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The Simpsons - The Complete First Season

The Simpsons - The Complete First Season

List Price: $39.98
Your Price: $29.99
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Most beautifully packaged DVD set I've seen
Review: The content of this DVD speaks for itself, as attested to by the fact that 100+ people reviewed it before it was released. But having just gotten my copy [. . .], I have to say how impressed I am with the aesthetics of the packaging. The slipcover, the enclosed liner notes, the DVD discs themselves, all very nicely and thoughtfully done. This is not only a treat for your DVD player, but it's a pleasure to display on your bookshelves (or whereever you keep your movie collection). Also, such meticulous design suggests a DVD collection crafted with the ultimate care. Collecters, take heed.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Best DVD everrrrr
Review: From the original opening sequence (different than what we see today since most of the characters in the current opening sequence don't exist yet) to the little bits that have been cut from some of the episodes in syndication to make space for more commercials, this box set just plain kicks [....]
Even for the die-hard Simpsons fan who has seen every episode, there's stuff here you've probably not seen before.
Plus, the ability to pause and catch those quick little signs and moments you usually miss on TV makes the purchase worthwhile on it's own.
I can't wait for the rest of the seasons, just plain awesome!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Simpsons - The Complete First Season DVD
Review: I can't believe it! I don't have much to say because I am drooling and foaming at the mouth. This is the greatest DVD I have ever purchased, bar none. Naturally I am horribly biased because I love the Simpsons, but that's the way it is. Dolby 5.1 is killer and the picture is superb, much better than 11 year old tapes watched hundreds of times. If you like the Simpsons, you will not be disappointed, well except we haven't heard a release date for the 2nd season yet.

Bart

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Great stuff - but they could have done better than this
Review: At last, The Simpsons make it to DVD, with the first release being a box set containing all the shows from the first season.

Of course, the main reason to own this DVD is to have these episodes with the best picture and sound quality possible - and without the cuts that inevitably get made for syndication. In that respect, the set is excellent. The picture quality is not always that great, but that is a result of the animation techniques used at the time (something alluded to in the commentary tracks).

The episodes themselves are great. The early stories found more of their humor in everyday type situations (relatively speaking, anyway) - for example, Bart having bully troubles in "Bart the General", or Homer having to sit through boring stuff at a school festival in order to see his kids participate in "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire" - rather than in some of the more far-fetched plots that have become commonplace in recent years.

Best of all, you get to see The Simpsons before rough edges became polished away, before the characters and characterizations became formulized and more narrowly defined, and before sight gags began to fill in many of the gaps.
Homer is more beleagured working man than easily distracted buffoon, the relationship between Bart and Lisa is more realistic, and the show as a whole moves at a more relaxed pace, including more of the little details that make up everyday life.

The DVD set is not without flaws, however:

(1) The menus are horrible. There should be a main menu that allows the user to opt for episodes or extra features - there isn't. The first menu you get is the list of all the episodes on the disc; to access the extra features, you have to go through the submenus. Nor is there the option to view all of the episodes on a disc in sequence; at the end of an episode, you have to go back up a level, select the next episode, then go through that episode's submenu.

(2) The extra stuff is disappointing. First, the scripts are a waste of time - if I wanted to read scripts, I'd write to Fox and request copies. Next, where are all the Tracey Ullman shorts that were promised? All we get is the "Goodnight Simpsons" clips that we've seen already. The "outtakes" are all from an unaired version of a single episode, apparently for the purpose of showing us how [...bad] it looked at first. The foreign-language clips - all of the same scene from the same episode ("Life on the Fast Lane") - will only be interesting the first time around. And, contrary to what the packaging says, Matt Groening does not appear on the commentary for all thirteen episodes - there are at least a couple on which he does not. (And the only magazine covers - alluded to in the description found on this page - that appear on these discs are found in the "America's First Family" special.) [N.B., Since I originally posted this, other folks have pointed out that the magazine covers and the news story on the Bart t-shirts are found on the set as Easter eggs.]

Great episodes, "worst DVD extras ever". Well, okay, not the worst - but they could have been much better. Much.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I cannot express my happiness...
Review: ...over this DVD compilation. The box set comes with three DVD that contain all 13 of the 1st season episodes, including the Tracy Ulman spot, commentary and all sorts of other cool stuff. The DVD set also includes a very humerous insert by creator Matt Groening. For Simpson fans, this is the holy grail.

