The Simpsons: The Complete 20th Season DVD Set

Posted by Michael Weyer on 01.24.2010

Worst. Simpsons season set. Ever.

The Simpsons the Complete 20th Season
20th Century Fox
456 Minutes




　
Twenty years is an eternity for a television show. In prime-time, only three series have managed that feat: Gunsmoke, Law & Order and The Simpsons. It’s an amazing feat when you think about it. There is an entire generation who have never known a world without Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa or the rest, who can’t understand how things were without them. That the show still manages to put out great quality episodes after all this time, finding fresh new ways to turn on their formulas, is a true achievement.

To mark the show’s 20th year, Fox has made the surprising decision to put out the 20th season on DVD, despite the fact seasons 13 through 19 have yet to make it. Sadly, it’s not the celebration of an era you’d expect as the extras are about non-existent. But at least the episodes themselves are for the most part strong and show how, after all these years, the world of Springfield can still produce better laughs and sharper parody than any other show on TV.
　

The Series

A quick look at what the four discs offer:
　
　Sex, Pies and Idiot Scrapes: After an alcohol-free St. Patrick’s Day ends in a massive brawl, Homer finds himself becoming a bounty hunter with Flanders as his partner. Meanwhile, Marge goes to work at an Irish bakery that sells suggestive wares.
　
Lost Verison: Hurt by being the only kid to not have a cell phone, Bart ends up stealing one from Dennis Leary and going on a prank-call rampage. Leary decides to teach Bart a lesson by letting him keep the phone while Marge uses the GPS system to keep an eye on Bart all the time.
　
Double, Double, Boy in Trouble: After acting out at a party and causing Homer to lose a $50,000 lottery ticket, Bart is outcast but switches places with a rich boy who’s an exact look-a-like. Bart lives it up at Simon’s mansion (where Joe Montana hangs around the yard) while Simon is at first annoyed at the Simpson home until he receives some loving attention from Marge. However, Bart’s grand new life is jarred when he realizes Simon’s siblings are out to murder him.
　
Treehouse of Horror XIX: The intro has Homer trying to vote for Obama but the machine keeps counting it for McCain. “Untitled Robot Parody” has the town coming between two forces of shape-changing robots. “How to Get Ahead in Dead-Vertising” has Homer accidentally killing Krusty and a group of ad agents let him know that you don’t have to pay for the likenesses of celebrities in ads if they’re dead. Soon, Homer is on a celeb-killing spree until their ghosts strike back. “It’s the Grand Pumpkin, Millhouse” is the long-awaited “Peanuts” parody as Millhouse’s belief in the creature leads to a monster rampage.

Dangerous Curves: Homer and Marge remember when they were dating in their twenties, meeting the young Ned and Maude Flanders and facing various problems in their marriage.
　
Homer and Lisa Exchange Cross Words: Lisa becomes obsessed with crossword puzzles and enters a competition unaware Homer is wagering on her chances.
　
Mypods and Boomsticks: Bart befriends a Muslim boy whose father Homer naturally believes is a terrorist. Lisa gets into a Mypod but is unaware of how huge a bill she’s running in downloaded songs.
　
The Burns and the Bees: After winning a basketball team in a card game, Mr. Burns decides to build a new stadium for them…right where Lisa is trying to set up a bee sanctuary.
　
Lisa the Drama Queen: Lisa meets a girl named Juliet (Emily Blunt) who shares her fantasy world that Lisa is soon drawn into, ignoring her responsibilities to the real one.
　
Take My Life, Please: Finding out how successful a former classmate has become, Homer gets a glimpse of how he could have had a better life if a class election had gone differently.
　
How the Test Was Won: Lisa is devastated when Bart gets a perfect score on a standardized test, making her crazy when he heads on a special trip. What she and Bart don’t know is that he failed the test and the trip is a scheme to get rid of the worst students in school.

