Yesterday, I posted a lengthy review of the DVD set The Simpsons the Complete 11th Season. Loved most of the content, but expressed my dissatisfaction with the packaging HERE. Please read that linked post, so you’ll know what I’m writing about now.Today, August 18, 2009, saw the release of The Simpsons the Complete 12th Season.
To dissipate any built up suspense, the packaging was no different than the ill-advised packaging for Season 11. There WAS one very minor improvement, in the addition of a NOTCH at the end of each cardboard pocket that allows for only the slightest increase in ease of accessing the unsecured discs.Yes, the folded cardboard is nicely illustrated (VERY nicely so) with comic-book and comic-book convention imagery in Simpsons style – clearly in honor of the package’s featured character, Comic Book Guy. But the discs STILL LIE LOOSE within the folded cardboard, and are not secured by anything. In order to retrieve them, you must STILL (if ever so lightly) touch both sides of the disc, commingling the playing surface with your own fingerprints, natural oils, and sundry hand secretions. (Oh, yuck!)
Be that as it may, ‘tis better to have The Simpsons the Complete 12th Season with inferior packaging, than to have never hand-secreted upon a 12th Season disc at all!
But, the packaging story takes another comic-bookish turn…
The Simpsons the Complete 12th Season, though the interior casings were
the same, was offered in two different exterior packages. One was the flat, rectangular box with the image of Comic Book Guy opening his shirt to reveal the words “Season 12” – and the other was a raised plastic sculpture of Comic Book Guy’s HEAD, affixed to the standard box. (At least I presume it's affixed, as I haven’t removed it – and may never do so! It’s the collector in me!)The “Head Package” will not stand upon or slide into any of my DVD racks without both being lopsided and taking up an inordinate amount of space. The best thing to do with it, perhaps, would be to lie it flat on a shelf, with the Bas (BAH!) Relief of Comic Book Guy staring straight up – as if he were lying on his back!
For last year’s Season 11, the same thing was done with Krusty, and I bought the standard “flat” box for these exact reasons… limiting my lamenting to the interior alone.And, I intended to do the same for Season 12…
However, today at Best Buy (…and, presumably for the remainder of the week) the standard “flat” box was discounted to 39.99 from a retail list price of 49.99…But the dad-ratted HEAD PACKAGE was discounted to 28.99! Yes, really!
There they were… side by side… on the Best Buy racks…
Flat Box – 39.99. Head Package – 28.99.
I actually asked TWO separate Best Buy associates if this were true, before finally accepting it.
And so, I have a raised plastic sculpture of Comic Book Guy’s face – which I undoubtedly WILL have to lie upon its back, outside of my racks – to contain my Simpsons Season 12 DVD set.
In a way, it’s rather ironic… Comic Books in the ‘90s often resorted to “gimmicks” to sell certain “collector’s” issues at higher than usual prices. Here, I get the “gimmick” – and at a LOWER PRICE than the “standard edition”.
Comic Book Guy would probably regard this as payback for surviving the nineties!
There they were… side by side… on the Best Buy racks…
Flat Box – 39.99. Head Package – 28.99.
I actually asked TWO separate Best Buy associates if this were true, before finally accepting it.
And so, I have a raised plastic sculpture of Comic Book Guy’s face – which I undoubtedly WILL have to lie upon its back, outside of my racks – to contain my Simpsons Season 12 DVD set.
In a way, it’s rather ironic… Comic Books in the ‘90s often resorted to “gimmicks” to sell certain “collector’s” issues at higher than usual prices. Here, I get the “gimmick” – and at a LOWER PRICE than the “standard edition”.
Comic Book Guy would probably regard this as payback for surviving the nineties!
4 comments:
Come wiz me to ze Bas (BAH!)
Sorry but you lost me with all the SIMPSON stuff as of late.
Respect its history and creativity but dson't watch it. Have fun with it though.
Rodan:
Sorry you’re not big on THE SIMPSONS.
My Blog tends to be a very personal thing about (as the title banner says) “The Universe of Things that Interest Me”, and I tend to go wherever the interest takes me at the time.
That could be any number of things, as long as there is no unpleasantness, as there is more than enough of that elsewhere on the Internet.
Interest is always a tricky thing to navigate. Three close friends of mine (You know who you are!) also have Blogs and, as the odds would dictate, they will feature things that don’t interest me. But, they will find a way to make their discussions and commentaries interesting enough to read anyway, and might very well teach me something or give me a new perspective on their subject – and I hope that I do likewise for them and others.
THE SIMPSONS interests me at the moment for a variety of reasons, including the fact that I recently finished the Season 11 DVD – and, for the first time in my DVD buying experience, most of the episodes were new to me. AND that Season 11 was unexpectedly good, vs. what I’d read from its online critics. Add to that, the new release of Season 12 (…that will still be largely “new” to me – though I recognize a few episodes that I’ve managed to watch over the past week) and the STRANGE PRICING of the variant packaging at Best Buy. You should see the thread I started on this subject on the HTF Forum. ( http://www.hometheaterforum.com/forum/thread/290908/the-simpsons-season-12-any-indication-on-the-type-of-packaging )
Also, I’m a bit disillusioned over the removal from You Tube of so many of the embedded Hanna-Barbera cartoons that I know you and I enjoyed. See my Post of August 10. Sure, I’ll do more of them – and this time I’ll expect their eventual disappearance, and shrug it off all the quicker.
If my Blog had come into existence a few years earlier, there would be a great deal more Comic Book material than there is today, due to my diminished interest in the majority of today’s product vs. not that long ago. And, if it existed during my brief period as a Comic Book scripter, there would have be lengthy posts on every one of my stories as they were published.
There’s been some Yankee baseball stuff, and even a catch-all “World at Large” category. So, over time, there will be a little bit of everything – as long as it meets the test of “Does it interest me?”.
There will be another DVD review coming eventually, of a different recent animated property that I’ve enjoyed of late – and it will not be THE SIMPSONS. Though, I expect to post very little, if anything, over this coming week, due to a heavy workload.
Always glad that you read and comment.
Joe.
WELCOME.
And at some point I would like to continue the thoughts on what is happening to H/B product.
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