Comedy Central | Release Date: August 13, 1997
CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
64
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 19 Critic Reviews
Positive:
12
Mixed:
3
Negative:
4
90
VarietyRay RichmondJun 25, 2013
Season 1 Review: As animation, it's substandard, primitive dreck; as comedy, however, it's gloriously subversive art. [12 Aug 1997]
88
Chicago Sun-TimesErnest TuckerJun 25, 2013
Season 1 Review: Has as much nerve as "The Simpsons" when it burst on the scene. [11 Aug 1997]
80
Miami HeraldTerry JacksonJun 25, 2013
Season 1 Review: It is at once insanely juvenile and very sophisticated, appealing to a funny bone that, as an adult, I try to hide. I feel guilty about laughing, but I laugh anyway. [13 Aug 1997]
80
USA TodayMatt RoushJun 25, 2013
Season 1 Review: Crude in execution, harsh by design, South Park is deliciously deranged. Don't bite unless you have a taste for the tasteless. [13 Aug 1997]
80
Boston GlobeFrederic M. BiddleJun 25, 2013
Season 1 Review: Unlike many cartoons, this one actually looks funny, and it constantly plays on its grade-school aesthetic for shock value, with great success. At its best, "South Park" is more a profane "Peanuts" than a downsized "Beavis and Butt-head." [13 Aug 1997]
80
New York Daily NewsEric MinkJun 25, 2013
Season 1 Review: If all "South Park" offered were poo-poo jokes and babes spouting profanity, the show would wear thin awfully fast. It doesn't. The reason is that Parker, Stone and their collaborators actually have done something remarkable with their primitive, construction-paper animation: They have created a wholly new, internally consistent fictional world and have peopled it with distinct, interesting characters. [13 Aug 1997]
80
Dallas Morning NewsChris VognarJun 25, 2013
Season 1 Review: South Park is either the funniest new show on the air or the next sign of the apocalypse. ... When it's not in gross-out mode, and often even when it is, South Park is weaving a surrealist satire of small-town America. [11 Aug 1997]
70
Los Angeles TimesBrian LowryJun 25, 2013
Season 1 Review: Blatantly designed to tickle the funny bones of teenage boys and those who think like them, the show delivers plenty of lowbrow laughs, at the same time indulging in excesses seemingly calculated to shock the sensibilities of TV watchdogs. [13 Aug 1997]
70
NewsdayMarvin KitmanJun 25, 2013
Season 1 Review: The important thing about "South Park" is not what it looks like or the way the characters talk, but what they say. It's a writer-driven vehicle, like most of the better twisted adult cartoons. [13 Aug 1997]
70
St. Louis Post-DispatchGail PenningtonJun 25, 2013
Season 1 Review: Even at its meanest, "South Park" is seldom mean-spirited, and it's often outrageously funny. [13 Aug 1997]
60
Newark Star-LedgerAlan SepinwallJun 25, 2013
Season 1 Review: For now, at least, the satirical elements aren't as sharp as other popular cartoons like "The Simpsons" or "King of the Hill" or even "Beavis & Butt-Head." [13 Aug 1997]
60
The New York TimesCaryn JamesJun 25, 2013
Season 1 Review: Uneven ... The series often seems more crude than irreverent, and its satirical targets too familiar and easy to hit. ... However uneven it is now, "South Park" seems to have a future. [17 Aug 1997]
30
Orlando SentinelHal BoedekerJun 25, 2013
Season 1 Review: Sophomoric, gross and unfunny. It's great that a comedy wants to take chances - many sitcoms don't - but the adult-aimed South Park goes too far. [13 Aug 1997]
30
Washington PostTom ShalesJun 25, 2013
Season 1 Review: To say that the series is not for everyone is lavish understatement. The real question: Is it for anyone? [13 Aug 1997]
30
Deseret NewsJun 25, 2013
Season 1 Review: There are occasional flashes of clever wit, but they're largely lost amidst crude language and crude jokes. [13 Aug 1997]
20
The Hollywood ReporterMiles BellerJun 25, 2013
Season 1 Review: It's dismissible juvenilia ... a collection of poorly paced, lowest-common-denominator setups that are not even sophomorically funny or scatologically goofy. [13 Aug 1997]