Ah the simpsons. how thee has entertained over this decade past. While many TV shows release the usual "halloween Special" none have done it quite as well or as extreme as The Simpsons with their Treehouse of Horror yearly specials.

As this is the first Treehouse of Horror DVD release, one would expect them to be released sequentiually, but instead we get THOH 5, 6, 7 and ....12?

As has become the norm for TV show Halloween Specials, the simpson's follows suit in many instances by "paying homage" to well known films, and over the course of these 4 Specials, we're treated to the likes of "the Shinning" where Homer takes the family to an off-season mountain hotel were he is acting as caretaker over the winter break...hmmmm. You've also got A Nightmare on Evergreen Terrace" were Ground's keeper Willy is killing the kids of Springfield Elementary in their dreams..... Harry Potter takes a slight pounding in "Wiz Kids" where Springfield Elementary has been turned into wizards school, and Mr Burns is an Evil Scorcerer.

Homer"3" is also the very first episode of the Simpson's that has utilised CGI instead of the traditional hand drawn animation, for Homer's trip to the "3rd dimension".

VIDEO
These 4 simspon's episodes range in broadcast dates from 1994 to 2001, and so vary to some degree in quality with the quality improving with each episode. Presented in their original broadcast ratio of 1.33:1, Eps 4 is pretty average, with a considerable amount of noise in the picture. This tends to lessen the detail of the image with an overall softer appearance, and colours are also a little undersaturated. Then you get to Episode 12 and it look quite impressive with little to no noise in the picture that is much sharper and with considerable more detail. Colour Saturation is also very good with near rock solid images.

MPEG artifacting is present, but only to a very light degree, and so is of little to no consequence.

AUDIO
One thing about the Simpson's is that it's had a terrific soundtrack for a TV... the best way to describe it is fun! Each episode here is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround and as per the original broadcasts are Dolby Surround encoded. Dialogue is highly intellegable, and as per the picture, improves with fidelity with each newer episode. The surround channel is quite well utilised with a decent amount of sound FX and musical ambience.

As each of these episodes "pays homage" to many famous names, faces, movies and more, the music for each segment very well emulates it's target without ever being a blatent rip-off.

EXTRAS
Just the one extra.