THE MOVIE

Well here we are again with another Simpson’s Boxed Set. It is a long time between drinks for these fabulous DVD packs but the wait is most certainly worth it.

Reviewing these discs have been amongst my most enjoyable experiences as a DVD reviewer and they just keep getting better and better as the series goes on. With season four considered by many to be amongst the best series ever it is great to now be able to watch and re-watch these episodes on DVD.

Season four includes the following classic episodes:
Kamp Krusty, A Streetcar Named Marge, Homer the Heretic, Lisa the Beauty Queen, Tree House of Horror III, Itchy and Scratchy: The Movie, Marge Gets a Job, New Kid on the Block, Mr. Plow, Lisa's First Word, Homer's Triple Bypass, Marge vs. the Monorail, Selma's Choice, Brother From the Same Planet, I Love Lisa, Duffless, Last Exit to Springfield, So It Has Come to This: The Simpsons Clip Show, The Front, Whacking Day, Marge in Chains and Krusty Gets Kancelled.

I’m sure if you are a fan of the show you have seen these all before and so what I say here doesn’t really matter. Yes they are great, yes they are funny, yes they are highly enjoyable. This is a must have DVD boxed set. Pure and simple.

THE TRANSFER

Video:

The video on this DVD looks good. Not amazing but good enough. It looks a lot like it does on television. The problems inherent with the older style of animation do show through but they are really quite minor. Colors are vivid and character lines remain strong. The detail levels are good and the picture is sharp and clear.

Audio:

The episodes do come with 5.1 sound but like the previous three seasons don’t really make full use of it, nor do they really need it. The dialogue is the most important thing here and it comes across loud and clear and the syncing is as good as it could be. Music and sound effects are also well integrated and add a great amount of realness to the show. It is clear a great amount of care and effort goes into this show.

THE EXTRAS

Onto the extras and while there aren’t loads of them what we do have is still good. Before I talk about the extras though I have to mention the menus. Yet again they are long and boring and take up too much space. Get rid of them.

Anyway the biggest and best extra on this set are the audio commentaries for each episode. These are fabulously entertaining and informative, possibly amongst the best audio commentaries around. As an added extra on this series we get some guest commentators including Conan O’Brien (who worked on the show this season) and Jon Lovitz. Some of the episodes have more than one commentary, which is a nice treat for those who can find them.

We get a featurette for the episode A Streetcar Named Marge. This is primarily an animatic but allows you to follow the process of animation thru from the start. It also includes commentary which is very interesting. This is repeated for the episode Homer’s Triple Bypass and So It’s Come To This – A Simpsons Clip Show (although the latter doesn’t include commentary)

Stemming from the same episode is a featurette on the controversy the songs in the musical episode caused in the south. We also get featruettes on the ongoing sparring war between the Bush family and the Simpsons and the promotional work the Simpsons do.

We also get a series of deleted scenes from Homer’s Triple Bypass and The Front.

SUMMARY

A must have DVD series. This is great TV at its best and this DVD is a worthy tribute to it. Get it!