Disney Plus now streams The Simpsons in original 4:3 aspect ratio

The Simpsons can now be streamed through Disney Plus at its original aspect ratio of 4:3. Before the change, which came in place on Thursday 28 May, older episodes were shown in 16:9, and cut off critical parts of the frame.

Until 2009, The Simpsons used a 4:3 ratio for all epsiodes – it was only after that from about Season 20 that Fox changed the format to the more modern 16:9, and dramatically increased the quality of the show. When Disney published all 31 seasons of the show on their Plus service, every episode was only available in 16:9.

Subscribers now need to turn on a toggle in the description page that disables all episodes from defaulting to 16:9. Disney also confirmed that they had to rework how the content appeared on the platform, and called it a “fundamental change”.