Disney Plus digitizes early seasons of The Simpsons, but things aren’t looking good

Disney Plus may have every episode of The Simpsons available, though not everyone is thrilled. The reason for that is the first few seasons have been digitally enhanced.

In most cases, remastering a TV show to look better is a good thing. When it comes to The Simpsons, that’s not necessarily the case.

For anyone too young to remember, The Simpsons’ early seasons were drawn out with the technology available at the time, which wasn’t the greatest if we’re being honest. And the aforementioned episodes never got updated, even for syndicated reruns.

Why such an update has become an issue is that the smoothing out process used to digitize early seasons is cutting off borders. Fans have pointed out that the top and bottom portions of the screen leave out a significant amount of content, causing some concern.

The camera is still centered on the Simpson family’s adventures, but it’s just that specific things drawn in for fans to catch can no longer be spotted. You can still watch the unedited versions on FX Networks, though fans hoping to do so with Disney Plus are going to be sorely disappointed.

The upside to remastered episodes of The Simpsons is that they look brand new. Most longtime fans of the animated comedy will agree that the earlier seasons were significantly better than recent ones, making the updated versions somewhat noteworthy.

Regardless, the fan outcry against Disney editing one of the greatest animated-comedies ever does not bode well for the future. There was skepticism surrounding the media company’s purchase of Fox’s assets—which include The Simpsons’ entire collection—and now that they’ve gone and altered some of the best episodes, we’re starting to see the downside of Disney acquiring ownership.

There’s also the matter of Disney excluding “Stark Raving Mad” from the collection of episodes available to stream. No other episodes fall into the same category, so it’s quite strange that Disney would choose this particular episode. A few online theories suggest Disney’s decision was attributed to Michael Jackson’s role, but if that’s the case, then any other controversial episode should be judged just as harshly.

What are your thoughts on Disney altering The Simpsons’ early seasons? Let us know in the comments.