From Comedy Central and creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, comes the hit animated series South Park. Season 18 is now available on Blu-ray with Season 19 currently airing.
South Park follows the misadventures of four irreverent grade-schoolers in the quiet, dysfunctional town of South Park, Colorado.
Review
I haven’t watched South Park on a regular basis since it debuted in 1997. I loved it. I was 12 years old when the foul mouthed animated series came out and shocked the world. We didn’t have cartoons that were willing to take it that far back then and as time went by, I sort’ve drifted apart from South Park. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy it, I just moved on for reasons I can’t really explain. So it was quite a shock to say the least when I threw in the 18th season on Blu-ray the other week to see Stan’s dad whipping his cock out and hacking it off at a children’s birthday party.
Matt Stone and Trey Parker are comedic geniuses. From their broadway sensation The Book of Mormon to their movies and more, the duo have never ceased to revisit the animated series that started their rise to glory. South Park remains current in ways I didn’t expect. There’s an episode about Pewdiepie here which absolutely nails how ridiculous it is to see little kids watching YouTube channels about other people playing games and commenting on them. “We have this game, why don’t you go play it downstairs?” I’ve seen this firsthand with kids today and I truly don’t get it…. South Park tackles subjects like this, Freemium Gaming and much more in ways that no other series truly can.
My favorite episode was ‘Cock Magic’. Growing up a nerd who actually played Magic The Gathering (still the most popular fantasy based strategic card game on the planet), I can truly say that this was one of the best episodes of South Park that I’ve ever seen. The kids wind up attending an underground ‘Cock Magic’ fight ring, where people bet on roosters who fight each other (BY PLAYING MAGIC THE GATHERING). It’s fucking ridiculous but it’s funny as shit. Even the dialogue is damn faithful to the game — this wasn’t written by people who have no clue how to play this thing — it stays faithful to the actual game which makes it even funnier.
At the same time – Stan’s Dad – who thinks the kids are referring to ‘Cock’ magic being a thing he used to do in college, begins to perform his disturbing brand of penis illusions around town. At one point he saws his dick off at a children’s birthday party, then reaches behind a child’s ear, where his missing dick just so happens to be, and plops it back on. TA DA! Holy shit, this is really happening. I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time. As much as I do find that some of the jokes don’t land quite as hard because they’re a little too timely (example the Washington Redskins episode), South Park is still very much on the pulse and I love how the series has evolved over time. The Blu-ray set is unrated and vulgar as hell…
From the old days of watching South Park on those wicked VHS sets, all the way to season 18, Parker and Stone have managed to stay alive alongside Family Guy and The Simpsons while daring to out-do both in terms of staying relevant with pop culture. The only drawback to this set is how short it is. 10 episodes, which is less than previous seasons but it’s also because they aired all in-a-row as opposed to being broken up in the past as they hit the channel. I don’t see anything wrong with 10 episodes however because South Park aims for quality over quantity.
Rating: [star rating=”4″]
Special Features
The mini commentary from Parker and Stone is really cool and I actually like that they do a short behind the scenes conversation as opposed to just popping in randomly throughout the entire episode. Because they get to the point and I love hearing their thoughts on how they came up with the episodic concepts.
- Deleted Scenes (1080p, 7:57): Scenes from “Gluten Free Ebola,” “Handicar,” “The Magic Bush” “Grounded Vindaloop,” “Cock Magic,” and “#Rehash.”
- #Socialcommentary (1080p): On-screen tweets shed some 140 character insights into each episode.
- Audio Commentary: Trey Parker and Matt Stone share a few insights into each episode with their patented “mini commentaries” that last only a few minutes each.
Details:
Paramount Pictures | 2014 | Season 18 | 220 min | Rated TV-MA | Release Date: Oct 06, 2015
Video
Codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.78:1, 1.33:1
Audio
English: Dolby TrueHD 5.1
English: Dolby Digital 2.0 (224 kbps)
Subtitles: English
Discs
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (2 BDs)
Bonus View (PiP)
Packaging
Slipcover in original pressing
Playback
Region A