Simpsons Season Six’s Shortcoming

So as an obedient fan should, I picked up the new The Simpsons Season 6 DVD set today. I love the show and based on the first disk that I watched tonight the DVD content is still top notch. They once again have commentaries for every episode, along with tons of extras. They’ve also retained the lesson learned from the Season 5 set where the DVD menus are both entertaining (funny stuff happens if you let it sit idle for a few seconds) but unlike previous seasons you can execute a command immediately without waiting.

Simpsons Season 6


Where Fox really goofed, though, is the packaging, shown over there to the right. I loved the boxes for the first 5 seasons, but Season 6 comes in this awful, awful plastic Homer head. Even ignoring the facts that it’s fugly and doesn’t match the other box sets, this thing is a truly astounding piece of bad package design. It flips open on a “hinge” at the bottom instead of like a normal book or DVD case, but then inside is a 4-disk DVD jewel case that does open from right to left like a normal case. But the outer plastic shell keeps wanting to spring back closed, which means that you have to fight it while maneuvering the DVDs free from the second, interior case and trying –usually unsuccessfully– to keep all the flyers and other inserts from falling out. Add to top it off, the case is an odd size that doesn’t stand up on its own nor is it amenable to stacking given its thoroughly non-flat nature. Just terrible design.

At least Fox was kind enough to set up a website where you can send in three bucks and receive an “alternate” case for the set. I’m already in the process of doing that, even though nowhere do they show you what the new case will look like. Still, it can’t be worse.

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