South Park: Complete Series 4 DVD

Set in a Colorado mountain town that gets destroyed on a regular basis and is populated by the dumbest, most vulgar characters imaginable, South Park is an anarchic animated sitcom that owes more to the spirit of Monty Python than to its comparatively tame predecessor The Simpsons. The show's origins go back to a 1995 Christmas video "postcard" called The Spirit of Christmas that a Fox Studios executive had commissioned at the previous Sundance Film Festival for $2000 having seen the work of film-makers Trey Parker and Matt Stone (Cannibal: The Musical). The adventures... of Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny became an instant ratings and merchandising smash and the foul-mouthed eight-year-olds have expanded to the cinema screen (Bigger, Longer and Uncut), found their way to the MTV Movie Awards and allowed the show creators/(song) writers/voice-artists to pursue equally anarchic comedy at the box office with Baseketball and Orgazmo. Constantly pursued by a censorship outcry, the series has survived several copycat cartoon threats and even the death of its lead female vocal-artist during its third season. Perhaps the show's biggest controversy has always been that--despite a disclaimer before every episode--under-aged children still see it. But lured by a universe full of Cheesy Poofs and Cookie Dings, where no-one's afraid to badmouth school bus driver Miss Crabtree and where it's OK to vomit from being in love, it's no wonder that children of all ages can't help but love it. Seriously. --Paul Tonks Season Four: Just three weeks after losing out on an Oscar for the song "Blame Canada", the show's creators aired their disgust at Phil Collins (who won for Tarzan) in the fantastic episode "Timmy! 2000". Not only did it prove how fast they can put a show together, it also reassured viewers that none of their comedic spark had been lost. More importantly we were introduced to the super-sweet wheelchair-bound child with learning difficulties. Timmy truly boosted the show's humour but also instilled some pathos to the gang's growing adventures (such as his poignant role in "Thanksgiving Special"). Proving the intention to take things in a new direction was the long-awaited move up to the "Fourth Grade". With a souped-up theme tune in an explosive new title sequence, the start of Kyle's adopted Canadian brother Ike in Kindergarten (cue super-cute baby voiceovers in a hilarious comment on the US Election farce in "Trapper Keeper") and lots more CGI inserts, this season really looks different from the others. The best two experiments were having Malcolm McDowell as "A British Person" narrating to camera for a new take on "Great Expectations" and linking all the way back to the video postcard that started it all--The Spirit of Christmas--in the downbeat finale "A Very Crappy Christmas". --Paul Tonks [show more]

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