The Simpsons Christmas 2
Picture: C
Sound: C+ Extras: B Episodes Overall: A
While the good people over at 20th Century Fox
are taking their time and putting in hard work on the season sets of The
Simpsons, they’re taking some time out to put out single-disc compilation
sets featuring four episodes that share a common theme. The best part about these sets comes from
the fact that they feature episodes from more recent seasons. And since at the time of this review, only
five seasons out of sixteen seasons (with more new seasons to come) have been
released, it is nice that fans can get their hands on the more recent episodes
without having to wait years for those season sets to be released. The latest in these compilation discs is The
Simpsons Christmas 2, with the common theme of, yup, you guessed it,
Christmas. In a follow up to last
year’s The Simpsons Christmas, this set includes season twelve’s “Homer
vs. Dignity” and “Skinner’s Sense of Snow,” season fourteen’s “Dude,
Where’s My Ranch?” and season fifteen’s aptly named “’Tis the Fifteenth
Season.”
Now, here’s where it gets a little odd, though. Traditionally, Christmas themed episodes of The
Simpsons come a few weeks before December 25th to tie in nicely
with the holiday season. “Dude
Where’s My Ranch?” did not air until the end of April 2003, making it four
months late on celebrating the festivities.
But to add to the oddity of the episode, only the first few minutes of
the show actually deal with Christmas, as Homer quests to write a new Christmas
song in order to rake in the royalties.
The rest of the episode deals with him escaping his own song and the
countless covers/remixes it has inspired by vacationing on a dude ranch with
his family. Therefore, to even think of
it as a Christmas episode is a pretty big stretch. And the oddness continues with the fact that “Homer vs.
Dignity” and “Skinner’s Sense of Snow” only mention Christmas for a
very few minutes of the episode. The
only true Christmas episode is “’Tis the Fifteenth Season” as it deals
fully with Christmas. Phew! Confused yet? I know I am. While all
these episodes are hilarious and well done, it seems odd, when you actually
look hard at it, to really think of them belonging together on a Christmas
compilation disc. Oh well, I guess.
The four episodes come on a single-disc in a “Simpsons’”
shade of yellow Amaray case. There is
no insert included with the disc.
Unfortunately, unlike the menus on the season sets, the menus for this
disc are not animated and are spread thin on variety. Each episode contains a sub-menu for audio set-up options, and
each episode uses the same image for its background. The only variety in sub-menus comes with the only extra on the
disc. Continuing their tradition, each
episode is split into chapters and the entire disc can be watched with the
“Play All” option.
The video is presented in its standard television
broadcast ratio of 1.33:1. Alas, the
quality of the video here is far less than the wonderfully remastered video
included on season sets. While there
are not overall glaringly horrible mistakes, the number of minor mistakes adds
up to make for a poor presentation of the episodes. There are moments of minor dirt and dust. Occasionally there will be black and/or
white spots on the image. Black lines,
while solid and dark for the most part, have some instances where they break
up. In “Homer vs. Dignity,”
there was a few moments where there was a haloing effect around Homer and
Burns’ eyes. But perhaps the worst
instance of video mistakes came in “Dude Where’s My Ranch?” and “’Tis
the Fifteenth Season,” where multiple times, if there were any black lines
on a diagonal, or a slant, or a curve, there would be a flickering effect that
made it look like rainbows were coming from them. This is the result of poor NTSC analog encoding and interlacing
errors that just shouldn’t happen anymore.
However, not to completely bludgeon and diminish the video, the best
thing it has going for itself is the fact that the colors are rich and solid,
showing no sides of deterioration or fading.
This comes from the fact that these episodes are more recent and some of
them are colored by computer. This is
not quite the same as black and white films and cartoons being colorized, but
can have the same problems.
The audio is presented in a variety of way. “Homer vs. Dignity” and “Skinner’s
Sense of Snow” offer English, French, and Spanish 2.0 Dolby Digital Stereo
Surround with the option of English or Spanish subtitles. “Dude Where’s My Ranch?” and “’Tis
the Fifteenth Season” offer English and Spanish 2.0 Dolby Digital Stereo
Surround with the option of English, French, or Spanish subtitles. I honestly don’t know why there is a variety
amongst the episodes. Logically, it
seems like all four episodes should be presented with the same audio
options. The show uses the center
channel for the most part for dialogue and sound effects. The bad part is that often times it seems like
that the sound effects in the center channel are a bit too loud and overshadow
dialogue. The left and right stereo
speakers are used well and make good use of music (particularly the opening
credits), directional sound effects, and off-screen dialogue. But this mix is no 5.1 Dolby Digital mix
that has been remastered like the one available on the season sets.
The only extra on this set is an animatic for the first
act of “’Tis the Fifteenth Season.”
The animatic comes with a Picture In Picture feature that displays the
storyboards and final product for the first act in two boxes on the lower
right-hand and left-hand corners. Using
the “Angle” button on your DVD remote allows you to rotate the Picture In
Picture to have the storyboards as the main video with the final product and
animatic in the lower boxes, or to have the final product as the main video
with the animatic and the storyboards in the lower boxes. The animatic is a nice treat for this set,
as in previous compilation discs all you got were montages of specific
characters on the show. However, the
one problem with the animatic and the Picture In Picture is that with three
different things being displayed at once, it becomes hard to concentrate and
focus on each one.
Considering that fans know that the video will be
remastered and the audio given a 5.1 Dolby Digital mix for the season sets, it
seems almost insulting for FOX to give fans such a shoddy product. While I had mainly good things to say in my The
Simpsons Gone Wild (the previous compilation disc) DVD review, I feel like
I can no longer endorse these single-disc sets when the time and effort that is
put into them doesn’t equal the time and effort put into the season sets. Don’t get me wrong; I love The Simpsons
and I absolutely love the season sets for the show, but these single-disc sets
don’t serve the show justice. I implore
Fox (network and studio) to stop making these single-disc sets when they could
focus all their time and energy on the quality season sets and getting them to
the fans as quickly as possible.
- Antonio
Lopez - The Simpsons Geek
