[Update 11/16/2019:] It’s being reported that Disney has taken the feedback to heart and they will be modifying the aspect ratio of the streaming of The Simpsons, where the series will be displayed in its proper format without cropping in 2020.
Good news.
“…in early 2020, Disney+ will make the first 19 seasons (and some episodes from Season 20) of The Simpsons available in their original 4:3 aspect ratio, giving subscribers a choice of how they prefer to view the popular series.”https://t.co/ux1RMQFeZX pic.twitter.com/HT1FNJELqs
— Todd Vaziri (@tvaziri) November 15, 2019
[Original article:] Disney+ is now airing The Simpsons episodes after Disney acquired 20th Century Fox. According to Polygon, approximately 286 of the 429 pre-HD episodes that were scaled to 4:3 standard definition televisions have been moved over to the Disney+ streaming channel. The problem, however, is that all of those episodes have been rescaled for widescreen 16:9 HD displays, but they had to do some cropping in order to get there.
The article details how the cropping might seem benign, but upon viewing the actual episodes it has resulted in parts of the frame being cut off. In turn, this means that some of the images involving some of the visual gags lose a little bit of their flavor… sort of like the Duff tour where it shows that all three different types of Duff are actually made from the exact same brew.
All the classic Simpsons episodes on Disney+ are in cropped widescreen format — this means you miss out on tons of great visual jokes, like how Duff, Duff Lite and Duff Dry all come from the same tube. pic.twitter.com/cTy9adulFl
— Tristan Cooper (@TristanACooper) November 12, 2019
Twitter is actually somewhat useful for once by bringing up that this was always going to be a problem for widescreen displays, given that even show creator, Matt Groening, warned that the pre-HD era version of the shows would all be stretched out and look out of place on a 16:9 display, and that the show was meant to be viewed on a 4:3 output.
Matt Groening was ahead of the game back in 2006 when he complained about THE SIMPSONS being butchered for widescreen televisions: pic.twitter.com/98CtjNsv7Q
— Justin Decloux (@DeclouxJ) November 12, 2019
As noted by Polygon, in February, 2009 Fox did switch the show over to support 16:9 output. However, that was for all future shows. The problem is that the previous shows were still in 4:3 format and Disney decided to simple rescale them instead of allowing people to view them with large black spaces on the side via their streaming service.
What’s funny is that even completely unrelated companies are taking digs at Disney for the aspect ratio kerfuffle, with the Toejam & Earl account mocking them for the cropping mishap.
when they expect you to watch the OG Simpsons in 16:9 pic.twitter.com/HmlIzTq6zM
— Toejam & Earl (@toejamandearl) November 12, 2019
Thankfully, there appears to be an apropos fix for the moment in the form of a little website known as The Simpsons World on FX.
Apparently Disney forgot to shut down The Simpsons World website. If you have cable you can actually watch the series in the original 4:3 aspect ratio.
This might change soon tho pic.twitter.com/v2FYyuwLgs
— Pixelbuster (@Nitomatta) November 13, 2019
Like all good things, though, there’s a catch.
Due to Disney having purchased Fox, and having moved the episodes to Disney+, the Simpsons World is shutting down.
Just got word from the FXNOW app that all episodes on Simpsons World will be removed tomorrow so act now unless you want to be stuck with 16:9 pic.twitter.com/8QgHGBkFbY
— Pixelbuster (@Nitomatta) November 13, 2019
This means you might want to act fast if you want to watch all of the episodes in the original 4:3 aspect ratio before Disney pulls the plug on The Simpsons World web portal.
(Thanks for the news tip RomanPerfection)
