The Simpsons: The Complete Eleventh Season DVD Boxset

[Importer-Exporter]

I watched some commentaries they mainly sound bored, and oh that Mike scully must believe that season 11 is his gift to the world. Normally I don't watch commentaries on other DVD sets because they are, well, boring, and I'm afraid that season 11 commentaries are just Mike Scully pating himself on the back, and they have become boring too. I can only hope for season 12. Rewatching the season I believe that Missionary: Impossible, and Behind the Laughter are my season favorites. My over all review I give it a very generous B. Remeber season 11 DVD buyers Elmo knows where you live.

[ppoi307]

the krusty head is undoubtably the worst box I have ever seen. The slipcases are going to scratch the f**k out of the disc

[Captain Squid]

Homer's eyes crusting over literally makes me want to vomit. I'm serious, it did when it premiered and it just did now. I get a little pre-vomit burp when i see it happen.

[Simpsonatic83]

I just listened to the introduction by Groening and it sounded like he was being sarcastic however it was a good introduction all in all.

[WBadger]

Homer's eyes crusting over literally makes me want to vomit. I'm serious, it did when it premiered and it just did now. I get a little pre-vomit burp when i see it happen.

What are you referring to?

[McClure]

What are you referring to?

The Last Tap Dance in Springfield. Homer goes for laser eye surgery, but leaves before the doctor can give him eye drops, so his eyes crust over completely.

[Captain Squid]

Sorry for not referring to the episode title. It just makes me imagine that yellow eye crust, only covering your entire eye. And you have to chip it off and... BLEECH!!!!!

[Captain Squid]

the krusty head is undoubtably the worst box I have ever seen. The slipcases are going to scratch the f**k out of the disc

I had no issues until I found the sleeve caused a deep scratch in my disc 3. Now "The Mansion Family" pauses for 30 seconds before getting past the scratch and resuming.

[Disgruntled Goat]

Barney is back to being a drunk today, so seeing him sober up (for what at the time was for good) doesn't bother me.

It never bothered me. What bothered me were the later episodes. At the time I didn't see it as being "for good", they just didn't revert him back to a drunk during the episode. I expected him to be a drunk the next time we saw him.

I agree with the other who have said the commentaries are boring. There's usually a couple of interesting factoids per episode but they mostly just laugh at the jokes or point out continuity flaws or how crazy the episode is.

[Nameless]

I had no issues until I found the sleeve caused a deep scratch in my disc 3. Now "The Mansion Family" pauses for 30 seconds before getting past the scratch and resuming.

So exactly how difficult is it to get the DVDs out of the slipcases without ruining them? I can't buy this out of my own money, I'm going to have to get it for Christmas.

[Tomacco]

Finished watching all the commentaries and features. The season is as uneven as I remember it. The humor is there in a number of episodes, which are often brought down by terrible stories. For example, I would say "Saddlesore Galactica" is one of the FUNNIEST episodes of the whole season, but its really a mess in terms of story. Then there's episodes which have decent stories, but fewer laughs, like "Days of Wine and D'ohses".

Simpsons commentaries are generally the cream of the audio commentary crop. Not in the Scully years. There are barely any interesting back stories to episodes, characters or anything. It's really apparently how this staff was super concerned with laughs at the expense of everything else. I feel like in the commentaries they're often apologizing for shots they take, betrayal of characters for jokes, odd sudden storyline shifts, and whatnot. Plus, this set probably has the longest stretches of silence, and often not particularly enthusiastic conversations.

I also found it glaring, after listening to so many past Simpsons commentaries, how the crew doing the commentaries is so completely different now than it used to be. Even Matt Groening is only on two commentaries here. Al Jean is on two also. All the writers included are all exclusive to season 9 and up. It's more apparent than ever how and why the show changed so much in season 10-11 - the whole staff responsible for it changed entirely.

I dunno, I'm not so impressed, but then again, I've never been too impressed with this season as a whole. I wish we could skip over season 12 and just get to 13 onward already.

