TVSquad

The South Park boys are back. And this time, they're bringing a little extra to their DVD set. This is the first set to be available on Blu-Ray, but I have not yet upgraded and only got my hands on the "regular" DVD. That's the one I'll be reviewing.

The season opened strong with the episode "Tonsil Trouble" (in which Cartman gets AIDS). On the commentary, it is explained that this was the "safe" episode that was partially finished in advance to taking a mid-season break. They showed it first because they couldn't decide which of the first three to begin the season with.

I recall not being impressed as the season progressed during its initial broadcast, but upon re-watching it, I changed my mind. This season had some clever themes and some pretty disgusting images, such as Randy Marsh at the computer.

(S12E07) While the kids are on an educational field trip to a living museum called Pioneer Village, Cartman forces Butters to sneak away with him from the class to go to the amusement center located nearby. While they're having a good time at the amusement center, a group of thieves break into Pioneer Village and take the class hostage. Hilarity ensues.

This episode is the last of the first half of season 12. South Park will return later in the year with seven more episodes.

(S12E06) South Park, along with the rest of the country, has lost the Internet. As a result, Randy Marsh takes his family on a trek to California to find it.

As someone who is an Internet addict, I certainly can understand the dilemma of this situation. I don't think we could go back to being a society without Internet, much as we can't go back to being a society without phones, television or cars.

As someone who works with the Internet for his day job, I had some problems with the simplistic way that it was presented. The Internet is used for much more than shopping or e-mailing (or, indeed, porn). Entire industries rely on it. The only part that struck me as truthful was seeing people live in a Great Depression-type state without the Internet.

(S12E05) It must be very tough for Trey Parker and Matt Stone to keep outdoing themselves. I don't know which image from tonight's episode was funnier: the mouse with the penis on its back running all over town (and, at one point, singing at the moon) or the photo of Mickey Mouse with a huge erection. It's a tough call.

More after the jump...

(S12E04) The South Park guys are going after the Writer's Guild of America, and it's about time.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone are not members of any of the unions, and they negotiated Internet profit-sharing before it became an issue for the WGA. They have also remained consistent with their dislike of the Hollywood creative elite (including actors and writers, although they are both) and their willingness to take a different viewpoint than the popular media.

(S12E03) To begin, for those unaware, South Park Studios has started to offer full episodes of the show on their official site with limited commercial interruption. I originally reported this in November.

I'll say this: when the South Park team put their minds to it, they can come up with some fantastic animation. When you watch the crudity of the animation in standard episodes, it's easy to forget that they're pretty damn talented at their craft.

(S12E02) The thing that makes South Park stand out above all other television shows is the creators' ability to take an old idea and put a new spin on it with depth and good reasoning. This episode is a perfect example of that.

Britney Spears tries to escape her fame by hiding out in Colorado. Sadly, the paparazzi follow her and through a confluence of events, she blows her own head off with a shotgun. Fortunately, this is South Park and such things aren't fatal here.

(S12E01) After a routine tonsillectomy goes horribly wrong, Cartman comes face to face with his own mortality.

Season Twelve is out of the gate pretty strong. Unfortunately, it seemed to lose momentum towards the end.

Matt and Trey tackle the issue of AIDS...again (they have done so before, such as in the episode mocking Jared from the Subway commercials). They tend to present AIDS as a shock-value joke, but this time their take is slightly different.

FOX has ordered up a new batch of American Dad episodes for the 2008-09 season, according to a statement released by FOX today.

I'm happy to see the series return, though I'm not surprised it did. It has been getting great ratings in all the right demographics, and I think its quality has improved considerably throughout this last season. When it began, it seemed a bit too much like Family Guy (both series were created by Seth MacFarlane), but over time I think American Dad has slowly developed a voice all its own, with more emphasis on plot rather than the "anything goes" cartoon style of Family Guy. It's easy to compare the two shows because the character designs are similar, but I think that's where the similarities end.

(S11E03) Sorry this review is a few days late, Becky, but I've been sick.

Overall, I thought this was a good episode, though it didn't floor me with hilarity the way some episodes do. Perhaps that was in large part to not quite understanding what the point of the episode was. Was it meant to mock those who see the Earth as a conscience entity that can actually choose to get rid of us the way the students of South Park get rid of lice? Or was the whole episode just a philosophical experiment and we're left to make up our own minds? Or maybe it was all just a really elaborate set up so they could do a gag about Angelina Jolie having crabs at the end of the episode.

