The Simpsons-Dark Secrets (1989) |
BUY IT |
General | Extras | ||
Category | Comedy |
Trailer-The Simpsons Complete First And Second Seasons Trailer-The Simpsons Film Festival & Backstage Pass Trailer-The Simpsons Treehouse Of Horror & Risky Business |
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Rating | |||
Year Of Production | 1989 | ||
Running Time | 86:23 | ||
RSDL / Flipper | Dual Layered | Cast & Crew | |
Start Up | Menu | ||
Region Coding | 2,4 | Directed By |
Neil Affleck Bob Anderson Mikel B. Anderson Wesley Archer |
Studio
Distributor |
Twentieth Century Fox |
Starring |
Dan Castellaneta Julie Kavner Nancy Cartwright Yeardley Smith Hank Azaria Harry Shearer Marcia Wallace Phil Hartman Tress MacNeille Pamela Hayden Maggie Roswell Russi Taylor Doris Grau |
Case | ? | ||
RPI | $24.95 | Music |
Alf Clausen Ray Colcord Danny Elfman |
Video | Audio | ||
Pan & Scan/Full Frame | Full Frame |
English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) |
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Widescreen Aspect Ratio | None | ||
16x9 Enhancement | No | ||
Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
Original Aspect Ratio | 1.33:1 | Miscellaneous | |
Jacket Pictures | No | ||
Subtitles |
English for the Hearing Impaired Danish Dutch Finnish French German Italian Norwegian Spanish Swedish French Titling German Titling Italian Titling Spanish Titling |
Smoking | Yes |
Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
Action In or After Credits | No |
The Simpsons Dark Secrets is a collection of four classic episodes chosen by the Fox Home Entertainment executives for a little marketing on DVD alongside the full season releases. On this disc we have:
I, like many others, love this wacky dysfunctional family, and have been watching this series for however long it has been since they were first introduced to Australian TV. Personally, Homer Badman is my favourite amongst these four, with some truly hilarious moments, but they all bring out the chuckles.
For anyone who is a fan, these are four great episodes collected together for one easy viewing experience. My only question is - why get just these four when you can get a whole season in a boxed set? You see, a Simpsons DVD is like a fridge, about 6 foot tall, 180 pounds. No, wait. A Simpsons DVD is more like a beer. You crack her open and drink down all that fizzy goodness. But you cant stop at just one you have to have them all!
Presented in 1.33:1, Full Frame, which is the original broadcast aspect ratio, the picture quality is a bit of a mish-mash.
Colours are fairly rich, but the image is prone to cross-colouration in closely cropped lines.
Otherwise, the image is fairly well defined and (unsurprisingly) dirt free.
MPEG artefacts are absent, and film-to-video transfer artefacts are minimal with only the mild cross-colouration I mentioned earlier and some minor aliasing and dot-crawl in the background.
Subtitles are available in English for the Hearing Impaired, regular English, Danish, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, Norwegian and Swedish. They appear as white with a grey/black border and are easy to read. They do not convey the dialogue word for word, but the general gist of the dialogue is kept.
The dual-layer pause is in between the episodes, with two episodes per layer.
Sharpness | |
Shadow Detail | |
Colour | |
Grain/Pixelization | |
Film-To-Video Artefacts | |
Film Artefacts | |
Overall |
Audio is available in the original broadcast English 2.0 Dolby Surround as well as in French, German, Spanish and Italian.
This is a fairly front-driven experience with a few left-right directional cues.
Dialogue is always clear and easy to follow. The music gives a little life to the rears.
There is no subwoofer use.
Dialogue | |
Audio Sync | |
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts | |
Surround Channel Use | |
Subwoofer | |
Overall |
All menus are presented in 1.33:1 Full Frame. They are static and silent.
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
From what I can tell, this compilation was not released in R1 they went straight for the complete season DVD releases.
The Simpsons Classics Dark Secrets of The Simpsons is a nice little collection of episodes.
Good video, though not fantastic.
This audio is fairly standard but gets the job done.
The extras are promotional.
Video | |
Audio | |
Extras | |
Plot | |
Overall |
Review Equipment | |
DVD | Panasonic DVD-RV31A-S, using S-Video output |
Display | Beko 28" (16x9). This display device is 16x9 capable. |
Audio Decoder | Built in to amplifier/receiver. |
Amplification | Marantz SR7000 |
Speakers | Energy - Front, Rear, Centre & Subwoofer |