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South Park - Vol 9
Warner Vision/Warner Vision . R4 . COLOR . 88 mins . M15+ . PAL

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Sexual Harassment Panda: Mr Garrison's class is paid a visit by Sexual Harassment Panda, a guy in a suit who takes his job VERY seriously (and has a very cute signature tune to boot). After five or more hours of hearing EVERY sexual harassment law read out to them the class are getting rather antsy, tempers flare and Stan calls Cartman an ass sucker. Oh, hang on dude, he does that anyway! Anyway, Cartman hires Kyle's dad to sue young Stanley for, you guessed it, they go before Judge Julie, and the big-boned one wins, laying claim to half of Stan's stuff. Mr Broflovsky thinks he's onto something here and takes things a step further, suing the public schools system. Another win, and the litigious floodgates are opened - getting to the point where everyone is suing everyone, quite literally. That makes me a sad panda. Speaking of whom, he is sacked, and looks destined for a life on the Island of Misfit Mascots, unless... In all a quite wonderfully barbed, albeit rather obvious, attack on the "Sue! Sue! Sue!" culture of a certain rather super-powerful nation - but be warned, this should be rated "ARGH" for those who recoil at squeaky blackboards. Kenny dies.

Cat Orgy: Cartman's mum (hmm, I guess I should type 'mom') is off to Mr Mackey's meteor shower party - and guess who's coming to baby sit? Stan's bitchy brace-face from hell sister Shelley, that's who. The second Mrs Cartman walks through the door Shelley lets fat boy know who's boss in no uncertain terms, he plots an escape whilst his tormentor invites her 22 year-old boyfriend Skylar over (she is but 12 - eww!) Meanwhile, what's up with kitty? She's just a lottle bit hyper, and what's with all the butt-hole displays? Skylar uses the house for band practice, Shelley sings (kill me, please!), kitty escapes, finds a suitable Cartmanesque beau, and comes home to party with many new found friends (for more info see the episode title). Novel if you've never seen a puddytat snort a line of catnip, and part one of the Meteor Shower Trilogy. For the first time ever Stan, Kyle and Kenny are nowhere to be seen...

Two Guys Naked in a Hot Tub: It's Mr Mackey's meteor shower party, and seemingly as Shelley was busy, Stan gets dragged along for a night of basement hell. And what a hell - stuck with the uber-nerd troika of Pip, Butters and six-year old Dougie, whose idea of fun is dressing up and playing Charlie's Angels. Stan gets a gig as Bosley, and uses the three Melvins to aid in his escape. Meanwhile Kyle's dad gets Randy in the hot tub, where some harmless experimentation goes on, and the trigger-happy ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) department surrounds the house SWAT style, fearing a WACO meets Georgetown-like religious fantastic (sic) mass suicide. Can the Angels save the day? Will the ATF unleash the negotiator? Will anybody survive the utterly hilarious lampooning of Cher's Believe? Will Stan learn something today? As you may have guessed, this is part two of the Meteor Shower Trilogy. Oh, still no Kenny (sob!)

Jewbilee: You guessed it, part three. Kyle's off to Jew scouts, whilst little Ike is off to Squirts. Kenny's at a loose end, so comes along for the ride, gaining a crash course in Judaism along the way. Whilst the scouts carve offerings of soap sculptures, the Squirts make macaroni piccies (Ike's is literally divine) - until a bear runs off with one of the littlies, and their reluctant leader sees his chance to finally earn his chutzpah badge. Meanwhile, just who is this guy from the church of the anti-Semites espousing the virtues of Haman? And just what is it with all these arts and crafts? Why is mama bear kidnapping all the Squirts, and will they all get to eat (carrot) cake? Rock along to Kumbaya, give praise to Moses (who has to be seen to be believed, but even then I'm still scratching my head and wondering "what the...") and cheer as Kenny just possibly saves the day - but will he be able to save himself? Yes, I realise that last one was a very stupid question… In all a lovely moral tale dealing rather poignantly with some of the issues involved with separatism and exclusion, and by far the highlight of this disc.

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When you review four South Park discs in a week it does get kind of hard to come up with new stuff for this bit. However, season three sees a couple of welcome improvements in the treatment of the series. The utterly dreadful packaging of the first two series' has been dumped in favour of good old, ever reliable Amaray cases - cause for rejoicing in itself. More importantly for collectors though is that the chopping of the Braniff and Comedy Central logos from the end credits that occurred in those first two seasons worth of discs has come to an end, they are left intact and there's no abrupt mutilation of the associated soundtracks. Big "Yay!"s for whoever finally stopped the slaughter.

The video quality is basically the same as ever, pretty much as good as you could expect or hope an animated TV show to look, and once more sheer bliss for those who have but experienced South Park via SBS, except perhaps for the two people out there who manage to get perfect reception (I hate you both!) There was however one glitch just before the seven-minute mark in Cat Orgy that was rather alarming, where half a Cartman head pops up in the bottom section of the screen - it’s fleeting, but very careless. Sonically it remains, as I daresay it will forever, in Dolby 2.0 Stereo, which is more than suitable for such a presentation.

My standard chapter whinge remains - each episode is a chapter unto itself, so heaven help anybody who wishes to search out their favourite snippets to show off. You do get an extra of sorts this time around, although anybody who counts a few silent screens showing covers of the other South Park DVDs that are available as something sweeeeeeet really needs to get out more.

I have a slight suspicion that by this stage of the show's life Trey and Matt's creative juices were drying up a smidge, although they certainly managed to push things a bit more "out there" than they did in earlier episodes (now who would have thought THAT possible when the first ever episode had a giant satellite emanating from the bum of an eight year old?!) This envelope pushing was certainly welcome, although it did render this season a bit more hit and miss than their previous efforts. When they hit, such as with Jewbilee, it is a joyous thing to behold, however when they miss it can be a bit messy. In all though this is a pretty good collection of third season episodes, which nicely demonstrates attempts to stretch the bounds of the series a tad, rather than just rehashing previous glories.


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  •   And I quote...
    "Eskimo kisses, masturbation, kippot and furry little willies - South Park just gets stranger..."
    - Amy Flower
      Review Equipment
    • DVD Player:
          Pioneer DV-535
    • TV:
          Sony 68cm
    • Speakers:
          Home Built
    • Surrounds:
          No Name
    • Audio Cables:
          Standard RCA
    • Video Cables:
          Standard Component RCA
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