “This ain’t over.”)
– “That’s Familiar” is great in its brutal honestly, something the show has basically all but lost. Having Charo be all wrinkly, openly referring to the faded stars as washed up and pathetic, it’s great. And of course the big finish: Yakov Smirnoff. I love at the end where he seems almost pissed that the show was interrupted (“In Russia, stage is for performers only!”) Then we get Grampa recognizing Tennessee Ernie Ford backstage, knowing he’s dead because he clipped his obituary. Upon realizing this, Ford dissolves into a pile of ashes. Even as a kid, I remember thinking, “What the fuck was that?”
– I really feel they called Zelda a “hootchie” earlier so they could set up the Charo gag at the end. I wouldn’t put it past them.