The Series:

I don't honestly think anyone expected South Park to have the longevity that it has had thus far in its long run on Comedy Central. It seemed like a long shot – it's crass, it's offensive to a whole lot of people, and the animation is primitive. But you know what? It's funny as Hell and it has obviously found a loyal enough audience to keep it going despite those factors and now Comedy Central has given us the complete seventh season of the show on DVD to enjoy over and over again without commercial interruptions.

You'd think by this point in time, series creator's Trey Parker and Matt Stone would have started running out of ideas but the fact that the show is so easy to make and so quick to produce in terms of how it is animated allows them to keep the show topical and South Park more than any other comedy series save for something like The Daily Show or Saturday Night Live, is able to tackle modern events and as such, you'll sometimes see subjects in the show ranging from political debates to celebrity gossip nonsense. It's all taken on with a no holds barred attitude and what's beautiful about the series is that the creative team behind it don't care who they offend. As such, it's a gutsy and crass series, but just try not to laugh at some of the episodes in this set.

When the last season left off, Kenny had come back to the fold and in this season we see him manage to make it through a few episodes without getting killed. Jimmy and Timmy are still around, as is Butters, and they serve as sort of 'hanger-on' types throughout the season. Mr. Slave and Mr. Garrison are still teaching at the school and Chef is still the cool ladies man he's always been. Not much has changed in terms of continuity or character development, but that's not necessarily a bad thing when the status quo is as funny as it is with this series.

The episodes contained in this three disc set are as follows:

Disc One:

Cancelled: This episode starts off like so many others from the series, with the four boys standing at the bus stop waiting to head off to school. It turns out that Cartman is having anal probe problems again and the boys realize that they're going through events that took place way back years ago in earlier seasons. When Chef shows up, they put two and two together and find out that something is amiss. Chef takes them to the space center where a friend of his translates a few messages that Cartman is transmitting and in turn, some aliens wind up coming to Earth and chasing Chef and the boys. Soon the five of them are beamed aboard and alien space craft where the boys convince the alien leader to take on the form of a taco that poops ice cream, and from there he explains to them that Earth is actually one big interplanetary reality show and that the reason that things are repeating for them is because it has been cancelled. The boys have to convince the alien network executives to renew the show to save the planet.

Krazy Kripples: After everyone in town stiffs Jimmy's stand up comedy show (save for Butters) to go see Christopher Reeve speak about stem cell research, he and Timmy decide to start a club for people who were born crippled, to speak out against Reeve who they see as a poser. Eventually, they get confused when they hear about The Crips, and the end up joining the notorious street gang's Boulder chapter. It takes a while but Jimmy and Timmy soon become influential in the gang scene and they find acceptance in the hood. Meanwhile, Christopher Reeve finds that he needs more and more stem cells to build him back to the man he once was, and in order to get these he starts eating dead fetuses. Soon Gene Hackman shows up to stop Christopher Reeve from eating more dead babies, and Jimmy and Timmy wind up uniting the Crips with their rivals, The Bloods. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, Christopher Reeve teams up with Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, Professor Chaos and General Disarray to start a gang of evil superheroes to promote more stem cell research.

Toilet Paper: The four boys get into trouble in art class for making a phallus out of clay and as such the teacher sentences them to detention after class. Cartman decides that payback is in order and he organizes a commando run in which the boys toilet paper the art teacher's house. In order to find out who committed this crime, Officer Barbrady has to co-operate with a serial toilet paperer named Josh who is locked in maximum security at juvenile hall. Meanwhile the guilt is really getting to Kyle who feels that the best thing to do is come clean and admit to the crimes, but Cartman won't allow that and Cartman plans to kill him off so that they don't end up getting into even more trouble. Barbrady brings Butters in and the cops force him to confess until his parents show up, and then he gets in trouble for confessing to a crime he didn't commit. Meanwhile Cartman takes a hint from Kyle and decides that since it's inevitable that they'll get caught, maybe he should confess first.

I'm a Little Bit Country: In order to get out of class for the day the kids participate in a walk out to demonstrate their anger towards the war in Iraq. What they don't count on is getting roped into siding with whatever option that their parents are in on and being used as political tools. The right wing side of town has scheduled a demonstration in the town square to support the troops and further the war by way of some patriotic country music, while the anti-war crowd has scheduled some protest rock songs to be performed by Stan's dad in an Elvis suit, also in the town square. Both sides collide using the kids as leverage against one another, while Mr. Garrison assigns the boys some homework in which they must learn about the founding fathers which causes Cartman to travel back in time by way of a flashback in order to really experience the way things were.

