Do the Bartman

I got the Simpson’s season 2 last year when I saw it on a special sale, I picked up several Simpson’s DVD set. Now I reviewed season 1 back at the beginning of the year, it’s now on to season 2. So how does season 2 stack up against other Simpson seasons, they may be old episodes but there still has fresh and funny has they were almost 2 decades ago.

If you haven’t heard about the Simpson’s (and I really do want to see the size of that rock you have been living under) it’s about a fictional animated family in a fictional animated town called Springfield. The 5 main characters are Homer Simpson who is a bit of an idiot, Marge the over protective mom, Lisa the know it all bleeding heart liberal daughter, Bart the bratty 10 year old, and Maggie the baby who just sucks on a pacifier.

The first season was pretty memorable and the 2nd one is even more so, expanding the cast of characters but unlike current episodes manages to stay focus on the family problems of the Simpsons. Some of the great characters we get this season is Dr. Hibbert who is a spoof of Bill Cosby (note the Simpson’s were running up against the original cosby show at the time, this is how old the show is.). Phil Hartman starts to do voice work on the Simpson including popular characters like Lionel Hutts and Troy Mclure. And everybody’s favorite angry scottmsan Groundskeeper Willie are all nice additions to the crew.

The Simpsons themselves remain unchanged for the most part. Homer grows a little stupider in this season then he did last season, but he is still for a most part a good father figure for Bart, even with his lack of grey matter. All though we do see a few signs of idiot beyond belief Homer like he is today in the dead putting society, but at least he is given a good reason and that is he hates Flanders. Flanders also grows into the goody two shoes Christian in this episode. But Homer fortunately has other good episodes pointed at him. In Dancing Homer, Homer manages to become the mascot of a local ball team but when he gets called up to the big leagues he is ultimately humiliated. In one fish, two fish, blowfish, blue fish Homer eats a poisonous fish and only has 1 day to live and tries to do everything on his bucket list in one day. There is also The Way he Was which is how Homer and Marge originally met back in the 70’s.

Bart has a few interesting episodes with the season premier Bart has to study in order to pass the 4th grade. Despite passing the test he still in the 4th grade almost 20 years later. And 3 men in a comic book Bart tries to get a part time job so he can buy a rare comic book. And of course Bart the Daredevil where he tries to jump over Springfield gorge on his skateboard.

Lisa has some staring roles do in Lisa vs the 8th commandment Lisa once again she’s the consciousness of the family, when Homer decides to get an illegal cable hook up. And in Lisa substitute she gets a substitute that opens her eyes to the world, and she might win his respect if Homer doesn’t make an idiot out of himself.

And finally Marge has her moments in the spot light to with things like War of the Simpsons, Homer gets drunk at a party and Marge takes him to marriage consoling and Homer seems to want to fish instead. And Brush with Greatness were Marge becomes a painter and is hired to paint Mr. Burns portrait, but that means putting up with Mr. Burns for a week.

Of course the side characters of Springfield all have there moments, especially Mr. Burns who is in his heyday in this season. He’s mean, he’s overly rich, and he even runs for governor. You can’t help but love to hate this character, but at the time he’s never truly despicable enough to make you absolutely loath him.

Animation which was the biggest problem in the first season has been refined and the Simpson’s you know today start to come out. While a few episodes like Barts dog gets an F don’t exactly hold up to the standards of the rest of the series, most of them to for the most part.

The DVD
The DVD has a nice few extras in it, including 2 music videos, the emmy awards ceremony, and the Grammies award in which Nancy Cartwright help host in a giant Bart costume. There is also a host of featuretts both old and new about making the show and there all pretty interesting. And commentary on all the episodes of the season, it’s pretty interesting hearing about them going up against shows like the Cosby Show and Coach, shows just how long the Simpsons have been around. Now for the bad news there is one bad thing about the disc, in order to get to the main menu you have to press enter not once, not twice, but 3 times and watch this spinning trey match up character heads in order to get to the main menu. Not a deal killer but this takes a good 30 seconds every time you want to watch a few episodes and quite frankly it’s annoying.

Final Recommendation.
Other then the spinning head on the main menu there is not a single thing that isen’t perfect in the 2nd season box set of the episodes. Some of the best episodes of the Simpsons are on this disc and it’s worth the 20 to 30 bucks you would pay now days to own it.