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Released by: 20th Century Fox
Released on: December 6, 2011.
Director: Various
Cast: Various
Year: 2002/2003
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The Movies:
The Simpsons is a huge part of our collective pop culture. The longest running animated sit-com of all time has gone on to become as identifiable as The Flintstones or The Jetsons and the clever writing and interesting cast of characters ensures that the series is just as vital and popular today as it was when it first began to air a decade and a half ago. Though the series rarely hits the high notes that it did a few years ago, it still maintains a rabid cult following and is generally better than 90% of anything else on network television. There's no point in spending a lot of time talking about the show's premise, as anyone reading this is no doubt already familiar with the exploits of Matt Groening's now iconic creations, the first family of Springfield.
By the time that the fourteenth season rolled around, the characters were all pretty well established and then some. While this season isn't the strongest in the run, it's still got a lot of worthwhile moments and more than a few stand out episodes. Here's a play by play of what episodes appear on each of the three discs contained in this set:
DISC ONE:
Treehouse Of Horror XII - Homer clones himself in a hammock, Lisa gets Springfield to get rid of their guns just in time for a zombie Billy The Kid to attack and Doctor Hibbert goes all Dr. Moreau on the Springfielders.
How I Spent My Strummer Vacation - When Marge realizes Homer gave up his dreams to raise the family, she sends him to rock n roll fantasy camp where he hangs out with Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Setzer, Elvis Costello and Tom Petty, the later of whom is very concerned about the state of public schools.
Bart Vs. Lisa Vs. The Third Grade - When Bart spends too much time watching TV he flunks out and gets demoted to the third grade where he winds up in the same class as Lisa.
Large Marge - Marge accidently gets breast implants and Homer approves until she takes on a new life as a tradeshow model. Krusty proves to be a bad influence on the kids and has to make his show more safety oriented than ever before.
Helter Shelter - When the family home gets infested with termites the Simpsons have to leave for a while so the exterminators can fumigate. They wind up on a reality show where they have to live like it's the late 1800s, but wind up being thrust into the woods to survive on their own when ratings take a nosedive.
The Great Louse Detective - When Homer is almost killed in a spa when the family wins a weekend getaway, Chief Wiggum decides that in order to catch the killer he has to hire Sideshow Bob to live with the Simpsons - he and Homer soon figure out that Frank Grimes Jr. is out to avenge his father's death!
Special Edna- Ms. Krabapple is losing faith in her relationship with Skinner and so Bart decides to cheer her up by nominating her for 'teacher of the year.' She and the Simpsons wind up at Epcot Center when Skinner shows up to try to prove his love to Edna.
DISC TWO:
The Dad Who Knew Too Little - Homer hires a private detective to spy on Lisa and find out what she's interested in when Lisa calls him on his ignorance of her life.
The Strong Arm Of The Ma - Marge starts working out and gets a taste of the bodybuilding lifestyle, but it all goes wrong when she starts taking steroids and hulks out on the family and everyone around her.
Pray Anything - When Homer starts to figure out that praying gets him everything he wants, he asks for a nicer place to live. Later he's injured at church, sues, and takes the building. He and the family move in, but Homer intends to use it as a party palace until Springfield looks like it's to be washed away in a flood.
Barting Over - Bart finds out he was a child actor in the Baby Stinkbreath commercials and that Homer spent all his money. He gets emancipated from his family and moves into a loft apartment and eventually hangs out with Tony Hawk and Blink 182. Homer has to find out a way to win back his son's love in this, the series' 300th episode.
I'm Spelling As Fast As I Can - Lisa is asked to take a dive in the national spelling bee and lured with the promise of an Ivy League scholarship. She declines and learns the hard way not to mess with the spelling bee administration!
A Star Is Born Again - Ned Flanders meets a beautiful blonde, completely unaware that she's a sexy actress named Sara Sloan. They hit it off and fall head over heels for one another, but things get complicated when she wants to have sex out of wedlock with ultra religious Ned.
Mr. Spritz Goes To Washington - The Simpsons' congressman dies before he can help them get the air traffic route that's been directed over their house fixed. Krusty runs in the dead man's place but he soon learns that the political system is corrupt and useless and that only Walter Mondale can help.
C.E.D'oh - When Homer doesn't get the promotion he wants he winds up, through a series of missteps, becoming the new CEO of the power plant. Homer fires Burns and takes charge but soon finds that this is affecting his family life.
DISC THREE:
'Scuse Me While I Miss The Sky - A British documentary filmmaker (voiced by Monty Python's Eric Idle) decides to make a 'tell all' film about Springfield Elementary and expose the school's inadequacies unless Lisa can stop him.
