Benny Hill had a funny skit were they used pan and scan.
I recall back in the 1970s (and even 80s) when it was common to see a movie broadcast (generally a spaghetti western) from a scope print with a flat lens.
Everyone was super thin. Sometimes this was just done for the opening/closing credits, other times the whole film would be shown that way.
You can still mimic this by setting your DVD player controls to "think" that you have a different type of tv than you actually do.
Which brings up ANOTHER beef about DVDs. I've seen several production companies that automatically ASSUME I have a 16x9 tv. I have to toggle my DVD player's setting just so that I can move the cursor over the appropriate DVD menu options.