This edition of the Geek News Brief includes stories about Season 3 of The Umbrella Academy, Aang, Toph, and Korra joining Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl, and Seinfeld getting cropped on Netflix.

Host: Rob Logan [Twitter] [Twitch]

The Umbrella Academy Season 3 will arrive in 2022

In celebration of the Hargreeves siblings’ birthday, Netflix has released a brand new promo for the third season of The Umbrella Academy, confirming that the superpowered family will make their return in 2022.

It’s also been confirmed that some episodes of the new season will take place at Hotel Oblivion, which was the title of Gerard Way’s third volume in The Umbrella Academy comics. Further details about Season 3’s plot are still being kept under wraps, but given that they’ll be featuring Hotel Oblivion, the episodes might potentially cover some of the material from that book.

Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl adds Aang, Korra, and Toph

The final three characters of Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl have been revealed. Rounding out a roster of popular Nickelodeon fighters are Aang and Toph from Avatar: The Last Airbender, as well as Korra from The Legend of Korra.

With the addition of those three characters from the Avatar universe, the confirmed roster for Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is now 20 characters deep and features other favorites like Leo and Mikey from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Ren & Stimpy, Reptar, SpongeBob SquarePants and many more.

The game launches on October 5 for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S&X, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

Seinfeld hits Netflix, but aspect ratio change crops out some jokes

Classic ‘90s sitcom Seinfeld has arrived on Netflix after a six-year run on Hulu. Given that the show was filmed years before HD was a thing, it was originally displayed in a 4:3 aspect ratio on TV and the DVD sets that followed.

On Netflix, however, the show has been cropped into a 16:9 widescreen format to fit modern TVs, and as a result, some of the visual jokes have been cropped out.

A significant example has been pointed out by some Twitter users for the episode titled “The Pothole.” In the episode, George and Jerry are trying to find George’s lost keys, which were dropped into a pothole that was then paved over. In Netflix’s version, the pothole is completely cropped out, which leaves George yelling in the direction of a pothole that no one can see.

This isn’t a new problem for older shows coming to streaming services. A similar thing happened in 2019 when the entire run of The Simpsons hit Disney+. After a large number of complaints, Disney eventually released the seasons that aired in 4:3 in their original aspect ratio. Hopefully Netflix will do the same.

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Rob Logan

Rob is a movie buff, computer whiz, gamer, huge Batman fan, and above all... a geek. In addition to being the Founder and Host of The Geek Generation, he is also a photographer, graphic designer, certified clinical hypnotherapist, a former professional wrestler, and a current superhero.

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