South Park Ramps It Up (And Parks It)

One of the joys of Youtube and various websites that offer up seasons of old TV episodes to view is that you can catch up on series you may not have paid attention to in the past. For me, South Park is one of those series (hangs head in shame).


Yeah, I know. Where have I been living.

But the reality is our lives and brains have only so much time or energy for so many shows at a time, and thus some just get lost in the VCR/PVR shuffle. I don't think I'd ever watched more than five minutes of a South Park episode over the past ten years or however long its been on the air...and when I did, it just didn't click, hit, spark...whatever term you want to use. This even after I went to the 'South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut' movie way back in 2000 and laughed my ass off.

But a couple months ago I found myself watching the 'Make Love Not Warcraft' episode from last season, and was thoroughly entertained. Not only was it funny, laden with razor-sharp wit and biting satire of the online gaming phenom, it was a really solid story - with a very clever beginning, middle, and end.

Seriously. Who knew?

I've since enjoyed a couple episodes a night either in reruns on various latenight networks, or on the Internet tubes. And there's been some classics...most memorably 'The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers' and 'The Passion of the Jew'. And more recently 'D'Yikes', a terrific riff/spoof of '300' featuring a battle between the ladies of Club Les Bos and the Persians, a group threatening to take over the bar and 'redecorate'.

A clip to illustrate...



Politically incorrect...yes. Offensive...perhaps. But let me say this - to camera ramp up and down in an animated show damn near measures up to the genius of the animated 'bloopers' put under the end credits of Pixars 'A Bugs Life'.

Seriously.

Tip of the hat to South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone...glad I finally found ya.