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Viewers upset with Disney+ for cropping 'The Simpsons'

Viewers upset with Disney+ for cropping 'The Simpsons'
© Sky
New streaming service Disney+ receives criticism for cropping old episodes of The Simpsons to a widescreen format.

Viewers have vented their frustration on social media after Disney+ launched in the UK with "cropped" episodes of The Simpsons.

The hotly-anticipated streaming service officially launched in the UK on Tuesday with an extensive library including the entire Marvel and Star Wars franchises, as well as the first 29 seasons of the seminal cartoon.

The early seasons of the show were originally created in a 4:3 format and only switched to a 16:9 - widescreen - format midway through the show's 20th season.

The conventional way to get around showing 4:3 images on a 16:9 screen is to broadcast in a 'letterbox' mode, which preserves the full 4:3 image with black bars either side.

Disney+ appears to have simply cropped the picture to fit old Simpsons episodes in a 16:9 format, however, meaning that some of the show's iconic visual gags - such as the one below - are missed.

Viewers took to Twitter to complain about the altered episodes, with one writing: "I know it's a quarantine and I have lots of time to spend, but I refuse to watch The Simpsons in the wrong aspect ratio. I must exercise self care in these trying times"

Another wrote: "is the Simpsons aspect ratio fixed yet? Waiting to re-subscribe until it's fixed. As soon as the ratio is fixed I will pay for my year. If it isn't fixed yet, do we at least have a date?"

Disney+ received similar complaints when it launched in the US last year, prompting the company to promise that the issue would be resolved "early in 2020".

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Written by
Neil Wilkes

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