South Park has been around a long time now, so it's not surprising that the series creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, have decided to pick ten of their favorite episodes from the show's nine season run and include them in this 'best of' compilation. Here are the ten that they picked:

Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset: When Paris Hilton comes to South Park to open up a new store in the mall, all of the girls at the school want to act like her and dress like her – which results in 'stupid spoiled whore' being the new trend. The boys don't get it but the girls don't let that stop them from acting far older than they are. Paris, on the other hand, runs around vomiting from binge drinking and trying to buy Butters from his parents after her last pet, a Chihuahua, shoots himself in the head.

The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers: The boys are obsessed with the Lord of the Rings movies and soon Stan's parents send them on a quest – to deliver the new Lord Of The Rings tape to the Butters household. What Stan's parents find out after they've given the boys the tape is that they actually goofed up and have given them a porno, which in turn Butters' parents give to him to watch in the basement.

Best Friends Forever: Kenny ends up in intensive care supported only by a feeding tube as the forces of Heaven and Hell battle to see what happens to him – it seems that Heaven wants to take him home as his mastery of the Sony PSP has made him the perfect choice to defend them from Satan and his army of demons who are fast approaching. Back on Earth, Cartman has everyone convinced that he and Kenny were 'BFF – Best Friends Forever' and that he should inherit Kenny's PSP. This episode proves that even subjects as controversial as the Terry Schiavo case aren't safe.

Good Times With Weapons: The boys convince a martial arts weapons dealer at the local fair to sell them real martial arts weapons. This leads to the four of them playing 'ninja' (when this happens we see things in anime style and in a more cinematic widescreen) and inevitably Butters pretends he's Professor Chaos, their arch-enemy. Kenny throws a ninja star at Butters and it gets lodged in his eye which means they'll have to figure out a way to save him without their parents finding out. Thankfully, Cartman's stupidity saves the day.

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.

AWESOM-0: Cartman decides to pose as a robot named AWESOM-O so that he can become Butters' best friend. When he finds out that Butters has a videotape of him posing as Brittney Spears in his backyard he decides that he cannot let that fall into the wrong hands and so he ends up having to keep up the act for far longer than he anticipated (which makes it tough to eat or to go to the bathroom – two things Cartman excels at!), which is fine with Butters' as he loves having a robot pal so much that he sings a song about it and even brings him along to go visit some family.

Trapped in the Closet: Stan manages to convert to Scientology and when he does he's declared to be the reincarnation of L. Ron Hubbard. Once words gets out, hordes of Scientologists descend upon South Park and soon enough Tom Cruise and John Travolta barricade themselves in the boy's closet. His dad tries to get them to come out but that doesn't work and even R. Kelly doesn't seem to be able to solve the problem. Soon though, Stan learns the truth about Scientology and its origins and when he does, he's not happy about how he's been used. This is episode that got Tom Cruise in a tizzy.

Towelie: The four boys are excited to get a brand new video game system and they intend to do nothing the entire weekend except play games. When they meet a genetically enhanced talking towel named Towelie that was created in secret by the U.S. Government, their plans change. The government wants Towelie back and because they know that the boys are in cahoots with him they steal their game system which means that the boys will do anything it takes to get it back in one piece.

Red Hot Catholic Love: Father Maxi announces a weekend retreat that will be open to the local boys who want to spend some time away boating with some of the local clergy. Randy doesn't want the kids to go because of all the recent molestation issues in the news about the Catholic Church, and everyone begins to question Maxi and the rest of the clergymen and the boys try and figure out what exactly it is that the priests are supposedly putting into people's butts.

Scott Tenorman Must Die: Scott Tenorman, an older kid in South Park, tricks Cartman into buying his pubic hair for a cold ten dollars but soon enough Cartman decides he wants his money back. Tenorman denies his request and so Cartman, being Cartman, decides to get his revenge with the help of a pony who likes to bite where it counts and the members of Radiohead.

All in all this is a pretty strong selection of episodes and it does represent some of the best that the series has had to offer so far in its run. The Towelie episode is noticeably weaker than the other nine but even that one has its moments with a few really clever self referential jabs at the title character. The subversive and twisted humor that the show has become famous for is in full force here and the constant riffing on celebrities and the American public is as clever and funny now as it ever has been.

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.