Between Showers

The Simpsons – NEW Main Title

The Simpsons will hence forth be broadcast for the first time in high definition (HD) so we can now fully appreciate the clarity of its yellow skinned characters in their non-complex 2D environment they live in. More details we’re too lazy to type:

Many of the key scenes, and the basic plot, remain untouched.

Bart skateboards recklessly; Homer displays a fine disregard for nuclear safety; Lisa waltzes out of school band practice playing the saxophone.

But Matt Groening, the show’s creator, has crammed dozens of new characters and in-jokes into the updated sequence, which runs to two minutes and makes a range of topical changes to life in Springfield.

In a nod to the economic climate, the price of Marge’s supermarket shop has doubled from $243.26 to $486.52, while her sisters, Patti and Selma push a trolley full of cigarettes behind her in the checkout queue.

Lisa’s classmates are shown playing on Nintendo DS machines. Bart’s journey home is interrupted by Apu, the Indian shopkeeper, who forces him to take evasive action by stepping on to the pavement with his eight newborn children.

The premiere episode, titled “Take My Life, Please” (20×10), also makes references to HDTV in the Chalkboard gag when Bart Simpson writes “HDTV is worth every cent” on the chalkboard.

This will be the first major permanent change to the show’s introduction since its launch in 1989; previous changes have included variations in the duration of the intro, and special one-shot introductions for the Treehouse of Horror Halloween episodes. This new intro also includes some 3D animation when the camera pans over Springfield at the beginning. BUT – What happens in that split second pan at the end? *This*

(click for full res pic)

This episode is not quite the first time The Simpsons has appeared in HD, as The Simpsons Movie was rendered in HD.

Fox will broadcast The Simpsons in 720p and will now letterbox the show on their standard definition feed.