0082 - Jasper Beardley (Patreon)

Well this was almost a DISASTER.

As noted last week, Jasper can be seen in the town meeting, sitting behind Homer.

On my initial watch through I had not realised that he actually does have a line here - he gets spoken over by Homer, but he can clearly be heard saying "tough customer", in reference to El Barto. It is not his usual voice, so it slipped me by completely. It was only in research for other posts that I noticed his line, and slipped him into the #0082 position. Almost forgetting Jasper...that's a paddlin'.

There is a spectrum of elderly characters in the show. Abe is the most prominent, and while he is ditzy and nonsensical, occasionally a joke requires an even crazier old man to push the absurdity to the extreme. At the other end of the spectrum is, I don't know, Old Jewish Man or something, but Jasper sits somewhere between the two. He's the reserve old man, a backup for when they can't use Abe.

He does have his own unique personality though, and I think his popularity comes from the specificity of his grumpy old man attitude. He's a little more intimidating than other elderly characters, the kind of old man that could scare children.

I cannot confirm if his surname is Beardley, Beardly, Beardsly or Beardsley, I have seen all four of these used. I suppose it makes sense that even he might not remember.

This post is part of my "Every Simpsons Character Ever" series. For a list of my rules in this project, click here.