Distributed by

Cert:

Cat.no: 22274 DVD

Running time: 634 minutes

Year: 1991

Pressing: 2002

Region(s): 2, 4, PAL

Chapters: 132 plus extras

Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1

Languages: English

Subtitles: 5 languages

Fullscreen: 4:3

16:9-Enhanced: No

Macrovision: Yes

Disc Format: 4 * DVD 9

Price: £39.99

Extras: Interview with James L Brooks and Matt Groening, "Do the Bartman" director's cut music video, "Deep Deep Trouble" music video (plus commentary for both), David Silverman on the 'Creation of an episode', Emmy Awards Presentation, Bart on the American Music Awards, 3 Butterfinger TV commercials, 5 foreign language clips, Easter eggs, Gallery (animation, magazine covers and more), Early drawings, Audio commentaries for each episode.

Directors:

David Silverman, Wesley Archer, Rich Moore, Brad Bird, Matt Kirkland and Jim Reardon,

Creator:

Matt Groening

Developed by:

James L. Brooks, Matt Groening & Sam Simon

Cast:

Homer: Dan Castellaneta
Marge: Julie Kavner
Bart: Nancy Cartwright
Lisa: Yeardley Smith
Principal Skinner: Harry Shearer
plus Marcia Wallace, Hank Azaria, Jo Ann Harris, Pamela Hayden, Russi Taylor, Tress MacNeille, Phil Hartman and many more...

Back in its early days since graduating from playing as filler material on The Tracey Ullman Show, which the BBC also clipped so as just to retain her content, the animation was more crude - and Homer had a much deeper voice - but it still works perfectly in its own way. When the episodes were shown on Sky they used to censor them, but from around early 2001 they began to show them uncut... for a while. This year it's still a lottery.

There are 22 episodes on this DVD boxset and I'll group them in four batches as per the contents on each disc:

• Bart Gets and F: Everyone tries to get out of a test from time to time when at school and Bart Simpson's no different, even with the help of school swot Martin Prince, following a disastrous book report on 'Treasure Island'. By the end, by hook or by crook he gets a D- and passes, but also... kisses the teacher!

• Simpson and Delilah: Baldies are not ones for top-level management, so Homer cheats the nuclear plant out of $1000 for a hair tonic called Dimoxynil which restores the growth, and then some. Alas, he gets found out after an investigation, but his new secretary Karl (Harvey Fierstein) takes the blame and pays back the money in a bizarre move. Once the secret's out and Homer's bald again, he's back in his old job.

• Tree House of Horror: The original Halloween Special which became a trademark for each series since, with three mini-episodes, this one beginning with Bad Dream House in which the whole family get spooked by the house in which they're staying and it implodes upon itself Poltergeist-style.

  Hungry are the Damned, the damned being the Simpsons as they're taken aboard an alien spaceship (a little difficult to lift Homer with just one light beam) for tests. Finally, The Raven is one Halloween story I've never been able to get into as the classic poem is Simpsonised.

• Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish: Mr Burns wants to run for governor, but his campaign may just be hindered by the revelation that a three-eyed fish is part of the output from his nuclear plant, which results in a front-page story and an investigation in which he's told to bring the plant up to code and one that he can't bribe his way out of.

• Dancin' Homer: Homer becomes the mascot of the local baseball team after he puts Marge and the kids to shame by dancing in the dugout at a local Isotopes game, with the eponymous name of the episode. He even gets promoted to the majors at Capital City, but it all goes sour after just one match where they just don't appreciate him.

• Dead Putting Society: Miniature golf is the name of the game as Homer and Ned Flanders are at odds as a feud develops between the two following Homer's envy of his neighbour's home and family and they both enter their eldest son in a tournament, the loser of which will have to perform a humiliating task, but what will it be?

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  Rule No.1: Don't kiss the teacher...

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• Bart vs. Thanksgiving: Not something we celebrate in the UK, but it's a big deal for the USA, particularly Lisa, who creates a special centrepiece for the dinner table, which Bart promptly destroys and ruins the event, being sent to his room as a punishment. He escapes and goes to give blood in order to afford to eat but passes out and winds up in a homeless shelter. Courtesy of Kent Brockman's news report, Homer's less than impressed to find his son in such a scenario and calls the police, leading Bart to return home and finally apologise to his sister.

