Review: South Park Season 11

South Park started as a shocking cartoon about kids with potty mouths and fart jokes. Eleven years later it has become one of the funniest shows in recent memory and, dare I say, important? No other show satirizes popular culture as harshly or as truthfully as South Park. I never thought I'd be watching a cartoon for social commentary but here we are.

Season eleven is in fact one of the strongest seasons of the show. Each of the fourteen episodes, include the laugh-a-minute Imaginationland trilogy, are brilliantly funny and further prove Trey Parker and Matt Stone aren't just one trick ponies. They spoof The DaVinci Code, Guitar Hero, 300, 24, The "N-word" (in what is one of the season's funniest episodes, "With Apologies to Jesse Jackson"), Tourette's Syndrome, and much more.

Every episode is hysterical. It doesn't let up. Season eleven is assuredly one of the show's greatest seasons in terms of comedy. The kid playing a song on his Guitar Hero controller acoustically in the episode "Guitar Queer-O" is worth the price of the set alone.

The biggest disappointment, as with each of the South Park sets, is the lack of extras. We get mini-commentaries but nothing of any substance. This set in particular was rumored to have tracks for Rock Band included. That particular feature was shot down a while back but word continued that it would be included. Alas, it is not.

Considering the sets for Family Guy, which is easily described as South Park's arch-nemesis, come jam-packed with extras, you would think they would start to kick it up a bit. Unfortunately, that isn't the case as season eleven is as bare bones as the rest of them.

That's not to say the set isn't worth the price. The episodes alone make the price worth it, it would just be nice to get more features to pad it out a bit. I get a feeling that they are holding onto all the good stuff for the inevitable complete series set that will be released once the show goes off the air. Which from what I understand won't be any time soon.

South Park: The Complete Eleventh Season is in stores tomorrow, August 12. Head out and grab yourself a copy. You'll be laughing for hours. Laughter burns a lot of calories, y'know, so skip the gym membership this month and buy South Park instead.

South Park The Complete Eleventh Season:
1) With Apologies To Jesse Jackson
2) Cartman Sucks
3) Lice Capades
4) The Snuke
5) Fantastic Easter Special
6) D-Yikes!
7) Night of the Living Homeless
8) Le Petit Tourette
9) More Crap
10) Imaginationland
11) Imaginationland: Episode II
12) Imaginationland: Episode III
13) Guitar Queer-O
14) The List