The Simpsons as Described by WGBH

MP3: Simpsons episode with "DVS" audio captioning for blind people.

The other night, I turned on The Simpsons, only to find that the program's audio had a weird narrator describing almost everything that was happening. At first I thought that The Simpsons were parodying the voice-over approach from another Fox show, Arrested Development. It turns out that my broken VCR was picking up an additional audio channel instead of the main one, and in the case of The Simpsons, I was hearing the DVS, or blind captioned version of the show. DVS stands for Descriptive Video Services, and it's the audio equivalent of closed captioning for the deaf. Here's a large MP3 of the DVS version of The Simpsons "Rapture" episode from May 8th (right click to download).

While its obviously intended to benefit blind people, DVS also has the effect of converting The Simpsons into a radio show. Every sign, locale and visual gag is described by a harried announcer employed by Fox Television and WGBH. (more at link)

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I'm listening to the mp3 now, it is a very surreal experience. The interesting thing is, it really makes you listen to what is happening and visualize what the characters are doing. The voiceover description is almost like listening to a commentator of a sports event, his voice inflection goes up in surprise at the end of nearly every sentence.

(dubbed from eyebeam)
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