• Bart the Daredevil: What's more important? Going to see the "Truckasaurus" event or attending Lisa's first saxaphone recital? Homer tries to fit in both, but an accident with the car at the "Truckasaurus" and seeing Lance Murdoch perform a dangerous stunt causes Bart to try his luck jumping a gorge on his skateboard, but Homer steps in at the wrong moment. On some repeats on TV, the second time Homer goes down was replaced with a frozen shot of the kids looking down as he screams.

  Sadly, we get the version with the frozen shot, but I'm sure there's a Simpsons clip show which also shows Homer falling down the second time, which was just as hilarious as the ambulance trolley twats Homer on the back of the head instead of the skateboard.

• Itchy & Scratchy & Marge: Doesn't take a genuis to realise who Marge takes anything but a shine to after Maggie knocks Homer out in the garage with a mallet 'Psycho'-style. When she succeeds and the new I&S episode "Porch Pals" bombs, so do the ratings and the status quo quickly resumes.

• Bart Gets Hit by a Car: The only episode to have the title written onscreen as it begins, as Episode 23: Bart Gets Hit by a Car, I'll let you guess how it begins. Since it was Mr Burns' car and lawyer Lionel Hutz (voiced by the excellent, but sadly deceased Phil Hartman) sues for $1m, things look up for the Simpsons, but Marge makes a faux pas which costs them the dosh and Homer seeks solace at Moe's.

• One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish: Homer is given 24 hours to live after eating a poisonous fish in a Japanese restaurant after it's been badly prepared. He makes a final "to do" list, but the time is eaten up by being with his father and in a rush to get home he's jailed for speeding. He's bailed by Barney, but once home will he make it to the next day? Stupid question...

• The Way We Was: With a broken TV, Homer and Marge tell of their courtship in 1974 and the prom in which Marge was taken - and assaulted - by Artie Ziff (Jon Lovitz), after which she leaves in search of Homer, realising that he is the man for her.

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  That's not how to cook a fish.

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• Homer vs. Lisa and the 8th Commandment: After dreaming about Moses and the Ten Commandments, then waking up to hearing Flanders turning away an illegal cable guy, Homer enlists for the service and wonders at the marvels of multiple channels of free entertainment. Lisa refuses to watch in protest and Bart gets all his friends round for an afternoon's entertainment of a soft-porn channel. Will Homer get to see the boxing though?

• Principal Charming: Marge's sister Selma is desperate for a man, so a date is set up for her with Principal Skinner, but when he turns up things don't go to plan and he falls for Patty instead. Homer tries to make things up by matchmaking Selma with Barney and Bart can do no wrong as the family ties mean he can get away with many a prank at school.

• Oh Brother, Where Are Thou?: Grandpa Simpson has a heart attack and confesses to an affair which produced an illegitimate son in Herb (Danny De Vito), who makes cars for a living and is so successful that he's a millionaire. He encourages Homer to design the car he thinks the average guy in the street would want, but it bombs spectacularly.

• Bart's Dog Gets an F: The family have to send Santa's Little Helper to obedience school after he starts playing up. Despite the Simpsons starting life on the Tracey Ullman show, this was the only episode in which she had a guest-starring role, as Emily Winthropp.

• Old Money: Grandpa Simpson falls in love with a resident from his care home, Bea. It's a short-lived affair as she dies when he's spending time with his family. As he returns he tells his friend Jasper to make way as he's "got a date with an angel". Jasper replies: "You don't know how right you are, Abe" and when Grandpa becomes the sole beneficiary of her estate - $108,000 - he has trouble deciding who should get the money with so many ungrateful ones aiming to get their hands on it.

• Brush with Greatness: Gear! After Homer gets stuck in a waterslide tube at Mount Splashmore after his kids have hassled him endlessly to go, the public humiliation forces him to decide to lose weight. As he digs out the exercise equipment, he reveals a painting of Ringo Starr by Marge. She never received a reply from the man at the time when she posted it to him, but coincidentally he's only just getting round to reading mail from 20 years ago as he states he'll reply to every last letter. The painting was so great "I 'ung it on me wall!".

  Inspired to paint again, she takes up an art class and is commissioned to do a portrait of Mr Burns, but with small genitalia. He states "Thankyou for not making fun of my genitalia". She says softly after he's gone, "I thought I had".

