Disney Plus, Disney's answer to Netflix, hasn't even needed 24 hours to start raising eyebrows. One of the most tempting offerings of its video-on-demand service (launched yesterday in the US and on March 31st in Spain) is the complete catalog of the most famous animated series in history: The Simpsons . For seven dollars a month (in Spain the fee will be seven euros), you can watch every episode from all 30 seasons of The Simpsons . Every single one? No. The infamous (but historic?) Michael Jackson episode, "Stark Raving Dad ," isn't on Disney Plus, nor is it expected to be. And the problems don't end there.
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In addition to this omission, there's a problem of equal or greater severity: the supposed remastering of older episodes. Simpsons fans subscribed to Disney Plus have been outraged to discover how the new 16:9 aspect ratio applied to all episodes causes strange distortions and, in some cases, even makes many gags incomprehensible due to the omission of visual elements present in the original episodes.
Michael Jackson canceled
To be fair, Michael Jackson was a hot potato that was bound to stir up controversy regardless of Disney's stance. At the beginning of the year, influenced by the media frenzy surrounding the controversial documentary about Michael Jackson, * Leaving Neverland* , Fox executives surprisingly announced that they would never again air the episode featuring the pop star. Michael Jackson thus joined the long list of artists and creators who, for ethical and personal reasons (but sometimes (not always) touching on justice and collective morality), have been effectively "canceled" by society: Kevin Spacey, Harvey Weinstein, Louis C.K., R. Kelly, Bill Cosby, Woody Allen , and an ever-growing list of others.
At the time, Fox was not yet part of Disney. Interestingly , two weeks after the decision to self-impose the episode became public, Disney bought Fox for $71.000 billion. Disney Plus's current decision to keep the Michael Jackson episode hidden only serves to highlight that it was Disney that originally pushed for its removal in March 2019. As a family-owned company, Disney wasn't willing to risk generating undesirable headlines.
Viewers receive no notification when accessing the third season of The Simpsons on Disney Plus. The season begins with the second episode, " Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington ." The Michael Jackson episode is simply no longer available. James L. Brooks, the show's producer, justified the decision at the time, acknowledging that it wasn't easy : "Stark Raving Dad was a different kind of episode, a treasure. There are a lot of good memories in it, but it won't stay. I'm against book burning, but this is our book, and we're allowed to remove a chapter."
This detail of 'The Simpsons', at least, has not been modified on Disney Plus.
The Simpsons Remastered on Disney Plus
The Simpsons debuted on television in 1989 with an aspect ratio adapted to the televisions of the time (4:3) and standard definition (compared to today's high definition). Fox decided to give the series a major visual overhaul in 2009 , midway through its 20th season, by widening the aspect ratio to 16:9 and upgrading it to HD. Disney Plus has now opted to apply this visual update to all episodes of the series, including the oldest ones.
In total, 429 episodes have been re-edited, but unfortunately, the frames have been cropped . As numerous Twitter users have already pointed out, we now see strange distortions, omitted details, or, quite simply, jokes that no longer make sense. A good example is the image at the top of this article from the 1993 episode " Duffless ," where Homer visits the Duff factory. Because of the new cropping, it's now possible to actually believe there are differences between Duff Dry and Duff Light compared to the original Duff.
Fox already faced a similar problem when it aired a super marathon of episodes on the FXX channel in 2014. Back then, the solution to the flood of complaints was simple: an option was enabled allowing viewers to choose between different aspect ratios. It wouldn't be surprising if Disney ended up doing something similar.
However, it's strange that, given the multi-optional nature of streaming services and the substantial financial investment in its platform, Disney Plus overlooked something as obvious as this: giving viewers the ability to choose.
You can see more examples of aspect ratio cropping at the link below.
Update from Saturday 11/16/2019: Disney has announced that it will include the option to watch The Simpsons in 4:3 format in early 2020.
