I was in my late 20s when The Simpsons started and was a fan from the start. I never missed an episode as it came out and I still haven't.
I have all the DVD box sets up to season 12 including the Stark Raving Dad disc pre-ban.
I think it's a good episode. Not in my top 10 but above average.
I'm not necessarily here to discuss why it was removed from the library or if it should be reinstated but you can, if you want.
When was it removed?
I read in another post that The Cartridge Family was banned in England and he and his friends had only recently seen it for the first time.
How many of you have never seen Stark Raving Dad?
Would I be violating copyright laws if I made copies and gave them away for free?
Did anybody else notice they removed this episode from streaming services? And why? Other than the major reason it had some good material in it.
The overreaction to the pink shirt is just weird and not funny imo.
Around six months ago Disney+ introduced the original 4:3 aspect ratio (upscaled 1080p) in the service. WEB-DLs are around 30GB per season (without the commentary track) and certainly much easier to find than modern high-quality DVD encodes. Full NTSC DVDs may demand memberships on private trackers and personally I don't want to navigate the menus, especially when the episodes are out of the production order and thus can't be queued as such.
The Stark Raving Dad episode was removed from circulation due to Michael Jackson's (uncredited) appearance and related child abuse allegations.
If this is not allowed then i'll delete but anyway. Okay so "Stark Raving Dad", the Micheal Jackson episode, was pulled a while ago for alleged bad things done. So why can't they edit out John Kricfalusi's couch gags from two Simpsons episodes? I am not for censorship at all but it seems hypocritical to have one but not the other? I get that Micheal Jackson was a lot more famous and well known but he passed away 10 years ago while John's still alive.
Idk i want to see what people's thoughts would be?
If you want to watch Stark-Raving Dad (S3E1), FandangoNOW has it for purchase at $2.
Is it because BC didn’t do the voice acting? I have been rewatching entire series and recall several Cosby appearances (right now watching Helter Shelter) but the MJ episode is gone.
Why remove the MJ episode but not Cosby or at least edit out? I think there’s other people who have since fallen from grace who are still in the reruns and streaming.
Kinda sad they decided to actually go through with censoring it.
Edit: I guess it was season 3.
Disney plus has launched with a backlog of The simpsons. Stark Raving Dad is not on the service leading me to discover the episodes has been pulled from syndication entirely due to the problematic nature of Michael Jackson.
His sexual abuse has been publicized widely and most recently with the hbo documentary. His actions are certainly unjust but should this episode be buried and unseen?
Is right to ignore the past? Stark Raving Dad was a fantastic episode and among one of my favorites for the series. It saddens me that a loved episode of television I have experience now has conflicting messages.
As fellow fans of the series what are your thoughts?
When is right to enjoy entertainment from individuals(or features said individual) that have done wrong. These types of examples can be applied to a multitude of entertainers and artist and of course not just MJ.
Since Stark raving dad was pulled from most online stores, I was wondering is there any legal way of buying this episode besides trawling ebay for old DVD's?
I haven’t watched the Simpsons episode Stark Raving Dad but Al Jean of the Simpson’s team himself requested that episode to be banned after Leaving Neverland. He says this:
“I think it was part of what he used to groom boys. I really don’t know, and I should be very careful because this is not something I know personally, but as far as what I think, that’s what I think. And that makes me very, very sad.”
Seeing all there’s a ton of evidence that Michael Jackson was a child molester it’s very clear he very well could’ve used the episode to get kids to think he’s misunderstood when people says he’s weird and so on. I’m reminded of how he’d tell the boys he’d molest how awful their parents are and how great he himself is.
Clearly Michael portrayed himself as being so wonderful and innocent. He manipulated the Simpsons team and I have no doubt as usual they’re the ones getting flack for not wanting to keep an episode with a child molester, he manipulated parents into giving them their boys, he manipulated the boys into thinking his sickening acts were “love,” and to this day fans are still under his spell. I imagine watching the episode with the knowledge we have now it must be absolutely horrifying and sickening.
If so, that seems really ridiculous to me. That in 659 episodes, with hundreds of guest stars, that apparently the only one worthy of essentially "censoring" (or whatever you want to call it), is one where a character is voiced by Michael Jackson.
There's seriously never been any other objectionable things that happened on The Simpsons in the last 30 years?
I mean, I'm not asking them to "censor" more episodes. I just feel like it's really random and short sighted that this one episode got the boot.
Just sayin'. I dunno if Disney made a mistake or if they intend on keeping it up.
I'm wondering if this episode will be on there, since Disney has made no attempts to distance themselves from Jackson(he did a 4-D film attraction for Disney theme parks called Captain EO which is widely available on Youtube) it seems likely that it will be on there. What does everyone else think?
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0701217/
I had no idea that wasn’t Michael Jackson singing. It was his sound alike that he took him.
Definitely a great way to start season 3, and one of the best episodes of the series.
Have a great night!