[jordan]

Alrighty, I'll weigh in and maybe play a little devil's advocate...

I highly enjoy Simpsons commentaries. I've watched the first 7 or 8 episodes on this set, and I find the commentaries to be hilarious and fun. No matter how bad a joke in an episode may be, I find the writers (Scully, Selman, etc) to be so likeable (as if sitting in a room with your "friends") that I find myself NOT CARING AT ALL, and just enjoying the ride.

Something I've noticed from the commentaries is that the fans are WAY MORE SERIOUS about the show than the actual writers. I mean this in a bad way -- A fan will call SACRILEGE if a joke is bad, or sub-par. The writers will laugh, and go "woops!", all in good fun. I find the writers to approach the entire thing with a bit more humanity and good nature, as opposed to (some of) the fans.

I am first to agree that the show didn't exactly IMprove once season 11 rolled in. But it also doesn't break my heart into a million pieces or get my blood boiling (ok...maybe the Alligator episode...with Kid Rock...) to witness that. I'm not trying to make it sound like I don't care -- I DO, very much. But I just love sitting in a room with these funny guys watching the episodes, "classic" era or not.

I'm sad that Groening isn't on more commentaries. And I hate the way the discs are packaged. Besides from that, I am very happy and excited to own another Simpsons season on dvd.


-Jordan

[Bob Snooters]

People in another thread are suggesting they are referring to a scene in Any Given Sundance (...I think) where there's a brief fight between Springfield A&M and Springfield U. It's entirely plausible as they apparently mention the commentaries were recorded in spring 2007, well before that episode aired.



The only region 4 release date I know of is Australia on November 5.

These commentaries were recorded in spring of last year? Whoa. Do they usually record them that far back in advance?

[megaxca]

I highly enjoy Simpsons commentaries. I've watched the first 7 or 8 episodes on this set, and I find the commentaries to be hilarious and fun. No matter how bad a joke in an episode may be, I find the writers (Scully, Selman, etc) to be so likeable (as if sitting in a room with your "friends") that I find myself NOT CARING AT ALL, and just enjoying the ride.

I agree with you there. I enjoy the commentaries even on some of the weakest episodes. I just think it's a shame when watching the episodes with commentary is more appealing than without. Now, I don't watch much tv in general. But, if season 11 is truly better than most tv, I'm scared to watch most tv, very scared.

[Captain Squid]

I loved the soaking dishes discussion on the "Little Big Mom" commentary, and Gerry Marshall was a treat on "Eight Misbehavin'" I didn't know he wasn't Jewish!!

[Ryan]

Did anyone find it funny that for nearly half the commentary for "Beyond Blunderdome", they discuss the test screening/focus group process for The Simpsons Movie? Ironically, it was the most interesting commentary in the set...

[Pedro Sanchez]

These commentaries were recorded in spring of last year? Whoa. Do they usually record them that far back in advance?

I think they were recorded in fall 2007, Diedrich Bader mentions Meet the Spartans as an upcoming film and that was released in January.

[Ryan]

I think they were recorded in fall 2007, Diedrich Bader mentions Meet the Spartans as an upcoming film and that was released in January.

Definitely. As I mentioned prior, they talk about TSM constantly, and always in the past tense. One time Scully comments, "As you can hear, the movie is over now and we're much more relaxed nowadays"...

[Solid Snake]

For those moaning about the slipcases, I've sent an email to these people for templates and prices on a Season 1-5 style Digipak.

When I get a reply, I'll post here for anyone who's interested. :P

[Charlie]

These commentaries were recorded in spring of last year? Whoa. Do they usually record them that far back in advance?

IIRC they mention on the Season 10 set that they were recording those in April 2007...maybe they were under the impression that there was going to be two seasons released that year as opposed to just Season 10.

[EthanRunt]

They mention that "This year's Wild Hogs" had the same stuff as Brake My Wife Please, which made me think how new it was, and when Diedrich mentioned the 300 spoof coming soon it really got my goat, if they were recorded last year why'd we have to wait so damn long, Simpsons has enough to be thrown out on shelves every half year for a few more years still.

