Old Money (The Simpsons)

Grampa, after another lackluster Sunday outing with the family, falls in love with Beatrice Simmons when their pills are mixed up at the Retirement Castle. They fall in love and go on a date, leading up to her birthday on a Sunday.

However, Homer makes Grampa come on a family outing to the Discount Lion Safari and locks him in the car, causing him to miss Bea's birthday. At the refuge, the family's car becomes stuck in the mud and, to make matters worse, hungry lions begin circling the car, trapping the family in the car overnight. After a hunter helps run the lions off the next morning, Grampa returns home expecting to see Bea. However, Homer pulls up just in time for the ambulance to pull away. It turns out that Bea has died of a burst ventricle (though some say a broken heart) when he was out with the family.

Grampa is saddened, attends her funeral, and is very angry with Homer (who disbelieved that Grampa really has a girlfriend and saying that Bea is just an imaginary woman), refusing to speak to him, as Grampa blames Homer for preventing him from attending Bea's birthday party and being with Bea in her final moments.

Grampa then receives Bea's inheritance of $106,000 from Lionel Hutz. First, he looks at buying things for himself, until Bea's ghost suggests that if he is not happy spending it on himself, that he give the money to worthy causes. (His inheritance is slightly reduced because he spent $400 on a fez that Napoleon supposedly once wore.) She also tells him to forgive Homer because deep down Grampa still loves him. After interviews with many people across Springfield, Grampa attempts to double his money by gambling at a casino, but Homer stops him — and just in time, since Grampa would have lost the entire inheritance at the roulette wheel.

Grampa forgives Homer and decides to spend the rest of the inheritance on renovating the retirement home, and adding a new room named the Beatrice Simmons Dining Room.

[edit] Production

Professor Frink makes his first appearance in this episode. Hank Azaria based his on Jerry Lewis's character from The Nutty Professor. The character was named after writer John Frink.^[1]

[edit] Cultural references

Mystery Spot - When the family is suggesting places they could go, Homer suggests the Springfield Mystery Spot, a reference to the similarly named spots in California and the Upper Peninsula in Michigan — although Lisa says that the Springfield "Spot" is simply a puddle of mud. Another Springfield Mystery Spot, depicted later (in the episode "Homer at the Bat") is a sort of wormhole, shown when Ozzie Smith falls into it in that same episode.
Lion Country Safari – Discount Lion Safari is patterned after a reserve in Palm Beach County, Florida [1].
If I Had a Million – The climax scenes, where Grampa uses the money to fix up the Springfield Retirement Castle, is a carbon copy of the ending of the 1932 film.
The Jazz Singer – Grampa's angry comment, "I have no son!" toward Homer is taken from the Neil Diamond remake of the film.
McDonald's – Krusty Burger (making its first series' appearance) is inspired by McDonald's and other fast-food restaurants which make use of marketing directed towards children.
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town – The scenes where Springfield residents suggest how to spend Grampa's inheritance is taken from the 1936 movie.
Tom Jones – The scene where Grampa and Bea eat their pills seductively is taken from the 1963 movie.
Nighthawks – The shot of Grampa sitting at the diner resembles this famous 1942 American painting.
1972 Billy Martin MLB Manager trading card - Bart suggests this purchase as one of the things he would do with Grampa's inherited money ("The card where the ballplayer is flipping the bird").
Batman - Bart also asks for a copy of Radioactive Man #27, giving the reason that it is the issue where Radioactive Man first fights Dr. Crab. Batman's first appearance was in Detective Comics #27. The Joker was also seen in the line of people asking for Grampa's money.
Charles Lindbergh - While preparing for his date with Bea, Grampa opens a jar of "Lucky Lindy" hair gel, only to find he used it all up long ago. He then proceeds to slick his hair by himself into a popular 1920s fashion.
When Grampa Simpson quotes the lines pertaining "a game of pitch and toss" and the final line, "you'll be a man, my son.", he makes a reference to the poem "If" by Rudyard Kipling.
In the Safari, when the hunter finds the Simpsons he says "Mr. Simpson, I presume?". This is a reference to the famous greeting "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" given by Henry Stanley when he met Dr. Livingstone on the shores of Lake Tanganyika in 1871.
One of the people waiting in line to ask for Grampa's money is Darth Vader.^[2]