I know how it is. You read my posts on TV Squad and you think to yourself, 'man, I really wish there was some way I could thank Adam for all his hard work. God knows it's difficult to sit on one's butt and bang away on a keyboard.'

It is tough, but I manage. Anyway, if you want to show your appreciation, and my request for the R2-D2 DVD projector was too expensive for you, then why not buy me this awesome South Park figure set? Kenny, Kyle, Cartman and Stan are dressed as their band Fingerbang from the episode "Something You Can Do With Your Finger." They even come with interchangeable arms. These toys would bring me hours of enjoyment, and really, isn't that what life is about? Me being happy?

I find it kind of humorous that on the product description page they censor the word "fingerbang" as "f*ngerbang." Apparently replacing that one letter with an asterisk makes it impossible to figure out the word.

[via Jeff Pidgeon]

(S10E14) After relentlessly satirizing current events for several episodes, the minds behind South Park took a nice departure with this episode, offering up a hysterical take on mainstream movie conventions, complete with a voiceover and musical score provided by a man who follows Stan around to clue everyone in on what's happening while he plays music on a portable record player.

Following the old comedy standby that pain is always funny, this episode sees Stan trying to become responsible, but having more pressure put on him from the town's adults than he can handle. First his bike is towed (that's right, I said "towed"), so he can't do his paper route, and if he can't make money from the paper route, he can't get his bicycle back. He ends up enlisted to coach the pee-wee hockey team, a group of toddlers who can barely skate and never score a single goal.

(S10E09) Almost immediately after the events of 9/11, conspiracy theories began to crop up, and probably faster than ever before now that we had the internet and a way to instantaneously transmit gross misinformation and conclusions rife with logical fallacies. I think Cartman best summed up this episode with a line from his song about finding the truth behind 9/11: "I can't base my logic on proof."

While Mr. Macke tries to find out which boy took a crap in one of the urinals, Cartman decides to finally get to the bottom of 9/11. He presents his finding in class, and by using tortured logic, doctored photos and actually 9/11 conspiracy theories that are easily debunked by anyone with the ability to think rationally, he proves to the class that it was in fact Kyle who was behind it all along. What's especially funny about this is that Cartman hates Kyle, and obviously began his research wanting to prove Kyle's involvement. The same bass-ackward approach is exactly what causes anti-Semites to blame 9/11 on a Jewish plot, and every kid from a liberal arts college with a DSL connection and a gravity bong to blame the event on a government plot meant to increase public favor for invading the Middle East. When Cartman points out that one fourth of the population believe there was a conspiracy behind 9/11, Stan wisely points out that one fourth of the population is probably retarded.

(S10E08)

Cartman: You can just hang around outside all day tossing a ball around, or you can sit at your computer and do something that matters.

I think I can say with almost absolute certainty that South Park is the first television show in history where a character actually uses the word "pwnage." Since I'm online doing this here blogging thing all the time I caught that particular phrase, though there was a lot in this show I didn't understand, since I've neither seen nor played Warcraft before. The episode gently mocked those who do nothing but play Warcraft, but at the same time, it made it clear what an awesome game it is. It was funny to watch everyone become so immersed in the game they begin to think of it as real life, but it did make me think back to my younger days when a particularly difficult Nintendo game would cause me to throw my controller across the room in anger. I guess we're all susceptible to the allure of these games. Well, not all of us, but those of us with nerdly tendencies. Truth be told, I think that, like Butters, Hello Kitty Island Adventure is more up my alley.

South Park has been doing a fine job of getting the season sets out in a timely manner, and on August 29 the eighth season will be available. Some of the episodes, such as "Awesom-O" and "Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset" are already available on the recent "best of" DVD, but this season also had some other great episodes, such as "The Passion of the Jew," "Good Times with Weapons" (in which Butters is accidentally hit in the eye with a ninja star so the boy's dress him up as a dog and take him to a vet), "Something Wall-Mart This Way Comes," and, possibly the best South Park Christmas episode ever, "Woodland Critter Christmas." The set will contain all fourteen episodes from the season, and the usual mini-commentaries from Matt and Trey.