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I'm watching South Park from the beginning and holy shit is it bad

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As I remember it having watched it from the first season, season 3 started the change and season 4 cemented it. I still like the early seasons, but I won't rule out nostalgia as a factor.
 
Make sure you watch the Underepants Gnomes episode

gnomes.jpg
 
Oh come on.


"but why did you kill all the cows? Oh that was our new guy."

Or officer barbrady doing the "Lisa needs bracers, dental plan" thing in episode 2 were funny.
 
Early South Park is fucking terrible. You'd do very well to skip a season or eight. I don't recall where exactly it got great, but definitely not at the beginning.
 
Anyone else think the "making of" episode where they show how the iPad episode was made was just made to fuck with people? They don't even discuss the deeper meaning of the episode in that mockumentary once, just what humours them and how hard/easy it is to make an episode within a week or so
 
I can say that season 5 is the first one where pretty much every episode knocked it off the park, but there's still quite worthwhile stuff to check out before that. Season 3 has the likes of "Jewbilee" (first true Kenny vehicle?) and "Are You There God? It's Me, Jesus" for instance.
 
Season 3 is perhaps one of their greatest seasons, if not the greatest.

Succubus
Chinpokomon
Two Guys Naked In A Hottub (the whole meteor shower trilogy really)
Jewbilee
Starvin Marvin in Space
Are you there God? It's me, Jesus.

Sally Struthers jaba the hutt and the commercials begging for money so they could build an interstellar spaceship. Classic.
 
Nemo said:
Anyone else think the "making of" episode where they show how the iPad episode was made was just made to fuck with people? They don't even discuss the deeper meaning of the episode in that mockumentary once, just what humours them and how hard/easy it is to make an episode within a week or so
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I've listened to their episode commentaries before and they seemed to just generally avoid talking about why they incorporate things period. It always comes down to "the episode was due Monday so we had to make things work in 2 days". Probably different these days with the overarching plot(-elements, I'd say "plotlines" but that'd be pushing it).
 
Nope. I Disagree. I've been doing an entire rewatch and seasons 1 and 2 have given me some of the best laughs yet. They aren't the best seasons for sure, but they're not holy shit bad at all.

Its fun watching the series evolve. I'm up to season 8 nearing 9.
 
South Park was really terrible in retrospect for a long ass time. I guess once Matt and Trey grew up a bit they realized they had a vehicle to talk about things that actually matter and started to make really great commentaries about society.
 
dity said:
I've listened to their episode commentaries before and they seemed to just generally avoid talking about why they incorporate things period. It always comes down to "the episode was due Monday so we had to make things work in 2 days". Probably different these days with the overarching plot(-elements, I'd say "plotlines" but that'd be pushing it).
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Can't give out your recipe for success I guess
 
With some exceptions I stopped liking South Park after Mr. Garrison got the sex change. Can't even stomach the show now, watched a couple episodes from this season and they were just awful. It's like watching new Simpsons episodes, or any Family Guy from the last ten years.
 
i haven't watched southpark in a loooong time, but dude what!

those first seasons ARE southpark to me. I guess that's because i stopped watching around season 6 or so. Those early jokes with Kenny and Chef and whatever.. that is the southpark i know, that i remember. they might be terrible now though, idk

Scott tenerman must die. everything around then is great
 
I started watching into the very late seasons (I think the Tom Cruise in the closet episode) and found it really fun, then I watched this old episode of the kids inside the school bus with the crazy female driver and some stuff about an alien. Changed the channel after a few minutes.

I won't call the old seasons shit, since they got where they are now for a good reason, but I certainly didn't like it.
 
I remember when I watched the seasons in bulk like that. I think I enjoyed it more around the 4th grade season up until that Jimmy prostitute episode, which was the newest at the time. Good stuff.
 
Jewbilee? Korn's Groovy Pirate Ghost Mystery? Damien? Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride? Prehistoric Ice Man?

Bad?

Man, I guess I'm the odd one out here, because I love the early seasons of South Park. Very little past season 7 interests me, and I haven't seen an episode past the WoW one.
 
I am marathoning them on Hulu. I really like the early seasons. The modern episodes are amazing, but I can still enjoy the craziness of the early episodes.
 
the christmas special is still all time great and i think that is either season 1 or 2. The later seasons have been amazing and this is one of the few shows that have gotten better over time but that doesn't mean the earlier production method didnt make some good shows. The newer computer generated shows allow them more flexibility instead of having to have things mapped out for months and in stone and produced. The ability to tweak things is right up Trey and Matts alley they have a style that fits perfectly with that.
 
To expand a bit on my previous post....I, personally, never get when people are like "early seasons were just dumb humor, then they started to have great messages and social commentary and it became MEANINGFUL and good."

For one thing, the early seasons do have a lot of social commentary, it just wasn't hammered into your face constantly like it is now. I always felt like the early years were a comedy show that incorporated social commentary, and nowadays it's a social commentary show that incorporates comedy. Neither is inherently better or worse, but to say the show didn't have any message to it for like the first 7 seasons or whatever isn't true at all. There are some wacky random cartoon adventure episodes, but there are episodes and scenes with Important Messages in every season. It's just that there used to be more of a balance between the two.

And besides, who cares if something is "meaningful" or not, as long as it's funny? Now if you don't think the early seasons ARE funny that's a different argument, and one that can't really be argued, but I think the show was laugh out loud hilarious from the pilot and while I still love the show today, I certainly don't laugh as much now as I still do at the older years.

Either way, I wouldn't call a single season out of the 19 so far bad. Their ability to change the show is a big part of why it's still fresh.
 
AuthenticM said:
I'm on the second episode of the first season, the one with Kathy Lee Gifford. Man is it unfunny. I have already seen most of these episodes from the early seasons, but that was over a decade ago when they aired on Teletoon. Knowing that I am missing most of the seasons between 4 or 5 to 17, I have decided to watch it from the beginning again. I can't believe some people in the current season's thread wish for the show to stop being critical of social events and go back to being random nonsense as it was in those early seasons.

When does the show become good? Is there a sudden shift in quality at some point or does it happen gradually?

Also, in order to encourage discussion, I'm asking you to share your thoughts on those early seasons. Do you like them at all?
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Dude watch the 2010s seasons. You don't need watch everything
 
I dunno, there are some hilarious episodes in the first seasons. And Cartman was genuinely hilarious then, whereas now he's probably the weakest main character in the show. (Paradoxically, Randy has become one of the highlights of the show despite being a weak character earlier.)

Here's what I think: South Park never had a good period or bad period. The episodes have always varied from brilliant to lame. Interestingly, The Simpsons has the opposite problem where they had a period of consistent excellence, but have long since faded into irrelevance.

The best way to watch South Park is to just watch the episodes whose descriptions sound interesting to you. The South Park website has made this easy to do, even tagging episodes with the characters and pop culture references that make an appearance in that episode.

Dishwalla said:
Sexual Harassment Panda is the best episode from the early seasons. Can't watch that episode and not laugh even to this day.
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Yes, that episode is classic.
 
Yeah its pretty bad. Only highlights I recall from that period was the n64 game and that Korn episode. Once it got good tho it got legendary. The golden period is some of the best comedy on tv EVA.
 
Dishwalla said:
With some exceptions I stopped liking South Park after Mr. Garrison got the sex change. Can't even stomach the show now, watched a couple episodes from this season and they were just awful. It's like watching new Simpsons episodes, or any Family Guy from the last ten years.
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lol

this thread is terrible
 
Dishwalla said:
With some exceptions I stopped liking South Park after Mr. Garrison got the sex change. Can't even stomach the show now, watched a couple episodes from this season and they were just awful. It's like watching new Simpsons episodes, or any Family Guy from the last ten years.
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impact said:
lol

this thread is terrible
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The above quote would be some opinion piece that got popular and the below quote would be how South Park would respond, but Dishwalla would be some snively nerd sitting in a basement with stacked pimples and impact would be a pack of angry Facebook posters... or something.

That's South Park.
 
At the time it gained notoriety for being shocking and original/nonsensical.

It rode the wave of things like jackass and the tom green show that people loved because it was so crazy and so unusual, and people loved it at high school/college age.
 
Aske said:
I loved those early seasons as a kid, but now I think I kind of hate South Park. It almost single-handedly made 'Jew' something to 'other' a generation of kids with; and the snide social commentary of recent years makes me wince, even though I generally agree with the show's stances.
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This bit is certainly true. I live in a place in Australia where most people wouldn't have even met a Jewish person, and yet cracks about "Jews", " Jew gold" etc are super common. Pretty sure South Park pulled that off all on its own.
 
I never understood the sentiment either. Yeah, they were good when I was a teenager, but then again I also liked Adam Sandler movies and Dane Cook.

South Park as it is now is on a completely different level and I am so happy Matt and Trey went that direction with it.
 
PaulloDEC said:
This bit is certainly true. I live in a place in Australia where most people wouldn't have even met a Jewish person, and yet cracks about "Jews", " Jew gold" etc are super common. Pretty sure South Park pulled that off all on its own.
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What's funny is Matt Stone is Jewish.
 
I was not a fan of the earlier seasons, as I felt it relied too much on shock value and gross out humor.

And then I saw Bigger, Longer, and Uncut in theaters and fell in love.
 
I actually thought South Park was going to be this annoying "flash cartoon" level of show, which 12 year olds thought was funny, and then it would end in 1999 or so as a footnote in entertainment history.

What a surprise to see it evolve and be consistently relevant over many different eras.


17 Seconds said:
Yeah, the early episode don't hold up at all. Same with the movie.
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Can't agree with the movie. I saw it two years ago and had a great time.
 
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