South Park - The Complete First Season
South Parkexploded on the pop culture landscape like a dirty  bomb in 1997, and the 13 episodes that comprise the groundbreaking first season  have lost none of their subversive impact. IfSeinfeldwas a show about  nothing, thenSouth Parkis a show about everything, from important moral  lessons in compassion and tolerance to good old-fashioned animated character  assassination (Kathie Lee Gifford in "Weight Gain 4000" and Barbra Streisand in  "Mecha-Streisand"). Like an After School Special gone quite mad,  profanity-spewing third-graders Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and the ill-fated Kenny navigate  childhood in their mountain town. Nothing inSouth Parkis sacred, and  each episode has something to offend, from "Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride"  (featuring George Clooney as the voice of Sparky, the homosexual dog), to the  Halloween episode "Pink Eye," in which Cartman dresses up as Adolph Hitler. Best  not to even get started on Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Pooh, or the season finale  cliffhanger, "Cartman's Mom Is a Dirty Slut."Each episode is preceded by a faux introduction by creators Trey Parker and Matt  Stone, who proclaim every episode to be their favorite. Their incarnations as  Rootin'-Tootin' Trey Parker and Pistol-Slingin' Matt Stone indicate that afterSouth Parkruns its course, they'd be great hosts of their own children's  show, which--and this cannot be stressed strongly enough--South Parkisnot. Other extras include theSouth Parkboys' appearance on the  CableAce awards and "A South Park Thanksgiving," featuring Jay Leno, which aired  exclusively onThe Tonight Show. A minor annoyance is the slapdash  packaging that mislabels the episodes ("Damien," for example, is on disc 3, not  2 as indicated).--Donald Liebenson