Paramount Home Video presents

South Park: The Complete Sixth Season (2002)

Trailer Narrator: Coming this summer, it's the classic film that changed America. E.T.: The Extraterrestrial, the new, redone version for 2002. All the E.T. effects have been digitally upgraded. All the guns have been digitally changed to walkie-talkies. And the word 'terrorist' has been changed to 'hippie.'
Stan: Aw, dude, why would they do that?Cartman: Yeah, hippies and terrorists are the same thing.- Trey Parker

Stars: Trey Parker, Matt Stone
Other Stars: Mona Marshall, Eliza Schneider, Radiohead, Jennifer Howell, Vernon Chatman, Adrien Beard, Isaac Hayes
Director: Trey Parker, Matt Stone

MPAA Rating: Not Rated for violence, language, crude and vulgar humor and content, sexual references
Run Time: 05h:07m:41s
Release Date: 2005-10-11
Genre: television

Style Grade	Substance Grade	Image Transfer Grade	Audio Transfer Grade	Extras Grade
B+	A-	B+	B+	B-

 

DVD Review

After the death of Kenny and the introduction of a Towelie, who may be my absolute favorite character, it seemed difficult to top the happenings of the stellar fifth season of South Park. But, thankfully, Trey Parker and Matt Stone have not only upped the ante, but possibly delivered one of the funniest seasons of the hit series so far.

From the outset, the sixth season maintains the often crude and shocking but still incredibly funny humor that the series has become known for. As the season opens, Kyle (Stone), Cartman (Parker), and Stan (Parker) are dealing with the death of their dear friend Kenny who finally left us in the final episodes of the previous season. For the better part of the season the fourth spot is a sort of revolving door with Butters (Stone) often filling in, though the best episode of the season features a The Bachelor-style contest where a new friend is chosen.

The sixth season features a handful of standout episodes including the premiere episode Jared Has Aides in which Subway spokesman Jared comes to South Park and announces the secret to his weight loss. Due to a misunderstanding he is vilified, while at the same time the kids try to use Butters as the spokesman for a Chinese restaurant in an effort to get Jared-like money. In typical South Park fashion, things end with Butters having livingroom liposuction, and Jared being hounded by a lynch mob.

Other strange happenings include the introduction of Professor Chaos, the alter-ego of Butters who wants to unleash evil schemes on the town but finds in one episode that everything has already been done by The Simpsons. As is likely evident by now, Season Six is largely focused on Butters, and his shining moments include traveling to New York to attend the Maury Povich show in Freak Strike in the hopes of getting prizes. But his best come when he plays Gollum in the terrific The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers, in which the children trudge across town to return The Fellowship of the Ring to the video store without knowing that an adult film was accidentally put in the case.

In all, the sixth season plays like a greatest hits collection throughout. Of course, Parker and Stone take aim at social issues: Catholic scandal in Red Hot Catholic Love, Hollywood re-releases of adored films with better effects in Free Hat, and of course the war when Santa and Jesus try to bring Christmas to a downtrodden Iraq in Red Sleigh Down. The brilliance of South Park has always been its ability to satirize while being fiercely funny and genuinely engaging and, in the Sixth Season this continues, thanks to the presence of some great supporting characters including Butters and the introduction of Mr. Slave and the Lemmiwinks in the one episode that may well cross the line and go much further.

Rating for Style: B+
Rating for Substance: A-

 

Image Transfer

	One
Aspect Ratio	1.33:1 - Full Frame
Original Aspect Ratio	yes
Anamorphic	yes

Image Transfer Review: South Park has never been a visually striking series so a reference quality transfer isn't required but what is here isn't too shabby. Colors for the 1.33:1 ratio transfer are vivid and well defined with no bleeding evident, while there are some moments of aliasing. But for South Park, the best isn't required.

Image Transfer Grade: B+
 

Audio Transfer

	Language	Remote Access
DS 2.0	English	yes

Audio Transfer Review: The Dolby Digital 2.0 track for each episode sounds fine with crisp dialogue with no distortion while also bolstering clean and clear support in the left and right channels.

Audio Transfer Grade: B+ 

Disc Extras

Static menu with music
Scene Access with 6 cues and remote access
Subtitles/Captions in English with remote access
Packaging: Cardboard Tri-Fold
Picture Disc
3 Discs
1-Sided disc(s)
Layers: RSDL

Extras Review: As is usual with each of the season sets for South Park, the sixth season boasts commentary tracks in shortened form for each episode. The tracks are not available via your remote, which makes listening to them a bit of a pain. Still, the four-minute pieces offer up enough information about each episode and its basis. Interesting tidbits can be found including great stories about the creation of The Simpsons Already Did It and Free Hat, as well as several other episodes.

Extras Grade: B-
 

Final Comments

While many animated series hit a wall after just a few seasons, South Park manages to improve as it goes along and continues to maintain a level balance of satire and humor that is difficult to achieve in an animated series. The Sixth Season boasts several memorable episodes and is a must-have for fans of the series. Highly recommended.

Kevin Clemons 2005-10-10