Why So Blu?

South Park: The Complete Fifteenth Season (Blu-ray Review)

Comedy Central and creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker bring you South Park: The Complete Fifteenth Season on Blu-ray. Talk about longevity as a show – in fact, talk about a crude show that turns popular culture on its head. Just when you think that the boys can’t come up with more gags (literally and figuratively) they’ll quickly squash (literally and figuratively) those doubts. We also reviewed The Complete Fourteenth Season HERE, as well. Let’s see how South Park: The Complete Fifteenth Season stacks up on Blu-ray.   On a separate note (rant) I wonder when they’re gonna release a full set of the complete series? Anyways, carry on.

The Show 

Okay, so now it’s been fifteen years since South Park premiered way back in 1997 -give or take the occasional hiatus here and there dude to writer’s strikes and what not. The show has remained consistent and on schedule for the most part. This season of South Park skewers everything from The Human Centipede, to the iPad, to our friends down south, to the royal wedding, and much more. Sure, it doesn’t always work and some of the jokes fall flat here and there, but considering that each episode takes roughly six days to complete it’s a pretty big accomplishment to come up with that much material each season. Oh, and I just realized that Bill Hader writes for South Park, too. Nice.

I’ll go on and say that my favorite episodes of the Fifteenth Season were the Human CentiPADi, City Sushi, The Last of the Meehecans (for obvious reasons). Keep in mind that when the show airs on Comedy Central it’s bleeped all to hell. Not so on this Blu-ray package. Every f-bomb is clearly audible. That’s also the catch-22 of the whole thing. There’s a sort of charm that goes with 80% of your material being bleeped. It’s funnier than the rampant f-bomb going on and on. One can get tired of that. I didn’t, but I can see how some can get tired of it.

For instance, The Human CentiPAD episode has Cartman wanting to get a brand new iPad, because all of his friends have one. This opens a big ass can of worms in terms of f-bomb territory. Cartman just bags on his mom for not getting him the iPad and tells her that she should buy him a drink first before f***ing him. He comes up with some pretty funny ones, which almost derails the entire episode. It isn’t called The Human CentiPAD for nothing. A piece of advice: read your terms and conditions before you agree to update your iTunes. 😉

My other favorite episode is that of Last of the Meheecans, which has Butters getting lost and traveling to Mexico, where he is made leader of the Mexicans. Mexicans from all over the U.S. heed Butters (or Mantequilla) words and they flee back to their homelands. This will not do as the border patrol begin rounding up Mexicans and ship them to areas in the U.S. that are nowhere near the border to cross back to Mexico. Wow, the total sense of irony was really nailed home with this episode. Not only that, but I found it disgustingly cute that Butters was being called by the Spanish meaning of his name. It made me smile. I never smile.

A few other episodes hit their marks like the bashing of Tyler Perry for not being funny, the tooth decay episode was really annoying in parts, and the few other ones towards the end of the season also left me sort of meh. The royal wedding episode was super HARDCORE and should be watched with no children in the room due to its graphic lampooning of the royal family. Royal pudding, indeed.

Oh, and apparently this season had the distinction of stopping midway through due to the guys (Matt and Trey) going on Broadway with their Mormon show. They won a bunch of awards for it, too. Also, Kenny no longer dies in every episode, but I don’t remember if they had already stopped killing him in the previous season

Either way, the more things change, the more they stay the same. South Park: The Complete Fifteenth Season carries on.

Episodes

HumancentiPAD

Funnybot

Royal Pudding

T.M.I.

Crack Baby Athletic Association

City Sushi

You’re Getting Old

Ass Burgers

The Last of the Meheecans

Bass to Mouth

Broadway Bro Down

1%

A History Channel Thanksgiving

The Poor Kid

Video

South Park: The Complete Fifteenth Season is presented in 1080p, 1.78 widescreen. Color depth and separation are the name of the game and these primaries and secondaries do not disappoint. Banding is rarely ever an issue. Edge enhancement is not present – jagged edges on the line work don’t always show themselves and when they do it’s not that big of a deal. The show on Blu-ray has always had a sort of slickness to it, which gives it that “clean” looking aesthetic too it. There’s no grain, but it doesn’t look digitally processed either. South Park looks pretty good on Blu-ray – way above average for an animated show.

Audio

South Park: The Complete Fifteenth Season is presented in Dolby TrueHD 5.1. The sound level really gets elevated on this particular season. From the familiar opening by Primus all the way through the end credits – South Park‘s Fifteenth Season kicks into high (and low) gear. Dialogue clearly centered – the rest of the speakers handle all of the commotion with ease and that LFE gets its groove on proving that low frequency rumble that we all know and love. I’d go so far as to say that this season of South Park on Blu-ray is near-reference.

Extras 

The special features on this Blu-ray set include: mini-commentaries on all episodes by Matt Stone and Trey Parker in addition to two making-of pseudo-documentaries chronicling the making of two episodes and getting them in on time for their respective air dates. These two episodes in particular took 6-days each to create. Once you see the madness that went into the creating of such a crude looking show you may have new appreciation for the show whether you’ve been a fan or not. Deleted scenes round out the package.

• 6 Days to Air: The Making of South Park
• 6 Days to Air: Behind the Scenes of “City Sushi”
• Mini-Commentaries by the creators of South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, on all episodes
• Deleted Scenes

Summary

 South Park: The Complete Season hoped for change, but stayed generally the same, which is what the chaps were obviously going for. With the exception of Kenny not dying anymore, There really was no difference (from what I remember) to the previous seasons episodes. Some episodes were hit and miss – but hasn’t it always been that way? The technical specifications on this Blu-ray set are all top notch and the documentary of the making-of pilot seal the deal. I recommend it.

 

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