Where Did THAT Come From – Little Helper Ralph & North Pole Sign

You’ll shoot your eye out! Hey hey tappereenos… how y’all doing? Wookiee back for another origin post from the 2014 TSTO Christmas Event. With new stuff comes my promise to let you know just where the items come from in The Simpsons universe. For this edition, we’ll take a look at Little Helper Ralph and the North Pole Sign.

Both of these items were prizes for phase II of the TSTO Holiday Event. The North Pole Sign was the first for 1,000 elf bells and Little Helper Ralph was the sixth for 13,800 elf bells. I decided to include both as they interact with each other. First up Ralph.

This beauty of a character skin comes to us via the opening sequence of Season 25, Episode 8: “White Christmas Blues”. We see Little Helper Ralph not one but two times. Jimbo and Kearney are cutting star off the Christmas tree in front of the Courthouse (a la how they cut the head off the Jebediah Springfield statue) and just like regular HD openings, it falls on poor Ralph.

Gotta love him dressed as an elf with his tongue stuck to the pole just like the movie A Christmas Story. Stuck… stuuuck…. STUUUUUUUUUCKKKKKK!!!  I really  LMBO every time I watch that movie and see this scene. Ralph Wiggum seems to be enjoying his experience much more.

Of course while we’re discussing Ralph having his tongue stuck… in his 60 minute TSTO task, it’s the North Pole Sign he sticks it too. If we head off to “The Fight Before Christmas” (S22:E8), we see the sign during Bart’s Story which lampoons The Polar Express.

BONUS: The new Lard Lad Christmas skin also appears in this episode.

Keeping this origin going… Little Helper Ralph also appears later in the opening sequence albeit when the camera quickly pans from the Marge sleigh ride scene to Homer arriving by snowmobile at the Simpsons house. Of course, I’m more than happy to freeze frame things for you dear reader. Ralph’s eating yellow snow from Frank Grimes’ grave. Double gross but does make his 4 hour TSTO task make sense. (This scene is also reprised in the opening sequence for “I Won’t Be Home for Christmas” (S26:E9))

So that’s it, a couple quick glimpses in episodes that inspired EA to create a character, pole, animation and a questline. Here are the tasks associated with Ralph’s new skin.

Before I go, there’s one more funny connection. So Ralph Wiggum having his tongue stuck to a pole makes some of us reminisce about a classic holiday story about a young boy named Ralphie. Did you know that actor (Peter Billingsley) also play Ming the Elf in the movie Elf? It’s another Little Helper Ralphie!!!!

Ok… I’m done. Y’all stay classy and keep on tapping in the free world. Much love and TTFN… Wookiee out! I included the opening sequence here at the bottom in case you wanted to see the whole thing.