South Park: The Imaginationland Trilogy

South Park is just one of those shows that you either like, or that you detest. The first few episodes I watched, I spent the whole episode with my mouth hanging open, shocked at the vulgarity. But after a few viewings, I started to “get” it. Sure the language and subject matter is unbelievably foul, but strip away all the cursing, and there are actually lessons to be learned from South Park. It’s true! Most of the episodes that I’ve seen have had something to say about tolerance for people of different races, religions and beliefs, about war and protest and sticking up for what you believe in, about the ridiculousness of worshipping celebrities.

South Park:Imaginationland was a trio of episodes that ran in October, 2007. Starting with a bet between Cartman and Kyle over the existence of leprechauns, the boys are whisked away in a hot air balloon by a strange man and taken to Imaginationland, the place where every character from books, movies, TV shows, comic books, and popular culture lives. The ONLY time I allowed my boys to watch this DVD was when I freeze-framed so we could spot the characters we recognized.

After terrorists attack Imaginationland, the wall that divides the “good” characters from the “evil” characters crumbles, and soon there is all-out war between the two groups. Butters is trapped, Stan is trying to help, and Cartman and Kyle–well, that’s the only part of this trilogy that I could really do without. The consequence of losing the bet about the existence of leprechauns involves Kyle having to do…something to Cartman, and I am not going to repeat it here, but it stopped being funny for me pretty much from the first mention of it.

The DVD comes with two bonus episodes, “Woodland Critters Christmas” and “ManBearPig”, and the feature movie actually made more sense after I watched those two episodes, as characters from those episodes appear in the movie. There’s some debate on the Amazon.com page for South Park: Imaginationland as to whether this needed to be released separately, since the three episodes will surely be included on the box set for the 2007 season, and also whether $14.99 is too much for a 67 minute disc. If you are a big South Park fan and want to be able to watch these three episodes independently of the whole box set, then here you go!