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Released by: 20th Century Fox
Released on: December 4, 2012.
Director: Various
Cast: Various
Year: 2003/2004
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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 fifteenth 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 four discs contained in this set:
DISC ONE:
Treehouse Of Horror XIV: The annual Halloween episode in which Homer becomes Death and uses it to his advantage, Frink creates a zombie out of his father and Bart and Milhouse develop the ability to stop time.
My Mother The Carjacker: Homer's mother returns from her life on the run to be a mom to him and to impress her grandchildren, but old habits die hard and before you know it she's a wanted woman again. Glenn Close guest stars.
The President Wore Pearls: A musical episode parody of Evita in which Lisa runs for class president and wins only to fall for her own hype and take on a more glamorous persona. Michael Moore guest stars.
The Regina Monologues: Bart finds the $1,000.00 bill Mr. Burns lost and opens up a museum to put it on display. He makes enough money off of this to take the family on vacation to England where they meet guest stars Tony Blair, J.K. Rowling and Sir Ian McKellen.
The Fat And The Furriest: Homer builds a really gross giant ball of candy and Marge makes him take it to the dump where he's attacked by a bear. To survive future bear attacks he builds a special suit of armor. Charles Napier guest stars.
DISC TWO:
Today I Am A Clown: Krusty learns he was never given a bar mitzvah and so he tries to come to terms with this by going back to his Jewish roots and doing a TV special. Jackie Mason and Mr. T guest star.
'Tis The Fifteenth Season: Homer screws up and spends the Christmas budget on himself and then has to prove himself the nicest man in Springfield, which annoys Flanders.
Marge Versus Singles, Seniors, Childless Couples And Teens And Gays: Marge takes Maggie to a kid's concert that breaks out in a riot. The people of Springfield who don't have kids protest this wanton abuse of their tax dollars and Marge retaliates.
I, (Annoyed Grunt)-Bot: Homer and Bart bond by building a combat robot they intend to use in competition. The problem is that Homer doesn't know squat about robots so he just endangers his own life by manually operating one from the inside.
Diatribe Of A Mad Housewife: Homer buys an old ambulance and embarks on a new career while Marge writes a romance book in which Homer is the bad guy and stupid sexy Flanders is the dashing mustachioed hero. Tom Clancy and the Olsen Twins guest star.
Margical History Tour: A three part anthology episode based on various historical stories finds Homer playing Henry The VIII and wanting a son, Lisa as Sacagawea and Bart as Mozart.
DISC THREE:
Milhouse Doesn't Live Here Anymore: Milhouse moves to Capital City where he becomes one of the cool kids after reinventing himself. Bart goes to visit and is butt of Milhouse's jokes.
Smart & Smarter: Lisa learns that Maggie has a higher IQ than she does and runs away from home to go live inside the human body exhibit at the Springfield Museum while Homer and Marge try to get Maggie into the fanciest pre-school around. Simon Cowell guest stars.
The Ziff Who Came To Dinner: Homer takes Rod and Todd to a scary movie and comes home to find Artie Ziff has been living in their attic. When Artie tries to make Homer take the fall for his failing business, he winds up dating Selma. Jon Lovitz guest stars.
Co-Dependents Day: Bart and Lisa check out the new Cosmic Wars movie but walk away disappointed and so they travel to California to meet the man who made the movie while Homer and Marge explore wine country together.
The Wandering Juvie: Bart gets sent to juvenile hall where he hooks up with a female inmate who chains herself to him before breaking them both out of prison and taking them on the run from the fuzz.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding: Skinner finally agrees to marry Ms. Krabapple but winds up chickening out at the last minute. Edna, understandably upset, starts fooling around with Comic Book Guy while Homer tries to help Skinner win her back. It all hits the fan when they wind up at the Bi-Mon-Sci-Fi-con!
DISC FOUR:
Catch'em If You Can: Homer and Marge try to take a vacation without the kids but it doesn't work as Bart and Lisa get word of it and follow their parents across the country.
Simple Simpson: Lisa gets humiliated by that crazy Texan guy at the county fair's table setting contest so Homer puts on a disguise and attacks him with a pie, leading Homer to a secret life as Springfield's newest vigilante, Pie Man!
The Way We Weren't: This flashback episode fills us in on that summer long ago when Homer went to fat camp and hooked up with a pretty girl whose name he never learned and who he identified himself to as Elvis Jagger Abdul-Jabbar.
Bart-Mangled Banner: Bart accidently winds up mooning Old Glory and becomes the subject of a media blitz resulting in he and the rest of the family being put into an internment camp.
Fraudcast News: Mr. Burns buys up all of the media outlets in town except for Lisa Simpson's own little self published newspaper which she uses to take on every injustice she can.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The Simpsons Season 15 arrives on DVD in a nice strong, colorful image, with each episode presented fullframe. 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 DVD with a great Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound track in English as well as dubbed into French, Spanish and Portuguese with subtitles available in all four languages as well. 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:
-All Aboard With Matt: a quick introduction from series' creator Matt Groening
-Sketch Gallery I
-Deleted Scenes
-Audio Commentary On All Episodes
DISC TWO:
-The Unusual Ones - David Silverman, Mike Anderson, Mark Kirkland, and Steve Moore host a fun collection of bizarre clips from the season.
-Living In The Moment - a two minute collection of 'photos' from the series presented scrapbook style.
-Deleted Scenes
-Audio Commentary On All Episodes
DISC THREE:
-Animation Showcase
-Special Language Features - offers four alternate language options for the My Big Fat Greek Wedding episode.
-Deleted Scenes
-Audio Commentary On All Episodes
DISC FOUR:
-Sketch Gallery II
-Commercials
-Deleted Scenes
-Audio Commentary On All Episodes
The Final Word:
The Simpsons remains a high point in American TV culture and if this isn't the strongest season in the series' history it is still a very consistently funny batch of episodes with some interesting guest stars along for the ride. Fox presents the fifteenth season on DVD with nice quality audio and video and a great batch of extras.