Three Gays Of The Condo - When Homer finds out that Marge, at one point in their dating years, intended to dump him he moves out and winds up taking a room in a condo with two gay guys (one of whom is Scott Thompson of Kids In The Hall fame). Can Weird Al Yankovic save Marge and Homer's marriage? Duh! Of course he can.
Dude, Where's My Ranch? - Homer writes a song about how much he hates Ned which, when the Talking Heads' David Byrne gets a hold of it, turns out to be such a hit that the family moves to a dude ranch to get away from it all. Lisa falls in love while Homer and Bart decide to rid the land of beavers so an Indian tribe can build a casino.
Old Yeller Belly - When Santa's Little Helper doesn't save Homer from a fire and the cat does instead, the dog finds himself on the skids. Bart tries to get him back in his dad's good graces by trying to make him the new spokes-dog for Duff Beer.
Brake My Wife, Please - When Homer loses his license he soon takes to walking until Marge accidently runs him over, at which point he starts to wonder if Marge is trying to kill him. They go to a marriage counselor who tells Homer to do one thing for his wife to prove he loves her and so he throws her a party.
The Bart Of War - The season finale finds Moe about to kill himself until Maggie literally falls into her arms and, by no fault of his own, he saves her life. Maggie takes a shining to the bartender who turns over a new life, but things get complicated when Homer and Marge feel he's getting too close to Maggie to the point where it's starting to get pretty creepy.
Moe Baby Blues -
Video/Audio/Extras:
The Simpsons Season 14 arrives on Blu-ray in a nice AVC encoded 1080p image, with each episode presented fullframe, are upconverted to 1080p. The episodes look decent here - the colors are nice, there's decent depth and detail in the image and the picture is well authored in that there are no compression artifacts or edge enhancement issues.
The Simpsons arrives on Blu-ray with a great DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio track, though optional Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound tracks are provided in French, Spanish and Portuguese with subtitles available in all four languages as well. The DTS-HD tracks in this collection sound great. From the opening theme song to every 'doh!' that Homer utters, the mixes are very clear and quite active. There's a lot of great surround activity in pretty much each and every one of the episodes in the set and the levels are always perfectly balanced. There are no problems at all with hiss or distortion and the enhanced clarity offered by the high definition audio track here really brings out the great foley and sound design work employed on the series.
Extras are plentiful and spread out by disc you'll find the following:
DISC ONE:
-A Haunting Invite From Matt Groening - the series creator provides an amusing two minute into to this season
-In The Beginning - fourteen episodes worth of Treehouse Of Horror intros collection into one awesome twelve minute clip
-It's Only Rock N Roll - a nine minute look at the work the guest stars of the Strummer Vacation episode did on the show.
-Sketch Gallery I - sketches, obviously.
-Deleted Scenes - loads of snippets and excised clips that didn't make the broadcast versions.
-Commentary On All Episodes
DISC TWO:
-The 300th Episode Featurette - a two minute piece on the 300th episode with input from Groening and guest stars Tony Hawk and Blink 182.
-Sketch Gallery II - more sketches, obviously.
-The Halloween Classics - Another collection of Treehouse Of Horror material, culled from episodes past.
-Bonus Episode: Treehouse Of Horror V - pretty self explanatory and the more Treehouse Of Horror content in this set the better!
-Deleted Scenes - loads more snippets and excised clips that didn't make the broadcast versions.
-Commentary On All Episodes
DISC THREE:
-Animation Showcase - a five minute storyboard to finished animation comparison for the Moe Baby Blues episode.
-Special Language Featurette - you can watch the Three Gays Of The Condo episode in Portuguese, German, Czech, or Italian if you want. It's kind of fun for a minute or two.
-Foolish Earthlings - a four minute highlight reel of some of Kang and Kodos' finest moments culled from the Treehouse Of Horror episodes.
-Bonus Episode: Treehouse Of Horror VI - another awesome THOH bonus episode - we've seen it before but it's still cool.
-Deleted Scenes - even more snippets and excised clips that didn't make the broadcast versions.
-Commentary On All Episodes
The Final Word:
For a series that has been around almost a quarter of a century now, The Simpsons is still amazingly good. Granted, the newer seasons aren't as good as this one and this one isn't as good as the few years that came before it but the show is still funny and still creative and still clever and as such, still worth watching. The fourteen season has got some stand out episodes and the Blu-ray release is loaded with extras. If you're a fan of the show, you know you want it.
