The Simpsons – Complete Twelfth Season (2000-2001)

by | Sep 5, 2009 | DVD & Blu-ray Video Reviews | 0 comments

The Simpsons – Complete Twelfth Season (2000-2001)

Studio: Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment [Release date: Aug. 19, 09]
Video: 1.33:1 Full frame color
Audio: English 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround, Spanish and French Dolby 2.0 Surround
Subtitles: English, Spanish, and French
Special Features: Introduction from Matt Groening; audio commentaries on all episodes; deleted scenes; two featurettes (“Comic Book Guy: Best. Moments. Ever.” and “Global Fanfest”); multi-angle animation showcases; “A Bit From the Animators” mini-featurettes; original sketches; commercials; special language feature
Box Set Length: 473 minutes
Overall Rating: *****      Video Rating: ****      Audio Rating: ***

The Simpsons is the long-running, Emmy-winning television show currently appearing on Fox television. [And for a dozen years now the best thing on TV in my estimation…Ed.]  In addition to being a cultural phenomenon since the early 1990s, the animated family also starred in its own feature film at the box office in July 2007.  The animated series with adult-oriented humor follows the comic misadventures of Springfield’s favorite family: Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie.  The Simpsons: The Complete Twelfth Season finds the family and other residents of Springfield in excellent form and also includes numerous celebrity guests.  Memorable moments from The Complete Twelfth Season include: Homer becoming a genius once a crayon is removed from his brain in the episode “HOMR”; Sideshow Bob trying to kill Krusty the Clown using a mind-controlled Bart to carry out the plan in “Day of the Jackanapes”; and Bart, Milhouse, Nelson and Ralph becoming a boy band in “New Kids on the Blecch”.  The entire twenty-one episodes from the 2000-2001 season are included on four discs.  

(Disc One: Treehouse of Horror XI, A Tale of Two Springfields, Insane Clown Poppy, Lisa the Tree Hugger, Homer vs. Dignity, plus special features.  Disc Two: The Computer Wore Menace Shoes, The Great Money Caper, Skinner’s Sense of Snow, HOMR, Pokey Mom, Worst Episode Ever, plus special features.  Disc Three: Tennis the Menace, Day of the Jackanapes, New Kids on the Blecch, Hungry Hungry Homer, Bye Bye Nerdie, Simpson Safari, plus special features.  Disc Four: Trilogy of Error, I’m Goin’ to Praiseland, Children of a Lesser Clod, Simpsons Tall Tales, plus special features).  Taken as a whole, The Simpsons: The Complete Twelfth Season is a solid collection of episodes.  Fans of the show will certainly want to add this set to their collections with my one caveat being that the boxed packaging – though clever and packed with interesting collages of Simpson images – is somewhat flimsy and lends itself easily to scratched discs.  Recommended.  [Watching The Simpsons I often wonder what the South Korean animation grunts who do most of the actual work on it make of the outrageous satire in the series…Ed.]    

The overall video quality for this DVD set is very good.  Images are crisp with nice detail.  Colors are vivid and bright with fully-saturated hues.  Black levels are consistently deep throughout.  Picture defect mastering is well-done with no major flaws or compression artifacts.  The overall audio quality is good with the English Dolby Digital 5.1 track.  The soundtrack mix favors the forward soundstage.  Dialogue is natural sounding and properly positioned in the center channel.  The surround channels are sparingly used for both sound effects and the music soundtrack.

– Calvin Harding Jr.

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