Kinda annoyed that Groening only appeared on 3 episodes, probably tried to avoid any mention on this season, maybe only one episode commentary for him next season at this rate.

Better commentaries for some than last season though, at least they weren't going on and on about making the movie as much this one.

[Whip-Smart]

The commentaries are not that bad most have pretty fun a few have been pretty dull and lifeless. Will be starting disc three later today.

[Ramier Wolfcastle]

These commentaries were recorded in spring of last year? Whoa. Do they usually record them that far back in advance?

I'm going to assume that a few were probably recorded during the fall of 2007, until the writer's strike hit in November. Then once the strike ended and everyone on staff got caught up, any unfinished audio commentaries were recorded in March and April of 2008. I'm also going to assume that the voice actors' pay dispute also caused some slow-up in the preparation of this DVD set, resulting in the October 2008 release.

I should hopefully be getting my hands on this sometime this week, I just hope that the disc sleeves aren't what I think they are, as I don't want scratched discs

[Otis P Jivefunk]

These commentaries were recorded in spring of last year? Whoa. Do they usually record them that far back in advance?

So that means all those excuses people were making about the writers strike delaying the commentaries and thus delaying this set have turned out to be bullshit...

Anyway today I managed to exchange my set for another one, hopefully this time all the discs will frigging play!...

[sung]

Picture by Captain Squid was so cool that I made it my profile pic

In all seriousness, I dunno when I'm gonna get this DVD... I'm terribly inconsistent with buying DVD's... for example, I just bought S10 DVD two weeks ago. Well, given that the features inside the box seems getting better as the time goes, I guess I'll be satisfied with those when I buy it.

[DamnCartoonGuy]

Up to disc 3. Some of the stories may be a little uneven, but there's a lot of funny stuff here. I will say I'm kind of disappointed with the episode menus. Usually they're really fun and animated, but not so much this time. Not much happens in them, which is strange considering this is considered such a wacky season, and we get people just standing around. And there's just something about seeing with Flanders standing solemnly with a picture of his dead wife I find a bit unsettling.

[dapper dan]

So that means all those excuses people were making about the writers strike delaying the commentaries and thus delaying this set have turned out to be bullshit.....

Dunno... wasn't the whole strike centred around the writer's getting some royalties [I]from[I] the DVDs? They may have been delayed not in order to record commentaries but for a different reason.

[That Don Guy]

There was one commentary where somebody mentioned that "the Emmys are coming up"; it has been established that they were recorded in 2007 (among other things, somebody mentions the "upcoming" film WALL-E), so I assume they were around September of last year. I don't think the writers' strike would have affected the commentaries, as the most recent American Dad DVD set includes writers doing commentaries and mentioning they are in the middle of the strike. (I assume that, as long as they're ad-libbing and not doing pre-written commentaries, it was not a problem.)

As for why they were done so long ago, I have a feeling this season was meant to be released last December, since usually they release a season just before the season begins and another just before Christmas, but the movie DVD probably shifted their schedule around a bit. (Also, it's possible that the WGA strike meant that none of the writers, including Groening, could do any work on the DVD menu animations.)

I noticed that none of the "alternate" versions of where the Simpsons lived in "Behind the Laughter" included Southern Missouri, which was actually used in the second Fox airing. (Somebody did mention that this does appear in place of Northern Kentucky in the captioning.)

-- Don

[Ryan]

As for why they were done so long ago, I have a feeling this season was meant to be released last December, since usually they release a season just before the season begins and another just before Christmas, but the movie DVD probably shifted their schedule around a bit.

The huge problem is that it shouldn't have shifted it that bad. The strike just had to delay the set a bit, or something else, since this should have come out in June or August, with the S12 set in December. Obviously, it being October, there won't be another set until next summer, which kind of sucks...

[Jye]

I'm getting this for Christmas. So long to wait, hopefully it'll be worth it.