Disney Plus will finally fix The Simpsons’ aspect ratio issue on the service on May 28, the animated series’ longtime showrunner Al Jean has announced on Twitter. Since launch, Disney Plus has presented earlier, pre-widescreen seasons of The Simpsons in 16:9, with the original 4:3 image cropped in to achieve this effect.
As well as cutting certain jokes out, it’s simply not what the show is supposed to look like. Disney has been promising a fix more or less since launch, and six months later, it’s finally here.
Here’s Jean’s tweet confirming the news:
The even more important most important tweet I can make!As always you have been heard! @theSimpsons episodes will be available in their original 4:3 aspect ratio on #DisneyPlus beginning 5/28.May 20, 2020
Finally, the more pedantic Simpsons fans among us can enjoy the show and put our DVD boxsets away for the time being. Still, how about bringing us the audio commentaries for each episode next, eh?
A new Simpsons short is coming to Disney Plus, too
.@TheSimpsons And as an added bonus Oscar-nominated short The Longest Daycare will premiere on Disney+ 5/29 woo hoo! pic.twitter.com/UNAe0d3QDnMay 20, 2020
In addition, Jean has revealed that The Longest Daycare short featuring Maggie Simpson from 2012 will arrive a day later, on May 29. The short originally released alongside Ice Age: Continental Drift.
The next big Simpsons content drop coming to the service will likely be The Simpsons season 31, which ended on Fox in the US on May 17. Hopefully we’ll see that arrive at some point this summer. We’ll probably just be watching seasons 2-10 over and over again, though, to be honest.