The Simpsons-The Simpsons go to Hollywood (1989)

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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
Rating
Year Of Production	1989
Running Time	87:47
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

    This is another collection of four Simpsons episodes on a single disc, taken from various seasons. The episodes are based on a common theme - either featuring famous Hollywood actors as guest stars or featuring mini-parodies of various Hollywood movies.

When You Dish Upon A Star (21:54)

    The Simpsons goes on a day trip to visit Lake Springfield. Homer accidentally discovers that that movie stars Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger has moved into a secluded house nearby - by crashing through their skylight whilst water-gliding. Soon he becomes their "houseboy" doing their errands and chores for them, on condition he safeguards their privacy and not tell anyone in the town that they are living there. Their friend Ron Howard pays a visit and soon they and Homer are friends.

    Of course, Homer can't really keep a secret and soon the whole town is at the front gate hoping to catch a glimpse of the stars. They feel that Homer has betrayed them and kick him out of the house. He gets his revenge by displaying their personal items to the public and soon Homer and the stars are having it out in a car chase scene!

Fear of Flying (21:38)

    Homer is kicked out of Moe's bar for going too far with a practical joke, and decides to find a different bar to hang out in. He tries out various bars around town, including one that looks suspiciously like Cheers and another that is a lesbian hangout before getting into "The Little Black Box" - a bar reserved for airline pilots. Whilst in the bar, Homer causes a little "accident". In order to avoid publicity, Crazy Clown Airlines give the Simpsons family free air tickets to a destination of their choice. However, Marge discovers she has a fear of flying.

    Homer persuades Marge to see a psychiatrist (who reminds us of Barbra Streisand in The Prince Of Tides). Dr. Zweig gets Marge to relive her childhood memories and dreams (including one which is a parody of Lost In Space and another featuring the airplane in a field scene from North By Northwest). Will Marge ever find out the reason for her fear of flying, and will she ever be cured?

    Guest stars in this episode include Anne Bancroft, Ted Danson, and Woody Harrelson.

Krusty Gets Kancelled (22:11)

    This episode opens with a parody entitled The Springfield Squares, starring Rainier Wolfcastle (an "Arnie" like movie star), Barry White, ...

    A new TV variety show starring Gabbo the ventriloquist's dummy suddenly makes Krusty the Klown lose his popularity. Fairly soon his show is cancelled. Fortunately, Bart and Lisa have a cunning little plan: to persuade some of Krusty's friends, including Johnny Carson, Hugh Hefner, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Bette Midler and Luke Perry to join Krusty as guest stars in a Krusty Komeback Special! The only star to miss out is Liz Taylor, much to her disgust.

    As you would expect, we get to hear Krusty sing Send Me The Clowns.

Flaming Moe's (22:04)

    This episode opens with a parody entitled "Eye On Springfield."

    Lisa is having a slumber party, and the girls decide to give Bart a makeover ...

    Homer goes to Moe's bar, but discovers Moe is out of beer. Homer teaches Moe a cocktail drink recipe that Homer discovered by accident. Surprisingly, the drink is delicious, especially after it's been lit. Moe starts serving the drink at his bar, and soon everyone wants to have a glass ...

    Moe takes the credit for the drink and renames it "Flaming Moe." Homer is angry that Moe stole his drink, and decides to get even ...

    Special guest stars in this episde include Aerosmith and they sing the end credits.

Video

    The transfer is in the original aspect ratio of 1.33:1.

    The episodes look like they may have been sourced from a composite video master on analog tape. Although detail and colour saturation levels were good, I noticed a few composite video artefacts, such as dot crawl on the left and right edges of the frame. There is also low level video noise evident in some of the images, particularly noticeable on areas of a similar colour.

    In addition, there may have an NTSC to PAL conversion somewhere along the process, as very fast pans look a bit juddery, and vertical slow pans exhibit signs of smearing/aliasing.

    Compression artefacts are limited to the occasional macro-blocking and posterization, but at fairly minimal levels.

    There are lots of subtitle tracks, including English for the Hearing Impaired, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Spanish, Swedish, plus French Titling, German Titling, Italian Titling, and Spanish Titling. The English for the Hearing Impaired track includes descriptions of background music, sound effects and the very occasional dialogue attribution. Dialogue accuracy seems to be reasonable.

    This is a single sided dual layered disc (RSDL). When You Dish Upon A Star and Fear of Flying are on Layer 0, and Krusty Gets Kancelled and Flaming Moe's are on Layer 1. The layer change is at the very end of Fear of Flying.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are five audio tracks on the disc: 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), and Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s).

    The audio quality is typical for broadcast TV, i.e. somewhat compressed to provide relatively high average volume levels.

    Although none of the tracks have the surround-encoding flag set, the episodes were recorded in Dolby Surround. Engaging the Dolby Pro Logic II decoder reveals some surround usage, mainly background music and the occasional panning of sound effects to the rear.

    I noticed that some kind of noise reduction processing has been applied to the soundtrack, presumably because the analog video master has some degree of tape hiss. The noise reduction leaves behind some artefacts, such as a pumping hissing noise whenever the characters speak. This is particularly noticeable in Homer's dialogue but actually occurs with all the characters. Other than that, the dialogue quality is acceptable.

    I did not notice any audio synchronization issues due to the transfer, but like many animated programmes the lip sync is often not quite perfect.

    The Simpson's theme song (by Danny Elfman) is no doubt familiar to many viewers, but in addition many of the episodes feature music from some of the guest stars including Red Hot Chili Peppers and Aerosmith. Other incidental background music is by Alf Clausen.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    The only extras on this disc are a number of Simpsons-related trailers. All of these are presented in full frame and Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) and are subtitled.

Menu

    The menu is full frame and static, although the copyright messages and Fox logo played as an introduction are 16x9 enhanced. Each episode comes with its own setup and scene selection submenus, and in addition you can play all episodes in sequence.

Trailer- The Simpsons Complete First Season DVD Collector's Edition (1:05)

    This is a promotional trailer advertising the DVD and Video editions.

Trailer- The Simpsons Complete Second Season DVD Collector's Edition (1:09)

    Ditto, but this time only the DVD edition is mentioned (no Video?).

Trailer- The Simpsons Film Festival (0:32)

    This is another collection of Simpsons episodes relating to movies, available on DVD and Video.

Trailer - The Simpsons Backstage Pass (0:32)

    Ditto, but featuring Simpson episodes relating to famous rock musicians, such as The Who, The Smashing Pumpkins and ... ahem ... Spinal Tap.

Trailer- The Simpsons Treehouse Of Horror (0:32)

    A collection of Simpsons episodes based on the horror genre.

Trailer- The Simpsons Risky Business (0:32)

    A collection of work related episodes.

    This particular collection does not appear to be released in Region 1, but the Region 4 version appears identical to various Region 2 versions apart from language and subtitle differences.

    The Simpsons Go To Hollywood is yet another collection of four Simpsons episodes, all featuring various Hollywood celebrities as guest stars or parodies of Hollywood movies.

    The video quality is acceptable.

    The audio quality is acceptable.

    The extras are basically trailers for other Simpsons collections available on DVD.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall