Million Dollar Abie

"Million Dollar Abie"
The Simpsons episode
Abe The Matador.
Episode no.	372
Prod. code	HABF09
Orig. airdate	April 2, 2006
Show runner(s)	Al Jean
Written by	Tim Long
Directed by	Steven Dean Moore
Chalkboard gag	I will not flip the classroom upside down. (The classroom is upside down)
Couch gag	The Simpsons sit down on the couch as normal. A TiVo menu pops up, asking the viewer if he’d like to save the recording or delete it. “Delete This Recording” is chosen and the screen goes black.
Guest star(s)	Rob Reiner as himself Michael Carrington as Jock Center Host #2
Season 17 September 11, 2005 – May 21, 2006 "Bonfire of the Manatees" "The Girl Who Slept Too Little" "Milhouse of Sand and Fog" "Treehouse of Horror XVI" "Marge's Son Poisoning" "See Homer Run" "The Last of the Red Hat Mamas" "The Italian Bob" "Simpsons Christmas Stories" "Homer's Paternity Coot" "We're on the Road to D'ohwhere" "My Fair Laddy" "The Seemingly Never-Ending Story" "Bart Has Two Mommies" "Homer Simpson, This Is Your Wife" "Million Dollar Abie" "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bangalore" "The Wettest Stories Ever Told" "Girls Just Want to Have Sums" "Regarding Margie" "The Monkey Suit" "Marge and Homer Turn a Couple Play" List of all The Simpsons episodes
Seasons 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 6 · 7 · 8 · 9 · 10 · 11 · 12 13 · 14 · 15 · 16 · 17 · 18 · 19 · 20 · 21 · 22 · 23

"Million Dollar Abie" is the sixteenth episode of the seventeenth season of The Simpsons. This is the first episode to have a parody title of the film Million Dollar Baby, with the second being Million Dollar Maybe.

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 does not hurt that the Rich Texan owns slums in Springfield and another owner snaps that she did not 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, Commissioner Armstrong 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 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), and sneaks up behind Armstong and knocks him unconscious with a golf club. 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 furiously declares that neither he nor the League will ever return to Springfield, ending the Meltdowns' history before it began.

The entire town then hates Grampa, and the expensive stadium has to be used for farmers' markets, with even his dentures refusing to smile at him. Grampa is depressed and decides to seek out a doctor called Dr. Egoyan who will help him commit suicide with a suicide booth called a "diePod". 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. To make it a more peaceful experience they project in front of him, at his request, hippies being beaten up by police while music from the Glenn Miller Orchestra plays. Grampa comes very close to dying but Chief Wiggum ends the procedure just in time, telling the doctor that voters have overturned Springfield's assisted-suicide law.

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 without fear. Meanwhile, the city decides to turn the unused football stadium into an arena for bull fighting. Despite Lisa's protests, as they go against her vegetarianism, Grampa decides to become a matador. Grampa wins his first fight with a bull, but at home, Lisa tells Grampa that she wants him to stop hurting and killing animals. 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 and injuring everyone. 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.

In a tag scene at the end, a flashback shows that Abe was present at the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings. While he was only there to test out the microphone during preparation time, he names several individuals as members of the Communist Party before being escorted out of the room.

Cultural references

• The television programme, "48 minutes", that Abe Simpson was watching, was a spoof of the show, "60 Minutes". "48 Minutes" is a reference to how much content an hour-long drama contains once commercials are subtracted. This is also a possible reference to all the characters having 4 fingers, instead of five (48 is 80% of 60).
• The Rich Texan cites Ben Affleck's previous engagement to Jennifer Lopez (and possibly his current marriage to Jennifer Garner), Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, and the smutty humor of Sarah Silverman as reasons he does not want to put a football team in Los Angeles.
• Dr. Egoyan is based on the real-life euthanasia doctor, Jack Kevorkian.
• When Dr. Egoyan gets arrested, Chief Wiggum yells 'Manfred Mann-slaughter', a pun combining the term 'manslaughter' with the name of the 1960s pop group Manfred Mann.
• The diePod has Megadeath as an option, referencing the thrash metal band Megadeth which is relevant to the episode's topic of euthanasia as one of their albums is entitled "Youthanasia".
• Lisa protests in front of the bull arena, singing a parody of "Blowin' in the Wind" by Bob Dylan.
• "Superman" by R.E.M. plays during a montage of Abe having a good time.
• 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.
• The statue outside of the football stadium-turned-bullfighting arena is that of NFL Hall of Fame player, longtime Chicago Bears coach and TV personality Mike Ditka.
• When Abe releases the bulls they run through the street, like the running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain.
• When Abe and Lisa are sitting in lawn chairs suspended from balloons, it is a reference to Larry Walters.
• When Abe walk on the streets, the song playing is "Nobody Loves You" by John Lennon.
• The diePod is obviously a parody of the iPod.

Notes