‘The Simpsons’ New Timeline Nullifies Grampa’s Classic Origin Story
Time moves a little differently in Springfield. While technology and pop-culture references in The Simpsons have evolved along with the real world since the show premiered in 1989, the characters’ ages have remained mostly locked in place, as this season’s meta premiere so memorably illustrated.
It’s usually easy to overlook this temporal abnormality (especially if you’re a believer in the Springfield time loop theory), but it does get a little weird when specific dates are cited. Like how Marge, formerly a teenager in the 1970s, was now an adolescent when Tim Meadows left Saturday Night Live in 2000?
But no character has had their backstory upended by the show’s new timeline quite like Grampa Simpson. Earlier this season, the episode “Shoddy Heat” revealed that Abe was a middle-aged private detective in the ‘80s.
And this week’s episode, “Abe League of Their Moe,” began with a flashback of Abe as a child back in the 1940s. Some fans were quick to point out that this revised timeline means that if Grampa was a kid at the time, there’s absolutely no way that he fought in World War II.
So in addition to Grampa not starring in any more elaborate fantasies involving sultry performances at German nightclubs…
…his history with the Flying Hellfish has effectively been nullified. Season Seven’s “Raging Abe Simpson and His Grumbling Grandson in 'The Curse of the Flying Hellfish'” revealed that Grampa was really a badass soldier during World War II, later forced to do battle with Monty Burns over a stash of princess artwork stolen by the Nazis.
While Abe’s Flying Hellfish days haven’t been referenced a lot since that episode aired, it was arguably a foundational part of that character’s origin story. And it was the rare episode that found a way for Bart to forge a meaningful bond with Grampa, until some sleazy German guy made it weird.
On Reddit, Simpsons fans similarly mourned the new continuity’s rejection of Grampa’s World War II days. Although one user suggested that the Flying Hellfish storyline could simply be shifted to the Vietnam War, but that would sure complicate things — not to mention that Principal Skinner’s military service record would have to be retooled as well.
