Television programs usually have an unwritten code that making fun of some things is just plain wrong and telling lies or demeaning celebrities can get you sued... except when it comes to South Park.

For some reason South Park seems to have been granted immunity from criticism by the masses. It is the only show that appears to be able to do anything it wants, however it wants, whenever it wants, and gets away with it scott free. Sure the hotlines to the television watchdogs might be ringing off the hooks when it really gets offensive but quite frankly nobody is answering because it seems that the world just likes a good old demented outlet now and again and the safest venue appears to be the adult cartoon South Park.

The concept is simple. Combine dumbeddown 2D animation with unique characters with quite interesting and deep personalities with complex backgrounds combined with outragours stories, horrific sequences, extremely black humour, absolute stupidity, relationships gone wrong, real life famous personalities, layers of offensive material so nobody gets away unscathed, all within the framework of a small backward town that is on the tip of exploding into mayhem for one reason or another. It is all outrageous stuff... but bravo to the makers because its sooooo very funny.

Matt Stone and Tray Parker just let their minds loose every episode to come up some of the craziest television that is so original in concept that nothing out there can compete. At the same time you either love or it or hate it. There is no middle ground. You either find it 1 star extremely obnoxious or 5 stars ridiculously funny.

The downside is that the number of episodes on season one is quite limited. This has only 13. It is still worth it though but you will get more episodes with later seasons. Episodes include alien abduction, hunting trips gone wrong, building muscles, big gay Al, elephans and pigs, death, zombies, ethiopians, Mr. Hanky, Satan, Plastic surgery, Barba Streisand and Cartman's mom.

My reviews will NOT be about the DVD. Since every episode is on here, this is what I will be talking.

Okay, so Trey Parker and Matt Stone give us the first episode "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe." This has the first normal trend of South Park which is killing Kenny in almost every episode. Although the episode itself is not entirely funny, we DO have Cartman, one of the single most hilarious characters ever created. Kudos to Mr. Parker and Mr. Stone.

From there spawns twelve more episodes, none of them really gut-busting hilarious (thus the three stars). In this season, we get South Park's Christmas icon...who is a piece of crap (literally). The brown little stick that is Mr. Hankey the Christmas Poo. (This little guy is actually pretty funny.) In the same episode, we also get Mr. Mackey the school counselor...m'kay? (In my book, he ranks third as the most hilarious character in South Park.)

In the second episode (I think it's called "Volcano"), we are introduced to Randy Marsh, probably the stupidest(meaning in the show) character in all of South Park. (He ranks second in my book, right behind Cartman.) You don't get to see much of Randy in the first two seasons, so you unfortunately don't get to see how stupid he really is. Too bad.

Anyway, that pretty much sums up my thinking on this season. Interesting that usually comedies' first seasons are usually their best. THIS is an exception where some of the later seasons are much more hilarious than its start. A good start of a great show.

When at the top of their game, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone deliver some of the sharpest satire and raunchiest I-can't-believe-they-did-that-on-TV comedy. For my money, "Mr. Hanky," "Mecha-Streisand," and "An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig" are the highlights. Lots of laughs here.

South Park is a great show, but the DVD presentation can suck my balls.

Don't be fooled by thinking how great a 3 disc edition of season one sounds great. I can assure you that 3 discs sounds better then realizing that it is 4 episodes to a disc, and no bonus features or commentary.

If they gave the DVD presentation it deserved you would see that they could easily fit the entire first season onto 1 disc, maybe 2, and the rest of disc 2 could have been bonus features. but noooooooo, 3 discs sounds likes it's a lot and people will think it's packed full of extra goodies. It's not.

I love this show and I wanted to start purchasing every season....But....I just received Season 1 and noticed right away several pops in the audio on all 3 discs. Very annoying. I have been renting DVDs for years and have purchased hundreds of DVDs along with several box sets of other shows and have never had this problem. I am in the process of contacting the company that I ordered Season 1 from for an exchange. It's not their fault, but now I am very hesitant about ordering the rest of the sets from anyone. If a batch of discs were manufactured that way, who knows how many have it. Life is a gamble. Buyers Be aware.