The Simpsons: The Complete Twentieth Season Review
The Simpsons: The Complete Twentieth Season Overview
- Audio: English: 5.1 Dolby Surround / Spanish & French: Stereo
- Language: Dubbed: English, French & Spanish / Subtitled: English & Spanish
- Theatrical Aspect Ratio: Widescreen: 1.78:1
The Simpsons: The Complete Twentieth Season Specifications
In South Park's 86th episode, Butters, a.k.a. Professor Chaos, concocts various schemes to wreak havoc but abandons each when he learns that ""The Simpsons already did it."" By the end of its historic 20th season, The Simpsons comprised more than 440 episodes, so imagine the challenge for the writers to come up with something they haven't already done or resist the temptation to make every episode a clip show. So it's heartening to see that after two decades, The Simpsons still draws inspiration from such highbrow sources as Stanley Donen's 1967 sophisticated romantic comedy Two for the Road (the episode ""Dangerous Curves""), Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures (""Lisa the Drama Queen""), and Ayn Rand and Shakespeare (""Four Great Women and a Manicure""). The flashback episode ""Take My Life, Please,"" marks the show's switch to high definition and the debut of a spectacular new opening with some of the best couch gags ever (except for one that Comic Book Guy inevitably declares to be the worst). Episodes such as ""Sex, Pies and Idiot Scrapes"" (Homer and Ned become bounty hunters), ""Lost Verizon"" (the family chases Bart to Machu Picchu), and ""Waverly Hills 9-0-2-1-D'Oh"" (Alaska Nebraska???) are good; they're just not Simpsons good. But those who claim that the show has lost its heart are directed to the touching ""Dangerous Curves"" and ""Eeny Teeny Maya, Moe,"" in which Moe falls in love with a little person. The voice work by the core ensemble is as inspired as ever. Dan Castellaneta won an Emmy for ""Father Knows Worst."" Notable guest stars this season include Denis Leary as himself, Emily Blunt as Lisa's partner in fantasy in ""Lisa the Drama Queen,"" Anne Hathaway as a goodhearted older girl who captures Bart's affections, and Jodie Foster as the rebellious voice of Maggie in ""Four Great Women and a Manicure."" Two separate episodes feature rousing renditions of the show's theme performed by Fall Out Boy and by a cappella group Canvas, respectively.
It makes good business sense to release The Complete 20th Season in advance of seasons 13 to 19. When an animated series ties (and has now surpassed) Gunsmoke as prime time's longest running show, attention must be paid (and exploited). But unlike previous sets, there are none of the extras Simpsonites have come to expect save for a less-than-4-minute ""sneak peek"" at Morgan Spurlock's excellent 20th-anniversary special. In trying to come up with just the right clever thing to say about that, one must look, as with everything in life, to an episode of The Simpsons, the one in which Bart discards a Where's Waldo book that eschews the usual crowd scenes for a single life-size illustration of Waldo. ""Man,"" Bart remarks, ""He's not even trying anymore."" --Donald Liebenson
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Customer Reviews
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The love life of a woolly mammoth--handled with G-rated delicacy--drives this sequel to the first computer-animated romp in the age of prehistoric mammals. While the first Ice Age took a delightful premise and suffocated it with a formulaic plot--in which a mammoth named Manfred (voiced by Ray Romano, Everyone Loves Raymond), a sloth named Sid (John Leguizamo, Moulin Rouge!), and a sabre-tooth tiger named Diego (Denis Leary, Rescue Me) helped an abandoned human infant return to its tribe (basically, Three Mammals and a Baby)--the sequel takes the now-familiar setting, gives it a shapeless, episodic storyline, and yet somehow becomes pretty darn entertaining. Faced with the threat of a flood from melting ice, our heroic trio are on the run to escape from their blossoming valley. On the way, they meet a female mammoth (Queen Latifah, Bringing Down the House) who thinks she's an opossum and get menaced by some freshly defrosted carnivo! rous fish. Add into the mix a herd of lava-worshipping mini-sloths, some Busby Berkeley-style vultures, and more ingenious slapstick featuring the acorn-crazed Scrat, and Ice Age: The Meltdown will amuse even jaded adults. -- Bret Fetzer
