The Simpsons - Season 12 (Ltd Edition 'Comic Book Guy' head) [DVD]

This is the 2000-2001 season. The 4 discs contain all 21 episodes of season 12 with extras. The total running time for the box set is given as 540 minutes.

The season opens with the Tree House of Horrors XI trilogy ("Ghost Dad", "Scary Tales Can Come True" and "Night of the Dolphin".

A Tale of Two Springfields - a new telephone prefix causes revolution in Springfield.

Insane Clown Poppy - Krusty discovers he has a daughter.

Lisa the Tree Hugger - Lisa falls for an activist and ends up in a tree.

Homer Vs Dignity - Homer becomes Burns's prank monkey.

The Computer wore Menace Shoes - Homer gets a computer and becomes Mr X.

The Great Money Caper - Homer and Bart become grifters.

Skinner's Sense of Snow - Bart and company discover that they are trapped in the school by snow.

Homr - Homer has surgery and becomes as clever as Lisa.

Pokey Mom - Marge discovers an artist when she takes a job in a prison.

Worst Episode Ever - Comic Book Guy falls in love.

Tennis the Menace - Marge and Homer get a tennis court.

Day of the Jackanapes - Sideshow Bob gets a job at Bart's school.

New Kids on the Bleech - Bart joins the boy band "Party Posse"

Hungry Hungry Homer - Homer goes on hunger strike over his beloved Isotopes.

Bye Bye Nerdie - Lisa has bully problems and looks to science to sort it out.

Simpson Safari - Homer finds a golden giraffe and claims his African holiday.

Trilogy of Error - Three interlinked stories, Lisa's science project; Homer's thumb; and Bart and a dead body.

I'm goin' to Praiseland - Ned tries to fulfil Maud's dream of a Christian amusement park.

Children of a Lesser Clod - Homer hurts his leg and opens a day care centre.

Simpsons Tall Tales - Hobo tells the Simpson family stories in exchange for a sponge bath.

Fat Tony appears in "Insane Clown Poppy" and "Trilogy of Errors"

Sideshow Bob makes another attempt to kill Bart in "Day of the Jackanapes"

Extras include:

- Commentaries for every episode.

- Deleted scenes for all episodes.

- Comic Book Guy's Best Moments Ever

- Animation Showcase - for "Tree House of Horrors" (Night of the Dolphin); "Day of the Jackanapes"

- Art and Animation - where animators talk about the characters they draw.

The design of the disc holder is a continuous fold-out image from a comic book convention. It continues on both sides.

Unfortunately the design of the disc holders is still bad. Would it hurt the company to put a thin protective disc cover in the cardboard to protect our valuable discs? Or maybe it's a ploy to sell extra sets when the discs become so damaged you can't play them anymore? Of course that's probably me being suspicious.

I managed to find some very fine plastic disc covers which just fit inside the cardboard slots, so they give some protection to the discs from scratching as you remove and replace them.

I was disappointed to see that the moulded full case head is now only a moulded face which has been stuck to the front of an ordinary box-set box, if you start something like this then you should continue in the same vain and not change it for the sake of cost cutting.

Overall, I love the Simpsons, yes there are episodes which are weaker than the others and there are the odd ones which I would class as amongst my favourites, but one person's favourite is another's poor episode so it is very conjectural. Regardless of the packaging problems, and the disappointment of the moulded casing being replaced by a single mould fascia I am still happy to have this in my collection.

Welcome to the family Comic Book Guy.

I can understand the frustrations: you buy this to find the packaging is awful and is not going to protect your already expensive collection, but lets look at the reason why this is a good DVD set to own.

For a start, it's really well illustrated, plenty of pictures, and fun packaging. OK it's not easy to get the disks out, but it's functional. The season 12 book is cool too, comic book like and has plenty of information you want to know about the series.

Secondly, this is still a funny season, episodes like HomeR where Homer finds he has a crayon in his skull, and Worst Episode Ever where Comic Book Guy finds he fancies Skinner's mum is also very funny. Lisa climbing a tree for a boyfriend was also quite a funny moment too, so yes, there's plenty here to enjoy.

Thirdly, extras, I love the Comic Book Guy: Best Scenes Ever featurette, where we get 9mins of the best Comic Book Guy moments, "excuse me, no banging your head on the counter please", he's just such a dysfunctional geek; but that's why we like him. I also like the fact there's deleted scenes and plenty more fun to be had with this after the episodes have been watched. In total, I have enjoyed 4 nights of 3hrs or so watching this, so it's worth every penny.

OK, the packaging is bad; it's expensive, but it's a good show and I know I will come back to this time and time again, the show was starting to go slightly downhill, but if you love The Simpsons like I do, you'll know how great each of these episodes are. Having the tactile head version is cool too, but not easy storage wise.

I highly recommend this, though Fox, please make the DVD storage side of this better please! We don't want to scratch our pride and joy, our Simpsons DVD collection.

Having all the series neatly lined up in the DVD case, made the mistake of buying the Ltd ed. 'Comic Book Guy' head. Didn't fit neatly with the rest so I sent it back also because it had two disc 4 and no disc 3.