Funny Show, Fair DVD Set.

201 - Terrance & Phillip in 'Not Without My Anus'
202 - Cartman's Mom Is Still A Dirty Slut!
203 - Chickenlover
204 - Ike's Wee Wee
205 - Conjoined Fetus
206 - The Mexican Staring Frog of Southern Sri Lanka
207 - Flashbacks
208 - Summer Sucks
209 - Chef's Salty Chocolate Balls
210 - Chicken Pox
211 - Roger Ebert Should Lay Off the Fatty Foods
212 - Clubhouses
213 - Cow Days
214 - Chef Aid
215 - Spooky Fish
216 - Merry Christmas Charlie Manson
217 - Gnomes
218 - Prehistoric Ice Man

Season two continues the raunchy adventures of grade schoolers Stan, Kyle, Kenny and Cartman, who live in a small mountain town. Originally conceived as a small Christmas special that gained fame in Hollywood, the show eventually became the highly controversial Comedy Central show it still is today. Although the show's a bit more inconsistent today, the first and second seasons offered plenty of inspired situations for the kids, great supporting characters and plenty of classic lines (Cartman's often-quoted "respect my authoritay!" and "screw you guys, I'm going home." or other lines like "there's a time and place for everything...college.")

The season opened with the controversial Terrance & Phillip in 'Not Without My Anus'. Although the prior season-ender had left audiences in suspense about who was Cartman's father, "Not Without" opened claiming it was all an "April Fool's" prank, and launched into an episode focusing on T & P. There's certainly some other highlights throughout the episodes, including "Chickenlover", a "COPS" parody where Cartman hits the streets and it's revealed that Officer Barbrady can't read. "Flashbacks" has the kids remembering some of their previous adventures while stuck in a bus on a cliff. Cartman's hogging of a chocolate cake in the episode's opening moments is one of the funniest sequences I've seen in the series. Other highlights include "Chef's Salty Chocolate Balls", a funny parody of the Sundance Film Festival, and "Cow Days", where the Rodeo comes to South Park and Cartman thinks he's a Vietnamese prostitute after getting a bump on the head.

The unfunny introductions that most of the episodes have had on video are present once again here.


The DVD

VIDEO: All of the episodes in this 2nd season are presented in their original 1.33:1 full-frame aspect ratio. The show's animation is certainly quite basic, but its presented well here. Sharpness and detail are perfectly satisfactory, while no edge enhancement or print flaws are present. Compression artifacts are also not seen. Colors are well-rendered, with no smearing or other flaws.

SOUND: The show's 2.0 soundtrack is perfectly fine, clearly presenting both dialogue and sound effects.

EXTRAS: The first season set irritated fans who found that commentaries by Trey Parker and Matt Stone were only available on separate CDs available on the Comedy Central website. This time around, the CC website unfortunately gives no indication that another CD commentary set will be made available, and no commentaries are on the DVDs.

Despite the lack of commentaries, there is one great supplement, "Goin' Down to South Park". "Goin'" is a 50(!)-minute documentary about all things "Park". There's plenty of footage of the show's production offices and interviews with Parker, Stone and others, such as the Comedy Central exec who oversees the series (who offers the tidbit that the show has grossed over $300m in licensing revenue). The interviews are quite funny and the behind-the-scenes clips are cool, but it would have been nice if the documentary had gotten into the animation process a bit quicker. We don't learn more about the production until about 35 minutes in.

Also included are Comedy Central promos and Chef's "Chocolate Salty Balls" music video.

Final Thoughts: Another pretty good "South Park" release. The episodes are good, the audio/video okay considering the material and the supplements satisfactory. Recommended.