Tales From The Public Domain - Reception

Reception

In its original American broadcast on March 17, 2002, "Tales from the Public Domain", along with a new episode of Malcolm in the Middle, received more than a full rating point more than ABC's showing of the film Snow White: The Fairest of Them All, which received a 3.1 rating among adults between ages 18 and 49, according to Nielsen Media Research. This means that the episode was watched by more than 4% of the American population of said demographic at the time of its broadcast. On August 24, 2010, the episode was released as part of The Simpsons: The Complete Thirteenth Season on DVD and Blu-ray.

These anthology shows tend to be pretty spotty. The series usually pulls of the Halloween ones relatively well, but the others are much more hit or miss. “Hamlet” probably comes across the best, but it’s still pretty mediocre.

Following the release of The Simpsons thirteenth season, "Tales from the Public Domain" received mixed reviews from critics. Colin Jacobsson of DVD Movie Guide wrote that The Simpsons trilogy episodes "tend to be pretty spotty." Of the three stories, Jacobsson liked "Do the Bard, Man" the most, although he overall found the episode to be "mediocre." Adam Rayner of Obsessed with Film wrote that, even though the episode "has a few laughs," it "just feels half-hearted," and, writing for 411Mania, Ron Martin described the episode as being "just a lazy way out for the writers." Giving the episode a negative review, Nate Boss of Project:Blu wrote that the episode is "awful" and "Kinda annoying," and that it "has been done so many times, it's hardly all that funny." On the other hand, Casey Broadwater of Blu-ray.com wrote that he is "particularly fond of " and Rosie Fletcher of Total Film considered it to be a "stand-out" episode in the season. The Vulture column of New York magazine named it one of the ten best episodes of the show's later era.