Simpsons World, the much-anticipated Simpsons streaming service from FXX, just went live a few hours ago. Here’s my initial impressions of it. Please note I’m just using the web version, so I don’t know if there’s anything different about the mobile version.
- When you visit the site, you’re greeted by random clip. The first one I got was entitled “Writing credits” from “The Front,” which seemed a bit odd since right now the situation with royalty payments is unclear.
- There’s a chart that shows the relative popularity of Simpsons episodes. There doesn’t seem to be much of a difference between First Decade Simpsons and the rest, except for Season 26, which only has 4 episodes so far and apparently 0 viewers.
- The design is nice and responsive, and thank god they’re not using that cheap-looking “Simpsons” font. The menu is hidden behind a donut button, which assumes users instinctively know to click whatever’s in the top-left corner.
- It’s a bit slow, but that could just be my connection/browser.
- The error message is kinda cute: “Itchy and Scratchy just mutilated your request with a chainsaw. Please try again.”
- Sadly, you need to authenticate with a cable provider to watch episodes. For those without a participating cable provider (i.e. Verizon) it does allow a 2-hour temporary pass. Not sure if that’s just a launch thing or if it will continue.
- Once I did that, “Dancin’ Homer” started auto-playing. There’s a lot of randomness going on here.
- These appear to be the widescreen versions. Some producer on Twitter said a while ago that you’d be able to toggle between the widescreen and original 4:3 versions, but I’m not seeing that option.
- In addition to the donut, there’s also a big “The Simpsons on FXX” watermark in the top-right corner. Actually I’m not sure if its technically a watermark, since I think they’re supposed to be transparent?
- Last Sunday’s Halloween episode is already on there, it seems, but I couldn’t view it because my “2-hour” pass expired after one hour. Welp, that’s it for me, I guess.
- I swear there was nothing in the “Rarities” section just a short while ago, but now it’s populated with stuff like “Writers’ Favorite Moments” and behind the scenes videos. This could be something worth keeping an eye on.
- The “Playlists” section feature a lot of tenuous connections. I had to rack my mind to figure out why “Grampa vs. Sexual Inadequacy” was in the “Presidential Parodies” playlist (the Al Gore scene I guess).
- If “‘Round Springfield” gets to be in the crossovers playlist because of the Lion King gag, then “Sideshow Bob Roberts” (with the Archie gang kicking Homer out of Riverdale) oughta be in there too.
- Playlists are either clips or full episodes. “Ice To See You” features full episodes with (I’m assuming) McBain clips, instead of just the clips, like that popular video from last year that reconstructs a McBain movie.
- Finally, the playlist every Simpsons fan has been clamoring for:
