Disney+ (pronounced Disney Plus) is a subscription video on-demand streaming service owned and operated by the Disney Streaming division of the The Walt Disney Company. The service primarily distributes films and television series produced by The Walt Disney Studios and Walt Disney Television. The service also advertises content from Disney's Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic and the Star brands in particular. Original films and television series are also distributed on Disney+, with ten films and seven series having been produced for the platform as of November 2019. Serving adjacent to Disney's other streaming platforms – the general programming-oriented Hulu and the sports-oriented ESPN+ – Disney+ focuses on family entertainment based around Disney brands.
As of April 2023, 34 of the 36 commissioned seasons of The Simpsons are available internationally on Disney+. Prior to May 28, 2020, seasons 1-19 and some episodes of season 20 were cropped to fit widescreen televisions, rather than existing in their original 4:3 aspect ratio. Since May 28, 2020, these episodes have been made available in their original ratio alongside the cropped 16:9 remasters.
Disney+ has also included The Simpsons Movie, and the theatrical short films The Longest Daycare and Playdate with Destiny. Beginning in 2021, 20th Television Animation produced the short films for the service, The Force Awakens From Its Nap (2021), The Good, The Bart, and The Loki (2021), The Simpsons in Plusaversary (2021), Welcome to the Club (2022), Rogue Not Quite One (2023), and May the 12th Be With You (2024). The service also includes animated music videos with the series collaborating with musicians, with Bad Bunny in Te Deseo Lo Mejor, released on December 24, 2021, and with Billie Eilish in When Billie Met Lisa, released on April 22, 2022.
On its official Disney+ Facebook page, the streaming service released three Simpsons videos, focusing on the series referencing Marvel, Star Wars and Disney.
Shorts[]
Over the years, Disney+ has produced a series of cross-promotional shorts for The Simpsons, which mainly feature The Simpsons crossing over with other Disney properties.
- The Force Awakens from Its Nap - May 4th, 2021
- The Good, the Bart, and the Loki - July 7th, 2021
- Plusaversary - November 12th, 2021
- When Billie Met Lisa - April 22nd, 2022
- Welcome to the Club - September 8th, 2022
- The Simpsons Meet the Bocellis in Feliz Navidad - December 15th, 2022
- Rogue Not Quite One - May 4th, 2023
- May the 12th Be With You - May 10th, 2024
Availability[]
By continent, Disney+ is currently available in all of the Americas (except Cuba and the US Virgin Islands, 18 European countries (and 2 dependencies), 3 Oceanian countries (including Indonesia) (and 2 dependencies), 5 Asian countries and 1 African country (Mauritius), 4 more Asian countries (along with the 2 Chinese special administrative regions, Hong Kong and Macau) and Eastern Europe (no countries specified, likely including Poland). The service expanded to South Africa in May 2022, with other countries in Africa, Western Asia and Europe following suit in June 2022,[1] and other Southeast Asian countries at the end of the year.[2] Disney+ original content is available via the direct-broadcast satellite OSN in the Middle East and North Africa.
| Release date | Countries/regions |
|---|---|
| November 12, 2019 | Canada Netherlands United States |
| November 19, 2019 | Australia New Zealand Puerto Rico |
| March 24, 2020 | Austria Germany Ireland Italy Spain Switzerland United Kingdom |
| April 2, 2020 | Channel Islands Isle of Man |
| April 3, 2020 | India |
| April 7, 2020 | France |
| April 30, 2020 | French Guiana, French West Indies, Monaco, New Caledonia, Wallis and Futuna |
| June 11, 2020 | Japan (original) |
| September 5, 2020 | Indonesia |
| September 15, 2020 | Belgium Denmark Finland Greenland Iceland Luxembourg Norway Portugal Sweden |
| October 2, 2020 | Mauritius, Mayotte, Réunion |
| November 17, 2020 | All of the Caribbean (excluding Cuba and the US Virgin Islands), Central America and South America Mexico |
| February 23, 2021 | Singapore |
| June 1, 2021 | Malaysia |
| June 30, 2021 | Thailand |
| October 27, 2021 | Japan (relaunch) |
| November 12, 2021 | South Korea Taiwan |
| November 16, 2021 | Hong Kong |
| May 18, 2022 | South Africa |
| June 8, 2022 | Algeria Bahrain Egypt Iraq Jordan Kuwait Lebanon Libya Morocco Oman Palestine Qatar Saudi Arabia Tunisia United Arab Emirates Yemen |
| June 14, 2022 | Åland Islands Albania Andorra Bosnia and Herzegovina Bulgaria British Indian Ocean Territory Croatia Czechia Estonia Faroe Islands French Polynesia French Southern and Antarctic Lands Gibraltar Greece Hungary Kosovo Latvia Liechtenstein Malta Montenegro North Macedonia Pitcairn Islands Poland Romania Saint Pierre and Miquelon Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha San Marino Serbia Sint Maarten Slovakia Slovenia Svalbard and Jan Mayen Turkey Vatican City |
| June 16, 2022 | Israel |
| November 17, 2022 | Philippines |
| 2023 (upcoming, no set date) | Vietnam |
Simpsons dubs[]
While The Simpsons is dubbed into many languages outside of English, Disney+ does not include all of the dubs. Disney+ does offer many languages (including one film dubbed in Māori and Tahitian, Moana), but only select languages are available for select films and TV shows. Some are only available for The Simpsons Movie and the Disney+ shorts; The Good, The Bart, and The Loki, The Force Awakens From Its Nap, The Simpsons in Plusaversary, When Billie Met Lisa and Welcome to the Club. Only 6 dubs are available on Disney+ for the short, The Longest Daycare, being English and Japanese, and later Polish, Turkish, Greek and Romanian, Playdate with Destiny also has all 6 of them (except for Japanese, also with Audio Description for English) and subtitled into the languages the show is available in on Disney+ (except for Simplified and Traditional Chinese and Slovak). The Force Awakens From Its Nap is dubbed into Cantonese, Danish, Dutch, English (including audio description), Finnish, French (European and Canadian), German, Italian, Japanese, Hungarian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (European and Brazilian), Romanian, Slovak, Spanish (European and Latin American), Swedish, Turkish, Czech and Greek and is subtitled into English and Hungarian. The Good, The Bart, and The Loki is dubbed into Cantonese, English (including audio description), French (European and Canadian), German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Hungarian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Romanian, Slovak, Spanish (European and Latin American), Turkish and Czech and is subtitled into the languages the show is available in on Disney+ (except for Simplified and Traditional Chinese), The Simpsons in Plusaversary also has all 12 of the dubs that were available with the last short (except for Cantonese) and later including Hungarian, Turkish, Czech and Greek and is subtitled into the languages the show is available in on Disney+. When Billie Met Lisa only has English (including audio description), but is still subtitled into the languages the show is available in on Disney+. Welcome to the Club is dubbed into Czech, English (including audio description), French (European and Canadian), German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish (European and Latin American) and Turkish and is subtitled into the languages the show is available in on Disney+. In 2021, Korean became the first Asian language to became available for The Simpsons on Disney+, when Korean subtitles were introduced for all episodes. Later that year, Cantonese began dubbing the episodes themselves, starting with Season 1 and has since then gone up to Season 10. Below is a table showing the languages The Simpsons is available in on Disney+.
| Language | Native name | Available features |
|---|---|---|
| Cantonese / Chinese (Hong Kong) | 粵語 / 中文（香港） | Dub (Seasons 1-10 and shorts) Subtitles |
| Chinese (Simplified) / Mandarin | 中文 / 中文 (普通话) / 中文 (简体) | Subtitles |
| Chinese (Traditional) / Mandarin (Taiwan) | 中文 (台灣) / 中文（繁體） | Dub (Movie) Subtitles |
| Czech | Čeština | Dub Subtitles (Seasons 1-32) |
| Danish | Dansk | Dub (Movie and short) Subtitles |
| Dutch | Nederlands | Dub (Movie and short) Subtitles |
| English | English | Dub (Ft. Audio description post-Season 27, movie and shorts) Subtitles |
| Finnish | Suomi / Suomalainen | Dub (Movie and short) Subtitles |
| French | Français | Dub and subtitles |
| French (Canada) | Français (Canada) / Québécois | Dub (Seasons 1-29, 31, movie and shorts) Subtitles |
| German | Deutsch | Dub and subtitles |
| German (Austria) | Deutsch (Österreich) | Dub (Season 31) |
| Greek | Ελληνικά | Dub (shorts) Subtitles |
| Hungarian | Magyar | Dub (Seasons 2-6, 8-31, movie and shorts) Subtitles |
| Icelandic | Íslenska | Dub and Subtitles (Movie) |
| Italian | Italiano | Dub (Seasons 1-32) Subtitles |
| Japanese | 日本語 | Dub (Seasons 1-17, movie and shorts) Subtitles |
| Korean | 한국어 | Dub (Movie and shorts) Subtitles |
| Norwegian | Norsk | Dub (Movie and short) Subtitles |
| Polish | Polski | Dub (Seasons 1-3, movie and shorts) Voice-over (Seasons 3-20, 22-32) Subtitles |
| Portuguese | Português | Dub (Movie and short) Subtitles |
| Portuguese (Brazil) | Português (Brasil) | Dub and subtitles |
| Romanian | Română | Dub (shorts) Subtitles |
| Slovak | Slovenčina | Dub and subtitles (shorts) |
| Spanish | Español / Español Castilleno | Dub and subtitles |
| Spanish (Latin America) | Español (Latinoamérica) / Español (Latino) | Dub and subtitles |
| Swedish | Svenska | Dub (Movie and short) Subtitles |
| Turkish | Türkçe | Dub (Seasons 1-3, 33, movie and shorts) Subtitles |
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Although Disney+ has made all thirty-five seasons of The Simpsons available for streaming, the season 3 episode "Stark Raving Dad" is not available on the streaming service, due to the controversial Leaving Neverland documentary that aired in 2019, which details allegations against Michael Jackson of alleged pedophilia and child sexual assault, and Jackson once guest-starred as Leon Kompowsky in that episode. Likewise, the season 10 episode "Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo" is unavailable to stream on Disney+ in Japan, due to scenes that are considered offensive to Japan and its culture, including the "Battling Seizure Robots" scene (which is a parody of the Pokémon anime seizure incident) and another one with Homer tossing the emperor of Japan into a sumo thong dumpster. The season 16 episode "Goo Goo Gai Pan" and the season 34 episode "One Angry Lisa" is also unavailable to stream on Disney+ in Hong Kong, due to former in part to references to the 1989 Tianamen Square massacre and a scene featuring former dictator Mao Zedong, and the latter for a character mentioning forced labor camps in China.[3][4][5] Also, The Simpsons Movie and all shorts are unavailable to stream on Disney+ in South Korea due to unknown reasons, unlike other countries. It is possible that the reason is that the film is available for one of the paid Movies for Korean YouTube. However, unlike other Asian countries, the South Korean version of Disney+ has the entire original Simpsons series available.
- Disney+ cut some clips from episodes, such as in the episode "Natural Born Kissers" where Marge's bare breasts are shown, possibly to make the show slightly more family-friendly. Another notable example is in the episode "The Wreck of the Relationship", where a scene depicting the middle finger was blurred, as it was on TV.
- While in most areas the entire show is available to stream in this service, in Latin America there are only two seasons available, which are Season 29 and Season 30. Because of this, a separate service called Star+ was released in Latin America on August 31, 2021 and include the entire Simpsons series.
External Links[]
Citations[]
- ↑ https://variety.com/2022/digital/global/disney-plus-launch-dates-pricing-europe-middle-east-africa-1235217714/
- ↑ https://www.digitaltveurope.com/2021/10/28/omdia-disney-hotstar-boosts-ott-to-surpass-pay-tv-in-se-asia/
- ↑ https://www.businessinsider.com/disney-remove-simpsons-episode-china-forced-labor-camps-hong-kong-2023-2
- ↑ https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-64550177.amp
- ↑ https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna69447