"South Park" [Stone-Parker, 1997] Season 1 {Aug. '97-Feb. '98]

This animated comedy-- one of a long line of Seinfeld rips, some of which I have reviewed-- follows the escapades of [rrrgh i've used that phrase so many times (see above)] four 2nd-grade boys, by the names of [Eric] Cartman, Kyle [Broflovski] (who is Jewish), Stan [Marsh], and the perpetually mute, unassuming (if only by comparison), orange-unabomber-jacket-wearing Kenny McCormick. The real question is as ever (if not more so): Is it funny? Well, no, not really, not all that consistently, but the real malaise crippling this full-fledged quadriplegic of a show is that Matt Stone and Trey Parker's intellectual limits are so severely strained that-- that it's not even funny how obvious it is that it's not even funny. Yeah, that. That leaves you thoroughly aghast when (about 2/3 of the time or so) the show is Not Funny, and of course they actually THINK they're WAYYY smarter than they actually are. So I propose that, a failure at the crude-visual-presentation-but-brilliant-humorous-engineering vehicle (i.e. Home Movies rip, though that doesn't make sense at all because this show (or season, anyway) came before HM) though it is, we "give it credit for wanting it all" (-Xgau, on Oasis) And because it actually is, sporadically enough though, funny. And yet this grade seems altogether too high. Grade: B