Million Dollar Abie
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Million Dollar Abie is the sixteenth episode of the seventeenth season of The Simpsons.
[edit] Plot
When it is announced that the commissioner of pro football Bud Armstrong wants to expand the league, Homer leads the charge to get the new franchise in Springfield. At first his family does not think he can do it, but Homer manages to put forth a surprisingly strong package for the Springfield Meltdowns and the new Duff Beer Krusty Burger Buzz Cola Costington's Department Store Kwik-E-Mart Stupid Flanders Park.
The commissioner narrows down the choice of the two cities to either Springfield or Los Angeles. L.A. puts forth an anti-Springfield video hosted by Rob Reiner and features a song sung by celebrity impersonators that ends with them singing "Springfield Blows". All the owners decide that Springfield is the lesser of two evils (it doesn't hurt that the Rich Texan owns slums in Springfield and another owner snaps that she didn't kill her husband and seize his team just to put a team in Los Angeles) and the Commissioner awards the new team to Springfield. The town gets "Meltmania" and "Downs syndrome" and quickly builds Homer's new park and paints the town in the team colours (orange and purple) and changes all of the street names to football-related names (e.g. Two-Point Conversion Avenue, Off-Season Knee Surgery Blvd).
On the day when Springfield is officially announced as the new team, the Commissioner gets confused by all of the new street names and gets lost. He stops for directions at the Simpsons' house and is greeted by Grampa Simpson, who welcomes him in. However, Grampa starts to fear that the commissioner is an undercover burglar and attacks him and ties him up because, at the same time, he is watching on TV a program about undercover burglars who act just as the Commissioner did (asking for a telephone and a bathroom and, sometimes, taking pictures of the children of the house - he was looking at one with Bart and Lisa when attacked). The rest of the family arrives home, disappointed that the commissioner did not show and is shocked to find him tied up in their living room. The commissioner is so angry that he declares "the Meltdowns will never be" and leaves, never to return.
The entire town starts to hate Grampa, and the expensive stadium has to be used for farmers' markets. Grampa is depressed and decides to seek out a doctor who will help him commit suicide. To make it a more peaceful experience they project in front of him, at his request, hippies being beaten up by police. The doctor tells Grampa to reconsider, and Grampa decides that if anyone calls him in the next 24 hours, he will not go through with his plan. The call never comes and Grampa goes back to the clinic the next day. Grampa comes very close to being killed but the police show up just in time to stop it.
Grampa thinks he is dead and runs through the town, seeing "Hamburger Heaven" and a Charlie Chaplin impersonator. He soon learns that he is not dead, gets a new lease on life and decides to live it up. Meanwhile, the city decides to turn the unused football stadium into an arena for bull fighting. Despite Lisa's protests, Grampa decides to become a matador. Grampa wins his first fight with a bull, but at home, Lisa tells Grampa that she is disappointed. Grampa tells her that people are cheering him for his success, but Lisa tells him that she has always cheered for him until now. Grampa is not sure about that, but in the next fight he sees the bull that he is about to kill and decides to spare its life. He releases all the bulls, which immediately start running through the streets of Springfield, causing a great deal of destruction. One bull takes the elevator up to the press box, and attacks the announcer, who is a parody of Spanish-language soccer announcer Andres Cantor. Lisa is proud of Grampa and the two reconcile, but they both became in danger by two bulls flying with balloons.
[edit] Cultural references
The television programme, "48 minutes", that Abraham Simpson was watching, was a spoof of the show, "60 Minutes". Lisa protests in front of the bull arena, singing a parody of "Blowin' in the Wind by Bob Dylan. The assisted suicide scene with the bed, music, and projected imagery is a reference to a similar scene in the film Soylent Green starring Charlton Heston.