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  Gear!

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• Lisa's Substitute: Miss Hoover becomes ill and Lisa's class gets a substitute teacher in the form of Mr Bergstrom (Dustin Hoffman), but she falls in love with him as he inspires her in a way no other teacher has and when it's time for him to go she can't bear it, but he consoles her with a special message that she must read whenever she feels like she can't take what life is throwing at her.

  Meanwhile, Bart goes up against Martin Prince for class president and looks to be winning due to his popularity, but doesn't get round to voting for himself and thus loses.

• The War of the Simpsons: Marge and Homer head off to a marriage retreat after he makes an arse of himself at a party and makes a pass at Ned's wife Maude. Grandpa Simpson is left to look after the kids, during which a party ensues that trashes the house after the whole town appears to attend. Marge accuses Homer of not taking their marriage seriously as he sneaks off to go fishing, but catches the biggest catfish in history.

• Three Men and a Comic Book: Bart, Martin and Milhouse pool together $100 to secure a classic "Radioactive Man" comic book, but greed gets the better of them and it heads out of the tree house and into a storm which destroys it. This episode features the first appearance of Comic Book Guy and also includes Daniel Stern as the narrator in a "Wonder Years" spoof as Bart stares into thin air to the tune of The Birds' "Turn Turn Turn".

• Blood Feud: The final episode, but another classic. Mr Burns ends up near death and requires a blood transfusion to live, but only with O-negative blood. Only Bart can match that and all Homer gets in return is a thankyou card. In bitter reaction, he sends off a nasty letter but has second thoughts. However, Bart has ensured its delivery and Homer gets fired when it meets with its recipient. After renegotiation, what does he get instead as a thankyou? See below.

What sort of present is that?

The programme has always been made and presented in 4:3 fullscreen and once you get past the occasionally-crude animation, it mostly looks damn good, save for some backgrounds that come out in patches because it appears that the encoding isn't quite up to scratch.

Originally filmed in stereo, there aren't quite as many special effects applied here than there are in later series, but what is has been enhanced with a Dolby Digital 5.1 remix throughout the entire series. This was quite unexpected but most welcome. Even in the scenes where not much action happens, the clarity is the dialogue greatly benefits from this treatment.

So many customer service skills, he should work for Dixons.

Almost all of the extras are on disc 4, with an easter egg appearing on some discs. If you can find it, you get the chance to spin the four heads around onscreen from the episode selection menu and give people different bodies.

Many of the extras below are quite short and are the sort of ones you'd generally watch once.

• American Music Awards (2½ mins): Bart appears at the awards on January 28th 1991, in which Nancy Cartwright, the voice of Bart appears in a suit, but it doesn't quite go to plan. Optional audio commentary is available.

• Music videos (11 mins): The videos for "Do the Bartman" (in director's cut form) and "Deep Deep Trouble" (with an extra backbeat). Optional audio commentary is available for both.

• Butterfinger TV commercials (1½ mins): 3 adverts with the Simpsons, but hardly anyone in the UK will know what they are. They look like Crunchies with peanuts.

• David Silverman on the 'Creation of an episode' (6 mins): How they're put together bit by bit, using "The Raven" from the first Halloween episode, as told by a very dull man whose eyebrows meet in the middle.

• Emmy Awards Presentation (3 mins): The Simpsons, in cartoon form, announce the nominees for an award and comment on audience members.

• Interview with Matt Groening and James L Brooks (10 mins): Standard interview footage along with TV clips. If you've heard either of them describe the cartoon before then you've probably heard most of what they've got to say already.

• Art of the Simpsons: Storyboards for "Bart Gets an F" and "Bart vs. Thanksgiving", some early pre-production sketches and drawings and several magazine covers.

• Foreign Language Clips: Clips of the show dubbed into French, German, Spanish, Hungarian and Portuguese.

• Audio Commentaries: One for each episode, usually featuring creator Matt Groening along with various directors and writers.

Each episode has six chapters which is a good figure and subtitles come in 5 flavours: English for the hearing-impaired, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish.

Despite it losing slight points for picture and sound quality, it's easily worth a purchase because it's high time the Simpsons were on DVD. Now let's have all the other series made available, although some of the most recent episodes have been a little lacking.

FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS
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Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2002.