Over the past eight years or so, South Park has been treated like the older, slightly underachieving child, while Family Guy has been the A-student whose report card gets stuck to the front of the fridge. Once a beacon of satirical humour that turned the adult cartoon genre on its head, Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s incredible show has been eclipsed by Seth McFarlane’s admittedly excellent exploits of a tubby Rhode Islander and his wacky neighbours.
As good as Family Guy is though, South Park has remained as scathing, cutting, on-the-ball and as downright hilarious as it was when Cartman had aliens stick a probe up his ass. Fast forward 15 years and South Park is still going strong as it continues to bombard its fans with a flurry of satire. After the stellar ‘Coon Trilogy’ of Season 14 though, does the show’s fifteenth year deliver the same levels of crude mirth? Yes. Yes it does.
Kicking off with the cringeworthy ‘Humancentipad’, Season 15 sees Kyle stitched to the arse of another victim (Human Centipede style, just in case you were living under a rock) because he didn’t read the T&Cs of his Apple products. It’s belly laugh laden gold that sets the box set off with aplomb. A few episodes later and you get a pretty bold and devastating episode featuring Butters and the City Wok guy, before hitting “You’re Getting Old” – the mid-season finale that had the internet abuzz as fans speculated as to whether or not the episode was a thinly veiled metaphor for Trey and Matt’s attitude towards their foul-mouthed baby.
Thankfully, there’s another disc full of episodes to quell any fears of the show’s creators throwing in the Towlie. The brilliant “1%” and “Broadway Bro Down” stand out as superb episodes in the latter half of an amazing box set. On top of the incredible content, Season 15 dishes out a heap of extras (something that was severely lacking from previous releases) including deleted scenes, featurettes and commentaries – all of which demand attention. The result is a three-discer that any self-respecting fan needs to go out and buy, right now.
Overall verdict: Parker and Stone’s genius blend of doe-eyed innocence and stomach churning adult humour is as brilliant today as it was in 1997. Fingers crossed it’s this good in 15 years time.
Special Features:
Audio Commentaries
6 Days to Air: The Making of South Park
6 Days to Air: Behind the Scenes of “City Sushi”
15 Deleted Scenes
Reviewer: Jordan Brown