
Paramount - Paramount
Release date: 2006-08-29
DVD
Director:Matt Stone
8, 8th, Eight, Eighth, Television




With season 8, the South Park creators achieved a feat of true originality and utilised their genius for topical comedy like never before. There is an episode dedicated wholly to Michael Jackson and what some may call his inappropriate behaviour. There is an episode which touches on the feelings of the entire thinking public in relation to Paris Hilton. There's even an episode that takes the handicap minority of America and says. "You're not special, you're normal, so we're going to make fun of you" This I applaud the creators for, as it's a feeling I hold in my own regards as well. If you're going to make fun of one group of people or minority, then everything has to be fair game.
Episode 1: Good Times With Weapons: At a fairground the boys come across a store selling weapons from the Far East. They can't buy them alone and they can't get their parents to buy the weapons for them, so they trick the salesman into selling the weapons to them anyway. The episode then warps into a Japanese style Anime cartoon and shows the boys as brave martial arts warriors. Whilst exploring they come across Professor Chaos and enter in a battle to the death. Professor Chaos ends up with a Ninja throwing star in his eye and the boys realise they need to kill him to prevent getting in trouble. The only problem is, Professor Chaos has disappeared.
Episode 2: Up The Down Steroids: The Special Olympics are coming to town and Cartman is enticed by the prize money and wants to take part. The only problem is that he isn't "Special" so he must put on a disguise and take on the personality of a special person. There's another problem with Cartman's plan and that is, he still hasn't got an athletic bone in his body. On the other side of the episode, Jimmy and Timmy are determined to take part in the Special Olympics too. Jimmy doesn't want to lose so he starts taking steroids which affects those around him. Timmy tries to be the ethical conscience of Jimmy, the problem is that Timmy can only speak one word. TIMMY!!!
Episode 3: The Passion of the Jew: Kyle starts to become sick of Cartman's anti-semitic comments and decides to go and see Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ for himself. After watching the horrific "Passion" Kyle comes to question his own Jewish faith and starts the believe that Cartman was right all along. Kenny & Stan on the other hand see how it's affected Kyle and go to see The Passion as well. They hate it and decide that they must go to visit Mel Gibson and try to get their money back, whilst giving him a piece of their minds.
Episode 4: You Got F'd In The A: One day while playing with toy cars, the boys are confronted by a dance troupe who served them good. Being thrown aback by this Stan starts putting together a troupe of his own. This comprises of a video game dancer who struggles to dance without instructions. A girl from the "Raisins" restaurant and a Duck. The troupe isn't complete and Stan needs to find one more member. After overhearing that Butters used to be a tap dancing champion, Stan asks him to join. This opens a book of tragic memories of death created by Butters tap dancing greatness.
Episode 5: AWESOME-O: Butters receives a mail order robot called AWESOME-O that becomes Butters best friend and slave. Little does Butters realise is that AWESOME-O is actually Cartman in disguise. Rather than just end it at the first Joke, Cartman finds out that Butters has an incriminating video of Cartman dressed up as Britney Spears, dancing with a cardboard cut out of Justin Timberlake. Cartman is forced to keep up the charade until he finds out where Butters keeps the tape. Butters takes AWESOME-O on a holiday with him to Hollywood while he stays with family. AWESOME-O is picked up by movie executives and starts pitching movie idea after movie idea.
Episode 6: The Jeffersons: A Mysterious and eccentric man and his son move into town. He's Mr. Inappropriate as when his son Blanket makes friends with the boys, Mr. Jefferson thinks he's their best friend too and takes part in sleep overs and plays games with the boys. The boys become concerned that Mr. Jefferson is more concerned with remaining a kid himself rather than being a father figure to blanket. Cartman doesn't help matters as he's too concerned with Mr. Jefferson staying his best friend, regardless of how insane it may be.
Episode 7: Goobacks: A mysterious time portal opens up in the middle of nowhere and mysterious people start coming through, looking for cheap work and living conditions. South Park learns that these people are a new human race from the future which their language and appearance is a blend of all languages and races from the boys time. These appearances of these mysterious people starts to take work from native South Park residence, sparking a debate as to whether these Goobacks should be allowed to just enter South Park without any checks or permission. Sound familiar?
Episode 8: Douche and Turd: South Park Elementary is forced by PETA to get rid of their cow mascot and are forced to choose something more animal friendly. As a joke the boys nominate that the school mascot should either be a giant douche or a giant turd sandwich. Stan, thinking it's a stupid idea to vote for such a thing decides that he's not going to vote at all. This makes him an outcast and he's eventually provoked by P.Diddy and his Vote or Die campaign. Stan, still not willing to vote is kicked out of South Park and forced to find refuge with PETA who, he finds out really love animals... Really love them... Really. Meanwhile back in South Park the debate rages on as to whether a giant douche or a turd sandwich should represent South Park Elementary.
Episode 9: Something Wall-Mart This Way Comes: A Wall-Mart superstore opens in South Park and the citizens become hypnotised by their low low prices. Although they love the low low prices of Wall-Mart, they're also torn by the fact that this mega mall is turning South Park into a ghost town. Over time the superstore starts to cripple the small South Park businesses and the boys start to investigate how they can take it down for good. They don't realise that taking down Wall-Mart is going to be a harder task than they first thought.
Episode 10: Pre-School: While the boys where in pre-school they play a game called fireman. This is a game where they light a fire and put it out by peeing on it. This goes wrong as the boys fail to put the fire out, the teacher tries and catches fire herself which doesn't kill her but it cripples her for life. The boys place the blame on a bully and he's sent to Juvenile hall for a number of years. Flash to the present and the bully is due to be released from "Juvy," so the boys decide that in order to prevent any repercussions from the bully and to get protection, they must make amends with the teacher who's life they have ruined.
Episode 11: Quest for Ratings: The boys have their own school new show and find themselves in a battle for ratings against a show created by Craig. Yep, that's it.
Episode 12: Stupid Spoiled W**re Video Playset: Paris Hilton has become a phenomena in South Park and most girls all aspire to be as slutty as Paris is. Wendy is disgusted by this and seeks the help of Mr. Slave who she wants to teach her how to be as big a slut as Paris Hilton. Mr. Slave is disgusted by this and seeks to teach the girls that there's more to life than being a filthy slut. Meanwhile Paris Hilton comes to town and wants to buy Butters after her dog, Tinkerbell kills itself. Butters doesn't want to be bough by Hilton so the parents make him a deal that if he can make $200 Million on his own, then he can stay living with his parents.
Episode 13: Cartman's Incredible Gift: Cartman gets into an accident after trying to learn to fly. Waking up in hospital he finds out he has a psychic gift which he uses to help solve the crimes of a serial killer. This gift gets Cartman into more trouble than he can possibly imagine.
Episode 14: Woodland Critter Christmas: Stan comes across a group of Christmas critters who seek the help of Stan so they can give birth to their lord saviour the Anti-Christ.
A wonderfully original season that I think all South Park fans will love. Admittedly, this season has a few duds but mostly the season is perfect from start to finish.