Rumor is each subsequent season will be released in turn. Let's hope season 2 isn't too far off...

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The package for the diehard fan
Review: I've been waiting for this for awhile and just got it today (09.25.01 - day it came out). And let me tell you, If you are a diehard, even just a semi-average fan, Pick this package up. You will get to see the first incarnation of the Simpsons. The bonus features are great too. Expecially the BBC First Family one. Although it lists "ABC Special: Bart Simpson T-Shirt Scandal" on here, it's not on mine. They do briefly touch on it on the First Family sequence. The audio (Albert Brooks) outtakes are funnier than that episode itself. The commentary is also awesome to hear with each episode. The original scripts seem to be photocopys of the actual originals. So you can see red lines through lines they deleted and editing marks. It's really a classic DVD, and it is well worth the $30 and more. Expecially when the VHS people are paying $15 for 2 episodes, and we get 13 (22 on latter seasons/dvd's). This boxset will be a classic for lifetime. Can't wait until Season 2 (My favorite one) comes out in time for Christmas.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: i bought a dvd player just to see this
Review: I might be one of the few people who believes that the first season of The Simpsons was the best. The animation on the peripheral characters is amazing, and Homer is much better as a failed father than as a bumbling babboon. So I bought a dvd player when I heard these were coming out, because for the last four years I've fallen asleep every night to videotapes of old Simpsons episodes. The dvd set is great, but of course it's not perfect. I definitely wanted to see all of the shorts from the Tracy Ullman days, and I would have loved some footage which depicts the actual animation and voiceover process (rather than four scripts, which seems a bit excessive...especially if you don't have a dvd-rom). But maybe I'm just being fussy. You get the whole first season without commercials. That alone is worth the purchase price. And I've heard some of the commentaries, which are relatively interesting to fans of the show.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Fantastic!
Review: First of all, I'd just like to say that the packaging on this set is great! I wasn't expecting much, but I found myself impressed my the packaging (it sounds crazy). The set contains 3 DVDs containing episondes and extra material from the first season. I've been a fan of the Simpsons since the beginning. I even have every aired episode on tape. The problem is that the tapes are getting pretty old (12 years), and the quality is deteriorating. I'm really pleased that they'll be releasing all of the episodes season by season (as Matt Groening put it "until the next format comes out"). Back to the set. To be honest, whenever I've seen episodes from the first 2 or 3 seasons lately, I haven't thought they were that great. True, the story lines have been a little weak for the past few years, but I guess times and tastes in jokes have changed. Either way, I'm a die-hard Simpsons fan, so I had to get this set. As soon as I put the first disc in and watched "Bart the General", my opinion of the first season changed. I cought a lot of the jokes which are a lot more subtle than most people realize. I have to say that I really enjoy watching the first season again, and I'm happy to have the episodes on a medium that won't degrade in quality after I watch the episodes many times.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Poor Episode Guide and Documentation
Review: I love "The Simpsons" and have been taping the episodes since "...Open Fire", so I just had to have the this collector's set. After opening the set, I was kind of disappointed. The "episode guide" does a good job of telling you what each episode is about and what the chapters per episode are, but DOES NOT TELL YOU WHICH EPISODES ARE ON THE DIFFERENT DISKS! You have no way of knowing what's on any of the disks unless you put each one in the player. As a nit-picky note, two of the three disks are gold, and the third is silver. Gold is better because it won't corrode over time should it be exposed to the elements. Collectors like this almost as much as consistency. The packaging is excellent and well designed (except the episode guide). I'm glad they didn't do anything creative like making the top of the slipcase spikey like Bart's hair. That kind of thing sucks for time-release collections.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Why would you want the first season?
Review: Classics, you say? Whenever I see any episodes from before season 2 on TV I turn them off, because they are that painful to watch. The animation was absolutely terrible, and voices were terrible, and the humor wasn't even that good. I know very few Simpsons fans that actually enjoy watching anything from the first season.

Don't waste your money. Wait until the good season come out on DVD.


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