The Simpsons - The Fifteenth Season

The Simpsons: The Fifteenth Season offers episodes from 2003 and 2004, so this DVD set is a decade-old flashback, as well as a nostalgic nugget from TV's longest-running scripted show.

The series is confirmed to run at least through season 25, and this current compilation is a solid collection of shows, using Otto's bus as the delivery vehicle.

The colorful inner sleeve folds out to reveal his bus riders, Springfield's denizens, portraying snippets from the 22 episodes contained on four disks. Some of the highlights include a Treehouse of Horror; Krusty's belated bar mitzvah in "Today I Am a Clown;" the always-appreciated shirtless Flanders in "Diatribe of a Mad Housewife;" a "Magical History Tour" featuring Henry VIII, Sacagawea, Mozart, with Lenny Lewis and Carl Clark; and "The Regina Monologues," where the family visits England and interacts with guest voices Tony Blair (and his jetpack), a put-upon J.K. Rowling, and thespian Sir Ian McKellan, who gets zapped by the curse of saying "Macbeth" (misspelled with a capital "B" on the theatre's marquee).

Other guest voices include Glenn Close as Homer's mom, Jackie Mason as Krusty's dad, Jerry Lewis, Nichelle Nichols, Michael Moore, notoriously reclusive author Thomas Pynchon, Brave Combo, and cartoon creator Matt Groening in "My Big Fat Geek Wedding."

The DVD set comes with a helpful Visitor's Guide, which offers a complete description of each episode, listing original airdate, runtime, writer and director, scene selection breakdown, plus special features boxes, coded with icons such as animation showcase, commentary, deleted scenes, language and other special features such as sketch galleries and commercials.

In "The Fat and the Furriest," Homer goes to the dump and walks by a pile of Betamax tapes, laser discs, then a spot "Reserved for DVDs." But this evergreen (Terrace) copy of "The Simpsons Fifteenth Season" should never become landfill.

"The Simpsons: The Fifteenth Season"
DVD set
$31.99
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