South Park: The Complete Third Season

The third season of South Park is the favourite of creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, and it's not hard to see why. These episodes were created during production of the South Park motion picture and a great deal of the writing was generated during bouts of mild insanity for the duo, resulting in their never second-guessing their ideas, no matter how absurd. This method gave life to some of the most brilliant episodes Stone and Parker have ever dreamt up, including the clever "Meteor Shower" trilogy. These three separate chapters all occur on the same night in South Park, concluding with the incredible "Jewbilee," in which Kyle and Kenny construct macaroni pictures and popcorn necklaces for Moses, who takes form as a low-budget science fiction creation. Season three also contains the classic Christmas special where Jesus and Santa Claus pit holiday songs written about them against each other, leaving Santa no choice but to belt out "Rio" by Duran Duran when he realises he's grossly overmatched. Season three was a huge turning point for South Park and you can tell that the series was heading in the right direction, making way for the more complex social commentary and incredibly witty humour that's kept the show compelling to this day. This instalment of the South Park series on DVD sacrifices many of the already thin bonus materials found in the previous editions in order to accommodate brief episode commentary — something that was omitted in the past due to Matt and Trey's ability to string obscenities together like the aforementioned popcorn necklaces for Moses. Though the pair only shed light on the creative background for the first few minutes of each episode, the results are downright hilarious and informative enough to make this offering the best South Park collection to date. (Paramount)