Fat Butt And Pancake Head: In one of the funniest episodes in the history of the series, Cartman wins an award for his presentation on the impact of Latino's in America in which he paints his hand up as a Jennifer Lopez puppet and sings about his love of tacos and burritos. From there Cartman takes the prize money to the mall where he makes a video for his new Jennifer Lopez song, Taco Flavored Kisses. This song is soon a hit and he's sought out by the record company who want to sign him to a major label deal which brings down the wrath of the real Jennifer Lopez. Meanwhile, Ben Affleck has been paying attention and soon finds that he cannot resist Cartman's Jennifer Lopez hand-puppet and soon they start dating.

Disc Two:

Lil' Crime Stoppers: Like a lot of little boys are prone to do, Stan, Kyle, Eric and Kenny decide to play detectives and they offer to solve crimes for the residents of South Park for one dollar. They start off trying to find out who ate an old lady's freshly baked pie but after they solve the mystery of a little girl's missing doll they hit the big time and are made official junior detectives in the South Park police department, despite some trouble from some other rich kids trying to one up them by playing FBI. Now officially Junior Detectives, the kids are assigned to take down a meth lad which they manage to do completely by accident when everyone in the lab winds up dead through a series of accidents. This causes them to be labeled as bad cops and they're soon assigned to take down some criminals at a strip club. Meanwhile some cops who are on the take figure that the boys are trying to put a stop to their ways and start to get tough with them.

Red Man's Greed: Kyle's mom and dad take the four boys to the Three Feathers Indian Casino where the boys hang out at an Indian comedy club and Stan's dad loses thousands of dollars. The Chief who runs the casino figures that they can rake in some real money if they get more city slickers to their casino and so they decide to build a highway that goes from the casino straight into Denver that will go straight through South Park. The townspeople want to stop this and so they try and come up with the money to buy the land before the casino owners can get their plan moving but they're not sure how to raise it. They decide to bet what they have at the casino in hopes of winning big and saving the day. The Indians decide to give the townspeople blankets that they've rubbed on Chinese people in order to give them all SARS and kill them off to get the land.

South Park Is Gay!: When Queer Eye For The Straight Guy becomes insanely popular in South Park, all the kids start dressing like the guys on that show and trying to 'out gay' one another. The only one who isn't into this new fad is Kyle, despite the fact that even their dad's are all no dressing as metrosexuals. Mr. Garrison and Mr. Slave aren't happy about all of this – at first they think that everyone has actually gone gay, which they think is great but once they find out that the men are just dressing and acting gay they start to get upset about having their culture high-jacked from them. Chef finds this trend disturbing as well and compares it to how white people have co-opted parts of black culture resulting in black culture getting progressively more obscure. Kyle eventually gets beaten up at school for not being gay enough and soon he teams up with Mr. Garrison and Mr. Slave to kill the guys behind Queer Eye For The Straight Guy although Mr. Slave's commando attack plans doesn't work quite as well as they had hoped for.

Christian Rock Hard: The boys decide to start a band called Moop but they can't quite find the direction they need until Cartman decides that they could probably sell a lot of records if they became a Christian rock band. Kyle kicks him out of the band for this idea so Cartman gets Butters and Token to join him and he starts his own Christian rock band called Faith+1. It doesn't take Cartman long to get signed and soon he and his band are playing at a huge Christian rock festival. Kyle and Cartman have a bet that Cartman won't be able to sell enough copies to go platinum but it looks like Cartman is going to win once Faith+1 plays a giant Christian rock festival. Meanwhile Kenny shows they boys how to download MP3s off of the internet which lands them in hot water with the FBI. Moop decide that they oppose the downloading of music after learning their lesson which inspires Metallica to come and protest downloading with them. Meanwhile, Faith+1's meteoric rise to the top of the Christian pop charts soon sees a decline when it turns out that Cartman can't control his mouth at an awards ceremony being held in his band's honor and he swears on stage at.

Grey Dawn: A senior citizen killed nine people when he got behind the wheel and during the memorial service for the victims it happens again when an old man drives into the crowd. Eventually South Park decides to revoke the drivers licenses of every senior citizen in the town, which make's Stan's grandfather so angry that he contacts the AARP, who send in a team of senior citizens who bring in weapons and take over the city. The boys figure out that that only way that they'll be able to stop the seniors from doing things their way and controlling South Park is to shut down the Country Kitchen Buffet, which is their only source of food. Meanwhile all of the grown ups in South Park have been locked up by the old folks and put into concentration camps.

