"South Park" [Comedy Central, 1997] Season 9 [Mar.-Dec. '05]

Well, over eight years, and as I have been told, little about this inexplicably popular, crude (both visually and content-wise) animated Seinfeld rip has changed. Yep, Matt Stone and Trey Parker are still WAYYYYYYY dumber than they obviously think they are, the show is still not really that funny, so the show still falls flat on its face, since it can never venture into the topically transcendent (i.e. extra-comedy) territory it is striving for all too often, leaving the viewer to have to contemplate the (humorous/comedic) void that takes up about three-quarters of the show's duration. Seriously, I feel like Robert Christgau reviewing the Red Hot Chili Peppers- "Oh crap, they have another album out, they're just BAD, can we leave it at that? Really, I would like to like them, given the tremendous, even ineffable, hype. But I just can't seem to find any way around consistently disliking them. (Of course I made all that up myself.) But of course I am obliged to review each offering from them, lest I resent possibly having let a good, even great, effort elude me." Grade: B MINUS