“Can I have some money now?” – Homer Simpson
The existence of Zombie Simpsons these past ten years or so has been an exercise in naked greed. But up until this week FOX had generally tried to shield the show itself from at least some of that. Sure they’ll merchandise anything, but the actual show, the foundation upon which everything else rests, was generally treated with a modicum of respect. No longer. This is a screen grab from the menu for the Season 20 DVD:
That’s it. They couldn’t even be bothered to properly animate the upper half of the screen. It’s just black and white outlines of Homer and Bart that gradually refresh themselves (you can see that Bart isn’t quite finished in the image above). Should you be foolish enough to actually select one of these episodes the individual episode menu is even more sparse:
That there would be no commentaries has been known for a while. (Quite frankly I’m happy about that, I don’t think I had too many more “Lies Make Baby Jesus Cry” posts in me.) But there are no deleted scenes, no story boards, no sketches, no extras of any kind. A pirated DVD from a back alley in Bangalore would have all the same stuff as this release.
FOX is trying to cash in on interest in the show’s 20th anniversary and saw this as a good chance to get the half of Season 20 that was in HD out on Blu-ray so they can charge a premium to people with more money than sense. But what really strikes me as ballsy about this is the fact that they’re going to re-release Season 20 in order with the other seasons with all the bells and whistles (projected for 2014). That is just stunningly naked greed, even for them.
I’d go on, but the always excellent Adam over at SimpsonsChannel has already cornered the snark market on this one. Here’s #3 from his “Ten Reasons to NOT Buy This Set”:
Despite them being readily accessible due to the time since these episodes were produced, no deleted scenes have been included on this set. No deleted scenes! What they kept in must have been pure gold!
Dead Homer Society 
6 responses to “Blood from a Turnip”
“I’d go on, but the always excellent Adam over at SimpsonsChannel has already cornered the snark market on this one…”
I was having a look at the comments posted after Adam’s article, and a couple of them stood out. First up, from “Alex”:
“I dont care about the special features (I like to have them though), but I am still going to buy it because its The Simpsons, and therefore I must Have it”
The mentality (and literacy skills) of the typical Zombie Simpsons fan, methinks. Next up, “Ashton”:
“I will still buy it when it comes out in Australia on the 20th of Jan, then if they do remake the season in 2014 – I will buy that one too.”
I think I can safely say that Ashton doesn’t represent the views of all Simpsons fans in Australia. I for one wouldn’t waste my money on any edition of the season 20 DVDs, with or without special features.
I see fox home video has borrowed the “blue gradient” trend from public access tv
Should have used the Test Cards
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_Card_F
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_Card_Girl
I don’t care if only British people and severe Anglophiles would get the reference, no.
C’mon Celia, you obviously care or you wouldn’t have put in the Wikipedia links to explain it to us.
:( I am shamed
It would have been nice if the writers et all could have commented and revealed what they were thinking at several particular points. But (a)they probably weren’t, as I’m sure you were going to say and (b)do I really want to hear them congratulate themselves for yet another transphobic joke/horrible recent movie reference/episode about Marge and Homer’s marital difficulties/etc?
(on the subject of that last one, I wonder if the volume of “Oh no! The marriage is in trouble!” episodes goes up with the number of seasons. Perhaps I will look it up, although I haven’t seen all the episodes, so my assessment may not be accurate.