No Loan Again, Naturally: For years, Homer has been using the house’s home equity loan to pay for his extravagant Mardi Gras parties. Needless to say, this blows up in his face when the mortgage rate skyrockets and they can’t pay. Feeling sorry for them, Ned steps in and buys the house but soon discovers the family are less than ideal tenants.

Gone, Maggie, Gone: Marge goes blind after a solar eclipse and Homer has to handle the housework. When Maggie goes missing, Homer tries to hide her disappearance while discovering a bizarre conspiracy at work.

In the Name of the Grandfather: Trying to cheer Grandpa up, Homer takes him to Ireland and after a drunken night, they buy a local pub. They try to run it only to discover pubs are no longer popular in Ireland.

Wedding for Disaster: When Reverend Lovejoy discovers he wasn’t certified when he married Homer and Marge, they try to renew their vows. However, before he can, Homer is kidnapped and finds himself put through some Saw-like challenges as Bart and Lisa suspect Sideshow Bob of being behind this.

Eeny Teenay Maya Moe: Moe meets a woman he’s been dating online but is thrown when she’s a dwarf. Meanwhile, Maggie finds herself assaulted by baby bullies.

The Good, the Sad and the Drugly: Bart meets a girl (Anne Hathaway) and tries to be good in order to impress her. After going nuts over fears of how Springfield will be ruined in 50 years, Lisa is put on “happy pills.”

Father Knows Worst: After a mom criticizes his parenting skills, Homer tries to be the perfect dad to Bart and Lisa. Meanwhile, Marge finds a sauna hidden in the basement and loses herself in it.

Waverly Hills 9-0-2-1-D’oh: After realizing just how low-rent Springfield Elementary is, Marge and Homer rent an apartment in the upscale Waverly Hills district to enroll Bart and Lisa there. Bart soon has the students in awe with his “bad boy” status. Seeing Lisa is having trouble fitting in, Bart tells everyone she’s friends with singing star Alaska Nebraska (Ellen Page).

Four Great Women and a Manicure A debate at the beauty parlor of how a woman can be strong, smart and beautiful leads to an anthology ep: Marge as Queen Elizabeth I (with Homer as Walter Raleigh); Lisa as Snow White; Marge again as Lady MacBeth; and Maggie as a character from The Fountainhead. Notable for being the lowest-rated episode in the show’s history.

Coming to Homerica: After their local economy plummets thanks to Krusty’s veggie burgers, citizens of Ogdenville come to Springfield. When their Norwegian lifestyles clash with Springfielders, Homer is assigned by the mayor to set up a border patrol.




By now, the writers and producers are well-versed in how to make the show work with the characters and tempos. Yes, there are the clichés of Homer being dumb, Bart acting out and Lisa’s good-hearted nature getting her in trouble while Marge is the voice of sanity in the madness of the town. But they still manage to find new ways to use those characters, to make you care about what they do and laugh at the various goings-on. That’s a strength that the show pulls off better than most series a quarter of its age, which speaks volumes on the quality still apparent.

It’s true that some episodes don’t click well. “Four Smart Women” has a good setup but falls flat in its execution (although the Queen Elizabeth stuff is nice) and the “Bees” episode is yet another retread of “Lisa stands up for the environment/Mr. Burns is evil” plot the show’s gone to several times before. “Enay” has a good idea but is a bit too pushy on the “accepting all flaws” theme. It’s true that even a bad Simpsons episode is better than 80% of the rest of network TV but it still jars when they can’t click well.

However, when the show is good, it’s great. “Mypods” is wonderful on two levels: First the social commentary of Homer’s terror on Arab influence on Springfield which is even funnier when you realize that there are people who honestly believe in that thing. Second is the great send-up of Steve Jobs and how he’s worshiped so much (“How dare you mock the man we kicked out a decade ago and then took back?!”). As ever the “Treehouse” episode is a highlight with their robot parody better than both Transformers movies combined and the <>Peanuts send-up wonderfully captures the flavor of that classic cartoon with a wicked spin (and the brief Mad Men credits sequence is fun too) and fun bits like Edward G. Robinson accusing Chief Wiggum of ripping him off.

