Matt Parker, Trey Stone

Much has been said of ''South Park'' from thousands of sources, so if you’re reading this you’re actually a fan. Therefore, I also know you’re a devoted fan because people either love or hate this show and rarely do I run into anyone who fence-sits on this subject. Being a devoted fan, you’re reading to decide whether this is better than buying all those broken up discs they’ve been releasing since the dawn of DVD. And to that end, I’m about to fence-sit.

This show is truly comic dynamite. At the time of Season Three (back in 1999) ''South Park'' was reaching an enormous audience and winning it over with coarse humour and untouchable storylines. The animated format was dirt-cheap to produce, as it was crudely rendered and the show, essentially, survived on the scripts alone. Written in the majority by Trey Parker, most were incisive and pushed the farthest reaches of good taste. Some reflected on pop culture, others on world or local politics. Some were just experiments, I’m sure, to see what they could actually get away with.

The first episode I ever saw starred Mr Hanky and I was hooked from then on. I was also studying animation, which led me into all sorts of moral dilemmas – God, it looks so bad, yet it’s so funny. However, I digress...

And so, to the fence-sitting part. It’s delicious to have the entire third season all in one place to tap into whenever you wish, without trawling through all those discs searching for the episode you want. However, there still aren’t any worthy extras to pad out the set.

There are some real classics herein, including ‘Jakovasaurs’, ‘Sexual Harassment Panda’, ‘Korn’s Groovy Pirate Ghost Mystery’ and of course, ‘Mr. Hanky’s Christmas Classics’. All are guaranteed to offend someone, but if you’re a fan of the show, they’re all packed with laughs. The dirty, filthy, guilty kind.

Which are always the best. Just don’t grab this hoping there’s something of merit from the creators because this is pretty much a straight forward release.

Clocking in at around four minutes per episode, the Matt and Trey commentaries are about as piddling as you can get. Worth hearing, but nowhere near long enough and frankly a bit of an insult to the fans. Shame.

Rating :
Reviewer : Jules Faber