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Just caught a few of the Simpsons episodes that Channel 4 has been showing in the UK and wanted to note a couple of the more noticeable censorship edits made in a couple of scenes. The Homer Loves Flanders episode where Ned tires so much of Homer's attention that he has a nightmare about Charles Whitman-style shooting spree gets weirdly edited with the opening ominous whistling as Ned climbs the stairs and puts together the sniper rifle, but then the images cut out before he stands up and audio from during the shooting spree is brought forward to cover the final seconds of putting the gun together, so Ned goes "There's Homer" and a gunshot before he immediately wakes up! Which weirdly in cutting out Ned literally going crazy and shooting randomly and then the absurdity of the postman shooting back at him, makes the nightmare play more disturbingly in some ways, as if he literally did carry out his action of shooting Homer in his dream!

And in the baseball team moving to Alberqueque episode, they cut out the replacement of Hungry Hungry Homer by Paint Drinking Pete, which might be understandable in not wanting to incite copycat behaviour, but it could be argued that The Simpsons were responsible in showing the character writhing around in agony after performing such a stupid act! All to the delight of the not particularly discerning crowds!

And they are also still doing that weird thing in the "$pringfield, Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love Legalised Gambling" episode where they cut out the last line of Kent Brockman's unemployment report on the recent closure of the local army barracks "devastating the city's liquor and prostitution industries". Which is sillily censorious enough but they still leave in the shot after the casino is built of all of the sailors running wild with booze and prostitutes on the streets! I suppose though that with the earlier mention cut out through censorship it is now meant to play as if it is purely the presence of the casino that caused such things to happen when there would have otherwise been no naughty behaviour at all! Whilst in some ways the implication of the uncut episode is that finally the casino has got the barkeeps and ladies of the night back in business in a roaring way!

All episodes will be preserved in the original aspect ratio on Disney+

I now love Disney, and they are my overlords

flyonthewall2983 wrote: Fri Oct 25, 2019 9:56 pm All episodes will be preserved in the original aspect ratio on Disney+

Narrator: they weren't

This was all a pipe dream, frankly.

flyonthewall2983 wrote: Tue Nov 12, 2019 11:42 pm

flyonthewall2983 wrote: Fri Oct 25, 2019 9:56 pm All episodes will be preserved in the original aspect ratio on Disney+

Narrator: they weren't

Not only that, but these are new smoothings out of the animation, that occasionally look okay but mostly look pretty off from the original animation style, and sometimes cut off entire jokes. In other words: Disney put in extra effort to make the show look worse than it did in 16:9 on FX+, but couldn't be bothered to present it in its OAR.

Oh, and the Michael Jackson episode's gone again.

No word about the MJ episode, but the rest will be presented in the original 4:3 format next year.

I'll believe it when I see it

Surprise they haven't let the Dustin Hoffman episode vanish in the bin. Guess this has more public pushback from the reassurance of Jackson's life than anything serious about celebrities with questionable life choices.

We have a whole thread on this thing already, just buy the DVD or go [redacted] it from [redacted]. It wasn't Disney's decision, it was the show's creators', and they had good reasons for doing so despite what you may personally believe.

Here's another amusingly damaging moralistic edit to the Simpsons episodes showing on Channel 4: the end of The Catridge Family episode, otherwise known as the one where Homer buys a gun, has the ending of Marge about to throw the gun away into the bin but instead getting excited by her own reflection in the bin lid and pocketing the gun herself, and thereby amusingly suggesting that she is susceptible to temptation herself, completely removed. Instead there is a jarring cut from her opening the lid of the bin to suddenly unmotivatedly sashaying out to the Avengers theme tune!

And just where is Rashomon?

Homer doesn't recalled seeing Rashomon, Marge mixed up her Kurosawa films!

Wait until Homer finds out about Apu's secret career as an arthouse child film star!

This is so of a piece with Homer's work as a food critic

Amazing how that was so long and still not any part of it was funny

I remember that article. It was from Neon magazine, the late, lamented British film magazine, which ran from '96 to '99. Loved it's idiosyncratic, less-than-reverent tone they took to cinema. Other Top Tens I can recall included The Coen Bros. on their favourite underwear-scenes, Quentin Crisp on his best-loved Horror movies and Paul Thomas Anderson on the 10 films that influenced Boogie Nights. Seeing that list above makes me wish I'd kept my old issues.

domino harvey wrote: Wed Apr 15, 2020 6:18 am Amazing how that was so long and still not any part of it was funny

No surprise. It looks like it was published near the start of their long but steep decline.

Mr. Deltoid wrote: Wed Apr 15, 2020 7:15 am I remember that article. It was from Neon magazine, the late, lamented British film magazine, which ran from '96 to '99. Loved it's idiosyncratic, less-than-reverent tone they took to cinema. Other Top Tens I can recall included The Coen Bros. on their favourite underwear-scenes, Quentin Crisp on his best-loved Horror movies and Paul Thomas Anderson on the 10 films that influenced Boogie Nights. Seeing that list above makes me wish I'd kept my old issues.

I was scanning through the archives and stumbled upon this article. There was plenty of interesting top tens, where you'll have John Waters ten favorite religious movies along with Vincent Gallo top ten girls he'll like to fellatio, excuse me, kiss. For the humor here, I have a good inking this was just a staff writer who felt it was clever for Homer favorite art films to be food-related. A Simpsons writer would easily put the Apu trilogy because his friend stared in the films.

domino harvey wrote: Wed Apr 15, 2020 6:18 am Amazing how that was so long and still not any part of it was funny

God, you're not wrong. Did I miss the period in The Simpsons when Homer's only character trait was "liking to eat a lot"!?

furbicide wrote: Wed Apr 15, 2020 11:48 pm

domino harvey wrote: Wed Apr 15, 2020 6:18 am Amazing how that was so long and still not any part of it was funny

God, you're not wrong. Did I miss the period in The Simpsons when Homer's only character trait was "liking to eat a lot"!?

Even Season 2 played on this trope.

Fair enough! Maybe it's a partial indictment on the series' writers, too. But it sure is an indictment!