All episodes Season 21 S21E09 2010-01-03 30 min 1980s Fox

The Simpsons

Thursdays with Abie

TV Flash files “Thursdays with Abie” as hour 450 of 802 in the TV Flash guide — The Simpsons (1989–present) on Fox, season 21, episode 9, aired 2010-01-03, 30 min.

From the desk

How this hour is filed

This leaf is S21E09: listed hour 450 of 802 in the The Simpsons guide, hour 9 of 23 in season 21. It aired 2010-01-03 (30 min). The listed hour before it is “O Brother, Where Bart Thou?” (S21E08). Next is “Once Upon a Time in Springfield” (S21E10). Broadcast log — titles and dates, not a plot bible.

The Simpsons — Thursdays with Abie (S21E09)

Catalog log

Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.

Grampa is sitting on a bench waiting for his family when a thoughtful-looking man named Marshall Goldman approaches him and asks to hear about his life. Grampa tells Goldman about the time he was on a World War II battleship, which was hit by an enemy torpedo, and Goldman, a human-interest columnist, publishes it in The Springfield Shopper. Later, Grampa meets Mitch Albom and shares another story with Goldman for a follow-up article. Homer becomes jealous of Grampa's newfound fame and seeks a surrogate father. But when Homer discovers a draft of Goldman's third story, he must race to find Grampa before it is published and his life is changed forever.

Viewer FAQ

Where does Thursdays with Abie sit in the The Simpsons guide?

S21E09 is listed hour 450 of 802 — hour 9 of 23 in season 21, season 21 episode 9.

When did The Simpsons S21E09 air?

Thursdays with Abie aired 2010-01-03 and is listed at 30 minutes.

Where should I start if I am not watching all 800 episodes?

Start with the 1989 Christmas premiere, then a handful of golden-age hours from seasons four through eight. Treat the rest as a library, not a novel.

In the series

Why this series still plays

Watch it as a living joke encyclopedia, not a series you owe from pilot to present. The early years still teach how American satire learned to reset weekly; the later catalog is optional weather. You already speak Springfield. This is how the grammar got written.

The first image is a couch, and then it is not. The Simpsons treats the opening gag as a weekly contract: we will reset the living room, and we will still find a new joke about the country that owns it. Fox put a yellow family on Sunday nights in 1989 after the Tracey Ullman shorts, and the half-hour that followed did not merely popularize adult animation. It installed a shared vocabulary. People who stopped watching still speak Springfield.

Open the The Simpsons package · Season 21 hub

Filed against

Also in season 21

← Full episode guide · Show package · All shows