The Simpsons Gone Wild
Picture: C
Audio: B- Extras: D Episodes Overall: A-
In between season set releases of The Simpsons, the
good people over at 20th Century Fox have been kind enough to
release single-disc compilation DVDs of the show. Usually they have a common theme that warrants them being
altogether on the same disc. The
Simpsons Gone Wild brings four episodes together that share the common
theme of, well, going wild. Included on
the set are season one’s “Homer’s Night Out,” season ten’s “Sunday,
Cruddy Sunday,” season eleven’s “The Mansion Family,” and season
thirteen’s “Homer the Moe.” As
to the extent of all being truly “wild,” the levels of wildness vary between
each episode. The episodes are
wonderful. Granted that three of the
four episodes are from the surrealistic Mike Scully era, they are still good
episodes. Mike Scully was an executive
producer/show-runner of The Simpsons for several years and the bulk of
his episodes had surrealistic tendencies that many fans (myself included)
believe took away from the greatness the show once possessed.
The video is presented in its original 1.33:1 full screen
aspect ratio. Unfortunately, FOX
doesn’t spend as much time cleaning up the images for these compilation DVDs as
they do for the season sets. Since “Homer’s
Night Out” is from Season One, its colors are considerably more muted and
faded when compared to the episodes from the more recent seasons. The colors on the other three episodes look
fantastic. They are rich in color and
solid throughout. That’s it for the
good part, though. The video quality
suffers from several of the same problems on all the episodes. There are many instances where flecks of
dirt and dust are present. Several of
the black lines suffer from breaks and rigidness. There’s also a fair amount of haloing and fuzziness around the
edges. The only other problem is the
occasional blurriness, but it’s not as bad as all the other problems.
The audio is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Surround and you can choose either English, French, or Spanish. Subtitles are also available in English or
Spanish. All in all, it sounds really
good. Audio levels are good, with no
scratchiness or any garbling. It sounds
exactly like it does on the show, which is nice. Season sets in the past have traditionally included at least an
English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround mix, but it looks like Fox just wanted to
get this set out quickly.
The only extra on the set is a featurette entitled “Krusty
The Clown: King of Comedy.” It’s a
shame too, because any Simpsons fan should know it’s supposed to be Krusty the
Klown, with a “K.” Running 2 minutes 30
seconds, it’s a compilation from various episodes of various Krusty moments
that whoever put this together deemed to be Krusty’s finest moments. Personally, I would pick much better ones
than the ones that were chosen. The
real drawback is how annoying it gets.
After each clip, there is one of those “Applause” boxes that flashes and
little kids screaming “Yay!” They
should have just transitioned from one clip to the next without the little
segue.
Since it will be a while until seasons ten, eleven, and
thirteen will be released, it’s nice to know Fox still has the fan in mind and
tries to keep them satisfied with releases of more of the recent episodes. However, the could do a better job on the
quality on these sets to show they really care about the fan and that they
aren’t just slapping together a compilation DVD to make a quick buck.
- Antonio Lopez –
The Simpsons Geek
