The Simpsons-Gone Wild (2001)

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General		Extras
Category	Animation	Featurette-Krusty The Clown: King Of Comedy Trailer-The Simpsons DVD Collection
Rating
Year Of Production	2001
Running Time	87:19
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Steven Dean Moore Rich Moore Jim Reardon Susie Dietter
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	Dan Castellaneta Julie Kavner Nancy Cartwright Yeardley Smith Hank Azaria Harry Shearer
Case	?
RPI	$24.95	Music	Danny Elfman

    The Simpsons? What can I possibly say that hasn't already been said about this little show? Well it is now well into its 15th season and continues to rate well, sell loads of DVDs and make a fortune for its creators. I cannot call myself a fanatic but I have always enjoyed the antics of Homer, Bart, Lisa, Maggie, Marge, Monty Burns, Principal Skinner and the rest of the motley crew. Don't worry, I won't annoy you with a potted history or a long essay on its worthiness and its power to change the culture of the USA. You know what it is and how good it is, or you wouldn't be reading this review. I'll just let you know what's on this disc and get out of your way.

    As with a number of these recent non-box set releases of The Simpsons, this disc contains four episodes loosely linked together by a common theme. The theme this time is Gone Wild which indicates that all the episodes are related to some form of party or other form of cutting loose. The four episodes included here span from the first season (1990) up until 2001 and include the following:

1. Homer's Night Out (1990) - This episode is from the first season. Homer gets invited to a stag party and is photographed dancing with a stripper (by Bart). Of course, the photograph is widely distributed and Homer has a lot of explaining to do. For me this is this weakest episode here but is still pretty good.
2. Sunday Cruddy Sunday (1999) - Homer gets a free trip to the Superbowl only to find that he doesn't get to see the game. This episode is probably the best one here and a personal favourite of mine. It features an hysterically funny advertisement for the Catholic Church and voice cameos by Dolly Parton, Rupert Murdoch, John Madden, Troy Aikman & Dan Marino.
3. The Mansion Family (2000) - Another funny episode in which Monty Burns goes to the Mayo clinic and gets the Simpson family to look after his mansion. Needless to say, things do not go well. This episode features a voice cameo by Britney Spears.
4. Homer the Moe (2001) - Although not quite as good as 2 & 3 above this is still a very good episode in which Moe decides to visit his old college leaving Homer in charge of the bar. On his return he decides to renovate. This one features R.E.M doing an excellent job of making fun of themselves and their greenie image.

    A couple of minor annoyances - this disc has more copyright warnings than I have ever seen in one place before. You get them when you first put the disc in and then before AND after each episode. Also, the spots for ad breaks have not been removed, so the screen goes to black for a second or two every five to ten minutes.

    So, if these episodes are of interest to you and you don't plan to get all the season box sets as they are released, this disc is worth checking out.

Video

    The video quality is generally excellent except for the first episode.

    The feature is presented in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio non 16x9 enhanced which is the original aspect ratio.

    The picture was very clear and sharp throughout, with no evidence of low level noise. Episode 1 was less sharp than the others and included some mild grain. It is nearly 10 years older than the other three episodes.

    The colour was very good throughout with all colours being well saturated and free from colour bleeding. There was some chroma noise in the episode from 1990.

    There were no other noticeable artefacts.

    There are subtitles in ten languages including English. The English subtitles accurately reflected the spoken words but I found them a little too small.

    This is a dual layer disc but the layer change must fall between episodes as I did not notice it.
    

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The audio quality is good.

    This DVD contains five audio options, an English Dolby Digital 2.0 surround soundtrack encoded at 192 Kb/s and the same in French, German, Italian & Spanish. The surround encoding seemed to help with the theme tune but didn't make much of an impact otherwise.

    Dialogue was clear and easy to understand. There were no problems with audio sync.    

    The theme by Danny Elfman is extremely well known and very catchy. Other music was written by Alf Clausen.

    The surround speakers were virtually not used at all except during the theme tune.

    The subwoofer was not used.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    The menu is a simple affair with no music or motion. It allows for each episode to be played or for specific scenes to be selected and allows access to the extras.

Featurette : Krusty the Clown - King of Comedy (2:19)

    A short selection of Krusty moments from various episodes.

The Simpsons Generic Trailer (1:17)

    An advertisement for the range of available DVDs.

    This disc will be available in the same configuration in Region 1 once it is released.

    The video quality ranges from good (1 episode) to excellent (3 episodes).

    The audio quality is good.

    The disc has two small extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall