South Park

Has as much nerve as "The Simpsons" when it burst on the scene. [11 Aug 1997]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

Even at its meanest, "South Park" is seldom mean-spirited, and it's often outrageously funny. [13 Aug 1997]

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]

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]

It might help if the South Park kids had personalities, but they're as one-dimensional as the show's cut-and-paste animation.

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]

To say that the series is not for everyone is lavish understatement. The real question: Is it for anyone? [13 Aug 1997]

There are occasional flashes of clever wit, but they're largely lost amidst crude language and crude jokes. [13 Aug 1997]