The Simpsons: Season Five - 12/21 (1 Viewer)

[WillG]

Forgot about that one. But what I said in my previous post is still true.

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

Going through this season and remembering a conversation from earlier in the thread, it is good that the commentaries remain at high quality. David Merkan is very good at this IMO, I don't know if he has done many commentaries before, but very entertaining and informative.

 

[Andrew Bunk]

I don't remember exactly which episode, but a different episode than Marge On The Lam has someone playing banjo-like chase music, and they pull out the tape and the chase ends. That might be the one Bryan's thinking of...

 

[WillG]

I forget the name of the episode, but it is the one where Homer and Abe sell Abe's sex tonic.

 

[AnthonyC]

I believe it's something like Grandpa vs. Sexual Inadequacy...

 

[Colin Jacobson]

The deleted scenes are actual scenes that NEVER aired, not scenes that were cut for syndication.

 

[Ocean Phoenix]

Today I finally saw what the new Canadian versions of Simpsons DVDs look like...and they're absolutely hideous. There is the french title after the english title for every episode. Does anyone think if people stopped buying Canadian bilingual packaging DVDs, the companies would stop making them? I doubt that will happen, and that's why I'm I'll have to buy Simpsons DVDs from the U.S. from now on. On the bright side, I'm only planning on buying two more seasons after 5. Is anybody else angry about this packaging change?

Someone said earlier in the thread that it shouldn't be a problem because the DVD is identical to the U.S. version except for the loose card with two sets of episode names, but I see this as a big problem. I look at that card a lot to find out what episodes are on each DVD before putting a DVD into my DVD player, and I don't want to have to deal with the frustration of having twice as much text on it to scan through (half of which is useless to me).

 

[Bryan Ri]

On the commentary for Marge on the Lam, on of the paricipants says in the scene I've been complaining about:

"And this time the music is the song Wiggum wants to play."

implying that there was the wrong music in his deck initially.

 

[Chris Bardon]

Ok, that's going a little far... Do you complain about having to turn a box around to see the english text if you happen to see the french side first? It's a card-that's all. If you really don't like it, download a scan of the US version from somewhere and print it out yourself.

I don't think that the bilingual packaging is all that attractive, but it's become a fact like a lot of other things about Canadian life. As long as they don't start changing the disc contents, I'll deal with having to read two titles to every episode on the Simpsons episode cards...

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

Bryan, this is what the episode capsule at SNPP.com has to say.


Go here for entire capsule for this episode

 

[Bryan Ri]

Thanks for that info Casey.

I really must be losing it then, or maybe I'm thinking of a different episode altogehter.


...although the Simpsons RARELY do the same idea twice

 

[Alex-A]

I too was disappointed when I first looked at the packaging for season 5 in the store. I thought they had royally messed up and actually did this to the box itself. I accepted that and brought it home. Then upon opening I discovered that it was just a sleeve placed over the entire set and nothing was changed underneath.

I was surprised and very pleased about this since it meant that I wouldn't have a split collection between english and bilingual.

As for the episode listing on the back you mention, none of my sets show which episodes are on which discs. That info is in the booklet inside the set. The booklet is unchanged. I don't know how everyone else feels but I think it was a smart move to make an extra sleeve for the bilingual notes leaving the original set intact. I hope all future releases here in Canada follow the same pattern if they are to remain "bilingual".

 

[Jeremy Allin]

Agreed. I have no problem with the Simpsons S5 solution. I just took the outer sleeve off and threw it in the garbage. Problemo solved.

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

Well actually, as others pointed out they did kind of use the whole chase gag a few times in just a short 2 or 3 seasons. Truthfully, I wasn't sure either way which is why I had to go to the guide.

 

[Jeff Jacobson]

Is anyone else having trouble playing the "illustrated commentary"? When one of the commmentators draws on the screen, the audio and video gets really choppy. (When this happens, its sounds like everyone is doing a really bad William Shatner impression.) When nobody is drawing on the screen, then everything works just fine.

My DVD Player is a "CyberHome CH-DVD 300".

I've tried two different discs' illustrated commentaries and both have this problem, so I'm guessing my player just can't handle this feature.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

That'd be my guess - it worked just fine on my Panny...

 

[Seth--L]

What's the deal with the deleted scenes not having sound effects? Did they ditch the scenes before the audio was mixed? With the James Bont blackjack scene, if my memory serves me right, when it was shown in the 138th episode it even had music. So did they add music and sound fx for that broadcast, or did someone just forget to include it for this set?

The DVD producers finally got the menus right. Season 3 there were too many screens/menus, Season 4 the animation went on too long (yes I know you could cut if off by hitting the chapter forward button), this time it's perfect.

The commentaries I listened to were ok. More often than past seasons there are multiple people talking at once about completely different things. Nothing against Merkin, but I miss Al Jean and Mike Reiss.

 

[Jeff Jacobson]

I don't remember whether the Bont scene had music, but I wouldn't be surprised. There also was a deleted scene from "Homer and Apu" that did not have music or sound effects on the DVD, but it did when they showed it on the 138th episode special. I guess the music and effects weren't created until they decided to use these deleted scenes in that special. Maybe there's some legal reason they can't use it, but I have no idea what that would be.

 

[Seth--L]

From what I remember, the music was a standard Alf Clausen parody.

 

[Jay Pennington]

The music and effects may have been added specifically for the special.