|
|
The Movie:
After a legion of "themed" releases and volume sets, Warner Brothers and Comedy Central have finally released the complete first season of "South Park", the incredibly foul-mouthed and funny animated program focusing on four grade-schoolers in a small mountain town. Although the controversy over the show has died down (and the raunchy content ramped up in recent seasons), this first season of the series offers some classics, including "Pinkeye", Cartman's meeting with alien invaders in "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe" and "Mecha Striesand".
Episodes: Cartman Gets an Anal Probe, Weight Gain 4000, Volcano, Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boatride, An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig, Death, Pinkeye, Damien, Starvin' Marvin, Mr. Hankey the Christmas Poo, Tom's Rhinoplasty, Mecha Striesand, Cartman's Mom is a Dirty Slut.
The DVD
VIDEO: All of the episodes are presented in their original 1.33:1 aspect ratio, as they were during broadcast. The several episodes presented here that I viewed are generally of the same image quality as the episodes that were offered with the various prior DVD volumes of the show. Although the show is certainly primitive in terms of visuals, the presentations here remain rather inconsistent. Sharpness and detail are passable considering the material, although there are some moments where even the basic animation looks rather soft.
Although they don't consistently appear, some artifacts are occasionally spotted and at times, enough are present to give the image a rather harsh and "digital" appearance. No edge enhancement was seen, though. The show's basic color palette remained fairly bright and vivid, with some minor smearing.
SOUND: All of the episodes are presented in the show's original 2.0 audio. During the first episode I watched, "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe", I noticed several instances throughout the episode of a brief "pop" on the soundtrack. This also happened during "Volcano" and "An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig", although to a less noticable degree. Although this might be an issue with the DVD, I believe it's more likely an issue with the original soundtrack elements. I didn't notice this problem on the other episodes I viewed, though. The soundtracks are essentially as primitive as the animation, with a passable balance between dialogue, sound effects and the occasional music.
MENUS: All three discs contain animated main menus with images from an episode included on that disc.
EXTRAS: The supplements remaining here are rather disapointing. Commentary with creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone for all of the episodes were part of the announced features, but no commentaries are included here, only basic - and pretty unfunny - intros for each episode from the two. Other than the intros, there's a couple of "Park" music videos, some promos for the show and other Comedy Central shows, the "Park" characters on the CableAce awards and a scene with Jay Leno that was apparently only on the Tonight Show.
Update: Apparently, the commentaries for the DVDs were recorded, but releasing studio Warner Brothers wanted to edit aspects of them. Creators Stone and Parker disagreeed with the request and the commentaries were then dropped. Comedy Central is still offering the commentaries - only on CD. Click on this link to visit the Comedy Central page where the CDs are offered. Those who bought the set elsewhere (Comedy Central's site is offering a CD/DVD set pairing for $39.99) can send in a proof of purchase and a small shipping/handling fee for the CDs. To listen to the commentaries, viewers would have to sync up the CDs with the DVDs.
Final Thoughts: The DVD is rather disapointing, but the first season of "South Park" does certainly have its share of highlights. With no apparent difference in audio/video quality and very little in the way of extras, those who have bought their favorite episodes from this season on the prior DVD releases should probably not consider upgrading to this new release.
|