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.
All the classic Simpsons episodes on Disney+ are in cropped widescreen format -- this means you miss out on tons of great visual jokes, like how Duff, Duff Lite and Duff Dry all come from the same tube. pic.twitter.com/cTy9adulFl
— Tristan Cooper (@TristanACooper) November 12, 2019
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".
Neil Wilkes
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