Disc Three:

Casa Bonita: In honor of his birthday, Kyle gets to bring three friends to Casa Bonita, a Mexican restaurant that Cartman claims is his favorite place on Earth as it's basically a 'Mexican Disneyland.' When Kyle gets sick of Cartman's teasing and decides to invite Butters instead of him, Cartman sets into action a plan to remove Butters from the scenario by locking him in a fallout shelter and convincing him that a meteorite hit the planet and that it's now overrun with cannibals. While Butters is locked away Cartman sucks up to Kyle enough that he starts to think he's changed his ways but Cartman's plan comes back to bite him when a massive search party sets out to find Butters who has since been reported missing by his parents. Meanwhile, Butters is running around the dump after Cartman moved him there and put him inside an old refrigerator, and he's convinced he has to rebuild the population of the Earth.

All About Mormons: A new kid named Gary shows up at school and the kids convince Stan to go and beat him up. Stan tries but Gary's compassion and understanding towards his fellow man results not in the beating that the kids had hoped for but in Stan being invited over for dinner. Stan heads to Gary's that night and meets his family, all of whom are unusually nice and friendly and completely accepting of Stan right away. After dinner Gary's father explains to Stan that they're Mormons and he then explains the story of how the Book of Mormon came to be which we witness through a series of musical re-enactments. When Stan's dad hears about this he decides he's going to go beat up Gary's dad but ends up getting to know the new family in much the same way that Stan did and eventually he converts to Mormonism much to Stan's dismay. Meanwhile, Cartman, Kenny and Kyle have rejected Stan for hanging out with the new guy instead of them.

Butt Out: When an inspirational rap group called Butt Out performs at the school to convince kids that smoking is bad, the four boys are so put off by what they see that they start smoking just to not become like the performers. Mr. Mackey almost catches them smoking so they quickly throw the lit cigarettes into the trash which unfortunately catches fire and burns down the school. Rather than take the blame themselves, Cartman figures that they can blame the tobacco companies which results in Rob Reiner and his anti-smoking task force showing up and taking up the cause for the kids with manic results. It all looks good until the kids learn that the tobacco companies aren't any more evil than the lobbyists who decide that they're going to sacrifice Cartman to make an effective anti-smoking commercial.

Raisins: Bebe tells Stan that Wendy is dumping him while he's playing football with his friends. He tries to get Kyle and Jimmie to help him find out what went wrong but instead they decide to take him to 'Raisins' to cheer him up (it's like a kid's version of Hooters). They all head out for a guys night out, and Butters falls for a waitress named Lexus. Stan tries to win Wendy back by playing Peter Gabriel's 'Shock The Monkey' on a ghetto blaster outside Wendy's window but it doesn't work and he then finds out the shocking truth – he's been dumped for Token. Stan is so distraught over this that he tries to turn into a goth kid so that he can effectively show how anguished he it doesn't work out so well and even Butters starts to make fun of him.

It's Christmas In Canada: Ike's birth parents show up at Kyle's house days before Christmas and, under a new law passed by the Canadian Prime Minister, take their child back to his home land. His parents are devastated and so Kyle convinces the boys to fly to Canada with him. Cartman resists until the town decides to give money to Kyle's family instead of buying Christmas presents – Cartman figures if he can get Ike back that there's still a chance he can score some sweet presents. The boys crash near the Canadian border and, in a very Wizard Of Oz like sequence, meet up with a Mountie, a French Canadian, and a Newfie who help them get to Ottawa to meet with the PM. Once they arrive they find that the mammoth monster who is acting as the Prime Minister is actually being controlled by Saddam Hussein. They expose him (after he kills Kenny) and get Ike back but not in time and they end up spending Christmas in Canada and participating in a big parade.

The DVD

Video:

Well, we all know that the series' animation is pretty primitive so that does limit how good the series can ever really look but these DVDs do a fine job of brining the episodes to your home theater. The colors look nice and bright, the reds are solid and don't bleed and the black levels are pretty strong. There are no problems at all with print damage or grain issues (no surprise there) and edge enhancement and line shimmering is kept to a minimum. Mpeg compression artifacts aren't a problem at all, and the level of detail present throughout playback is as good as one can really expect given the style in which the series is animated. All in all, these transfers are quite nice.