While The Simpsons is definitely a comedy, this doesn’t mean that Homer and his family haven’t had to take on some truly diabolical villains in their time. Mr. Burns, the head of Springfield’s Nuclear Powerplant, has long been a thorn in the family’s side, while throwing some terrifying challenges at the town. Even though one villain hasn’t appeared nearly as much as Burns, said antagonist has recently made the news once again. Simpsons fans have long felt that there is one villain that was the perfect foil to Homer himself, recently unearthing the series of events that would have created a very different Frank Grimes.
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For those who need a refresher on Frank Grimes, the antagonist first appeared in The Simpsons’ eighth season episode, “Homer’s Enemy.” As was revealed by writer/producer Josh Weinstein, the creative team originally thought to cast none other than Nicholas Cage as Grimes, before eventually settling on Hank Azaria. Weinstein said, “Before we realised Hank Azaria was the perfect choice for Frank Grimes – thank God we did because it’s one of the best performances ever – we briefly thought it might be a spot for a guest performer & considered asking William H. Macy or Nicolas Cage. For like an afternoon, before we realised it had to be a Simpsons insider, we were like ‘Nicolas Cage could be great in this role’, and he would’ve been, but still only a fraction of what Hank’s amazing performance was.”
The Legacy of Grimes
While Frank Grimes’ premiere episode left a lasting impression, this installment also saw the villain dying while going on a rant against Homer Simpson. Despite leaving the land of the living, Grimes would return to the series several more times in future seasons. Alongside appearing in Treehouse of Horror episodes thanks to returning as a ghost, Frank’s son would eventually debut to get revenge for the death of his father. With The Simpsons already confirmed for several more seasons, with voice actor Hank Azaria continuing to work on the series, the odds of seeing Grimes return are fairly solid.
Azaria might eventually return to voice Frank Grimes, though there is one character that the long-running Simpsons voice actor won’t be stepping back into the shoes of. For years, the convenience store running side character, Apu, has been absent from the series, following Hank’s decision to stop voicing the role. During an interview last year, Azaria discussed his decision to stop voicing Apu and the deep dive that went into making it.
“In order to answer that question, do I keep doing this voice or not, required a deep dive. It wasn’t like, ‘Well, let me take a week and look into this.’ It was probably two or three years because we all just froze at The Simpsons. We had no idea what to do. The character just stopped saying anything and it became a deep dive into, ‘Well, is this racist? Does Hollywood have a tradition of doing this in one way or another? Am I part of that?
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