South Park
In my list of the top ten shows of the calendar year 2003 (yes, I do loves me lists) I used the much smaller affair to spout off against how the entertainment media tends to promote only what is new. Using the example of King of the Hill, named the "best program on television" by both TV Guide and Entertainment Weekly at the end of its first year on the tube, I expressed my disgust for how periodicals refuse to honored continued excellence because that wouldn't sell issues: who's going to buy an article about KotH being the best thing on the telly, even if it's true, when this was the case one year prior? The show got better and got less attention since it wasn't the en vogue show to write about anymore.
Number 8: South ParkSouth Park is the pinnacle of this. It just gets better and better, yet it attracts less and less attention. I'd dare say half the people you ask on the street would think it's no longer on the air. Yet it's not only funnier than ever, but truly a reflection of and commentary on society; this season saw hastily prepared parodies of metrosexuals, Saddam's arrest, and both Michael and Janet Jackson.
The 2003-04 season picked up in October with "South Park is Gay!", an amazing episode that saw the Queer Eye for the Straight Guy crew unmasked as...gasp...Crab People! It was a twist only South Park could pull off, and though it said very little about the trend it was parodying, who cares? It was DAMN FUNNY. Following that, Cartman left the boys' band to start a Christian rock group and earn a platinum record, an episode that dragged until the end of the final act where Eric erupted into a hilarious string of obscenities aimed at the one-third of the Holy Trinity. "Casa Bonita" was good for more Cartman shenanigans, and his lustful fantasies about the restaurant were pretty funny in and of themselves.
The best of the lot were "Raisins," an eerily hilarious parody of Hooters including a "Say Anything" reference that had me rolling on the floor, and "Good Times With Weapons," which took the into a letterboxed-anime fantasy that revealed itself at the very end as a gutbusting takeoff of the Janet Jackson Super Bowl fiasco. The rest of the eighth season was hit-or-miss; "Up the Down Steroid" provided the amazing visual of Jimmy on a roid rage, but other than that the offerings were more "watchable" than "amazingly funny." Still, between giving us the disheveled Saddam Hussein and an annoying Mel Gibson (with Cartman decked out as the Fuhrer) the misses were acceptable, and certainly better than anything provided in the lackluster-yet-acclaimed first season. South Park has come a long way since it was the talk of the entertainment industry, getting better in every season. It's a shame no one wants to tell anyone.