“No Loan” is one of the best of the series, taking sharp barbs at the housing crisis with the great touch that for once, you can’t say Homer is the only person who’d do something this stupid with his home equity and that leads to fun clashes with Flanders and the family. On that, while “Curves” can retread old ground of Homer and Marge’s past, it was fun to see Maude Flanders back briefly. Lisa gets good stuff in a couple of episodes touching on how, while seeming so smart and sane, she’s as big a mess inside as the rest of the bunch with her insecurities about being on top with her intelligence and her trying to fit in as a normal kid. Bart has nice material with his look-alike episode and also showing that soft side deep inside with “The Good, the Sad and the Drugly.” “Take My Life” is a highlight for it plays with the classic TV cliché of “what might have been,“ as Homer realizes how bad his current life is compared to what he could have had. It may be familiar in a lot of ways but that just adds to how much you enjoy watching the family go through their unique motions.



As always, the attraction of the show on DVD is being able to rewind and freeze-frame all the background sight gags and quick quips. As ever, the humor is drawn from all over with some jokes that may go over the heads of a few in the audience (like a pastor obviously based on Bing Crosby) but when they hit the bull’s-eye, it’s always good for laughs (such as their send-up of not just the whole DaVinci Code craze but how people are so eager to believe such insane conspiracy tales). The guest stars are a good mix with Kelsey Grammer back as Sideshow Bob, Dennis Leary poking fun at his own hot-tempered persona and Hathaway, Page and Blunt really fill out their characters well. Some shows are just pure silliness (being of Irish descent, enjoyed the shots at Ireland hating pubs) while others manage to skewer public sentiment and current events better than any other comedy on TV.

There’s a shift mid-way through that coincides with the show’s move to high-definition, with a new opening credits sequence that seems to give the season some new energy. Twenty years and the show still manages to wring out some fantastic laughs which is a testament for any show and the animated style makes it all the better.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.0


Video

The first nine episodes are full screen 1.33:1 while the latter 12 are widescreen 1.78:1. Naturally, the last dozen HD episodes are much more crisp that the previous ones although those early eps are still sharp as well with no visible decompression. The shift is pretty bold and the discs do a fantastic job carrying that change over for a terrific showcase.

Rating: 9.0


Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1 with subtitles in English, Spanish and Portuguese. The audio is always clear throughout the set, matching the music with the dialogue well and the subtitles help with the often clever lines, allowing you to enjoy the show clearly.

Rating: 9.0 out of 10.0

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Bonus Features

The set comes in a plastic cover with the anniversary logo (Homer strangling Bart in the middle of a 20) housing the main set. The box can open up to show a large envelope which, when opened completely, has a fantastic collage of every character who’s ever been on the show. I’m talking guest stars, celebrities, one-episode or even one-scene featured players, all mixed together in a great tribute to the series.

Unfortunately, that’s the only bonus you get. It’s stunning that a set that seems so easy to put retrospectives of the show on is bare of just about anything. No commentaries, no features, no cast/crew interviews, nothing whatsoever. Given the great extras of previous sets, this is a shocking omission on Fox’s part.

All we get is a 3 minute preview of the 20th anniversary documentary by Morgan Spurlock that aired on FOX two days before the DVD’s release. Yes, a preview of a special that had aired before anyone bought the disc. It’s obvious the studio was trying to cash in on the 20th year but the producers of the show were reluctant to do anything big for it. Ten to one, once they get through the previous seven seasons, they’ll redo this one which makes this a true waste of a milestone for fans.

Rating: 1.0 out of 10.0

The 411: The season itself is good with the shift to HD giving a shot in the arm while continuing to provide fantastic laughs and sharp commentary after two decades. However, the appalling lack of any bonus features make this a disappointment for fans. Rather than being a celebration of a great era and show, it's just an average set which the series deserves so much better of.

Final Score:  7.0   [ Good ]