South Park: Fifteen Years Later

[PCD]

Well, South Park just reached the half-season finale. And it was... odd. I'm honestly not sure what to make of it. If it weren't a guarantee there were at least seven more episodes, it would look like a complete series finale, right there.

I went through my own South Park phase in high school. I watched the movie a million times, Tivo'd as many episodes as I could, and marathoned them when my parents weren't around to give me disapproving looks as I giggled at the stream of cussing. Then I got older and stopped caring. Their cynicism started just sounding douchey and like nothing could really please them, the violence included in essentially every episode started coming across as tasteless and mean-spirited, and I just didn't like it anymore. Nowadays, I'll go back at the end of each half-season and catch up on what's happened, but I can't bring myself to really care. It was a little bit bizarre, in that regard, to see this episode about growing up, changing tastes, and moving on. Really a departure from the usual stuff... though not at all lacking in the usual humor.

As far as I know, no one is really sure what this episode is implying for the show as a whole. They could just be messing with us, and things will be back to normal again in the fall. It's hard to tell with Matt and Trey. I guess this is just a place to discuss that. Or how you feel about South Park in general.

[Azisien]

I didn't follow South Park very much. Here and there in high school, including the movie. It was kind of a raunchy Family Guy before Family Guy, and I always at least respected it for going where no one else dared go.

Then last week I watched half of Season 14 on Blu-Ray, and I was pretty damn pleased at how hilarious it can still be. Most episodes were gold. Social commentary via extreme exaggeration, throwing political correctness to the winds, some of my favourite comedy.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Firsst seasonswere good, middle seasons pretty dreck, current seasons is totes aces in that some episodes are fantastic. A lot of miss episodes still but can be pretty funny at times. Also even at its worst about a billion times better than family guy.

[greed]

Firsst seasonswere good, middle seasons pretty dreck, current seasons is totes aces in that some episodes are fantastic. A lot of miss episodes still but can be pretty funny at times. Also even at its worst about a billion times better than family guy.

Pretty much this, the bad episodes of the later seasons are truly bad, but the good ones are leagues ahead of anything they made in the early days. And I'll take a show with uneven quality that produces gold above a show that's reliably decent but seldom better than that.

Also find it crazy how the show actually can give an emotional sucker punch, not sure if it's just because I've been watching this since childhood (some of my friends didn't have the most attentive parents, and well early South Park probably wasn't that bad for a 10 year old) but this episode kinda got to me a little

[Bobbey]

South Park didn't play very often back when I was a Teenager at my parents house, and mostly because we didn't have Satellite TV until I was almost out of the house. Most of the episodes I would catch were in France French, which I just can't listen too anymore because I find the accent really annoying (Espèces d'enfoirés! Ils ont tué Kenny! insted of OMG! They killed Kenny!). However I did watch the movie a ridiculous amount of times with my sister to the point where we were able to quote most of it by heart. What was funny was my mom absolutely dissaproved the movie, but one time she came back from a night out with my dad and some friends somewhat drunk, and started watching it with us and giggling her ass off.

I've watched a new (I think) episode recently (where Butters goes to see a psychologist about a Multipersonality disorder) and I have to say it was a good episode, definately different from what they've started from 15 years ago. The fact that they have episodes which don't include the main cast at all is pretty interesting. I can't beleive it's already been 15 years as well; the show came out when I was 8 years old O_o damn that's a long time ago.

[Aerozord]

it is like the simpsons for me, eventually I just kind of lost interest. I cant explain it, not like I found the episodes less funny or repetitive, just they weren't on channels I watch regularly. This meant it took some actual effort to remember when they were on and I rarely knew when new episodes were coming up since I usually find this out from promos on the channel.

The show just loses that "must see" feel and just isn't worth going out of my way to see.

Part of this might also have to do with me slowly watching less TV as video games and internet become bigger parts of my life

[The Wandering God]

That was a pretty damn powerful finale. If Matt and Trey were to say, "Fuck it, we'll pay the fees to break contract just to screw you like you screwed us" (regarding the censoring), I really wouldn't be surprised.

In a lot of ways, this was a commentary on the series itself. Matt and Trey getting older (both are 40+ now), viewer's dissatisfaction as the show went on, and how being too cynical can make you start to see shitty things everywhere.

South Park has literally been airing for a little over half my life and I'm a pretty big fan. I don't always agree or laugh, but I still enjoy the insight they bring to things.

[Magus]

Pretty much any episode I have laughed at, I think the only ones I haven't are those weird multi-parter ones like Imaginationland or whatever where they didn't seem to focus on jokes but instead some semblance of a "plot", which didn't make any sense.

Like the one where they were pirates in Somalia or whatever, that was funny as hell.