Set in a Colorado mountain town that gets destroyed on a regular basis and is populated by the dumbest, most vulgar characters imaginable, South Park is an anarchic animated sitcom that owes more to the spirit of Monty Python than to its comparatively tame predecessor The Simpsons. The show's origins go back to a 1995 Christmas video "postcard" called The Spirit of Christmas that a Fox Studios executive had commissioned at the previous Sundance Film Festival for $2000 having seen the work of film-makers Trey Parker and Matt Stone (Cannibal: The Musical). The adventures of Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny became an instant ratings and merchandising smash and the foul-mouthed eight-year-olds have expanded to the cinema screen (Bigger, Longer and Uncut), found their way to the MTV Movie Awards and allowed the show creators/(song) writers/voice-artists to pursue equally anarchic comedy at the box office with Baseketball and Orgazmo. Constantly pursued by a censorship outcry, the series has survived several copycat cartoon threats and even the death of its lead female vocal-artist during its third season. Perhaps the show's biggest controversy has always been that--despite a disclaimer before every episode--under-aged children still see it. But lured by a universe full of Cheesy Poofs and Cookie Dings, where no-one's afraid to badmouth school bus driver Miss Crabtree and where it's OK to vomit from being in love, it's no wonder that children of all ages can't help but love it. Seriously. --Paul Tonks

Series One: The animation may be old-style in the pilot show "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe" but audiences hadn't seen anything like these 20 minutes of bleeped expletives, alien abduction and rear-end insertions before. It set the style most episodes would follow, with the children turning to the school Chef (voiced by Isaac Hayes) for help only to get a dirty song instead, a regular death for poor white trash Kenny and a moral lesson being learned at the end. An overnight success, the show drew in surprising cameo voiceovers: George Clooney provides dog growls for Sparky in "Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride", "The Chick from Species" (Natasha Henstridge) is Ms Ellen in "Tom's Rhinoplasty" and The Cure's Robert Smith (Trey and Matt being big fans of the band) is himself in the Godzilla spoof "Mecha-Streisand", in which a hate campaign against Barbra Streisand was begun. Other series highlights are Chef reliving Michael Jackson's Thriller in the first Halloween special "Pink Eye", the beginnings of a TV legend in "Mr Hankey, the Christmas Poo", and the cliff-hanger finale of "Cartman's Mom is a Dirty Slut". --Paul Tonks

Set in a Colorado mountain town that gets destroyed on a regular basis and is populated by the dumbest, most vulgar characters imaginable, South Park is an anarchic animated sitcom that owes more to the spirit of Monty Python than to its comparatively tame predecessor The Simpsons. The show's origins go back to a 1995 Christmas video "postcard" called The Spirit of Christmas that a Fox Studios executive had commissioned at the previous Sundance Film Festival for $2000 having seen the work of film-makers Trey Parker and Matt Stone (Cannibal: The Musical). The adventures of Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny became an instant ratings and merchandising smash and the foul-mouthed eight-year-olds have expanded to the cinema screen (Bigger, Longer and Uncut), found their way to the MTV Movie Awards and allowed the show creators/(song) writers/voice-artists to pursue equally anarchic comedy at the box office with Baseketball and Orgazmo. Constantly pursued by a censorship outcry, the series has survived several copycat cartoon threats and even the death of its lead female vocal-artist during its third season. Perhaps the show's biggest controversy has always been that--despite a disclaimer before every episode--under-aged children still see it. But lured by a universe full of Cheesy Poofs and Cookie Dings, where no-one's afraid to badmouth school bus driver Miss Crabtree and where it's OK to vomit from being in love, it's no wonder that children of all ages can't help but love it. Seriously. --Paul Tonks

Season Two: Parker and Stone intentionally annoyed audiences by holding back season one's cliff-hanger resolution ("Cartman's Mom is Still a Dirty Slut") where we learn the surprise truth of who Cartman's dad really is. Season two instead opens with a TV Movie-of-the-Week Special for cartoon-within-a-cartoon characters Terrance and Phillip in "Not Without My Anus". A clever sub-plot runs through the middle of the year with closet homosexual schoolteacher Mr Garrison losing his hand puppet Mr Hat and replacing him with Mr Twig. It comes to an end in the amazing "Chef Aid" with Mr Hat busting Garrison and Chef from jail to attend a concert where Elton John, Meat Loaf and Ozzy Osborne are playing (all voiced for real). We get to explore the dubious leisure activities of Jimbo and Ned on their cable access show "Huntin' and Killin'" during a ratings war with "Jesus and Pals" (Christ having chosen the town to live in--naturally) in the Jerry Springer spoof "The Mexican Staring Frog of southern Sri Lanka". The season is rounded off by visits from the Evil Eric Cartman (who's nice!) from a parallel universe in "Spooky Fish", the Booktastic Bus in "Chickenlover", the Underpants Gnomes and even Charles Manson. --Paul Tonks

Set in a Colorado mountain town that gets destroyed on a regular basis and is populated by the dumbest, most vulgar characters imaginable, South Park is an anarchic animated sitcom that owes more to the spirit of Monty Python than to its comparatively tame predecessor The Simpsons. The show's origins go back to a 1995 Christmas video "postcard" called The Spirit of Christmas that a Fox Studios executive had commissioned at the previous Sundance Film Festival for 2000 dollars after seeing the work of filmmakers Trey Parker and Matt Stone (Cannibal: The Musical). The adventures of Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny became an instant ratings and merchandising smash, and the foul-mouthed eight-year-olds have expanded to the cinema screen (Bigger, Longer and Uncut), the MTV Movie Awards and allowed the show creators/(song) writers/voice-artists to pursue equally anarchic comedy at the cinema with Baseketball and Orgazmo. Constantly pursued by a censorship outcry, the series has survived several copycat cartoon threats and even the death of its lead female vocal artist during its third season. Perhaps the show's biggest controversy has always been that--despite a disclaimer before every episode--under-aged kids still see it. But lured by a universe full of Cheesy Poofs and Cookie Dings, where no-one's afraid to badmouth school bus driver Miss Crabtree, and where it's OK to vomit from being in love, it's no wonder that kids of all ages can't help but love it.

Season Three We finally meet Craig, the kid who's always sat outside Counsellor (M'kay) Mackey's office this year. In "Tweek vs Craig" the series makes the most extended and surreal use of live-action scenes so far. More tinkerings with format reassure the show can still surprise such as a three-part segment mid-way which sees the events of one night from three different perspectives. Some inspired homages and spoofs make this the best year for pop-culture references: there's a great rip on the obsessive fad of Pokémon in "Chinpokomon"; Scooby Doo is fondly parodied in "Korn's Groovy Pirate Ghost Mystery"; eggs are thrown at The Phantom Menace for the horror of Jar-Jar Binks in "Jakovasaurs". But to balance things out there's a far kinder wink to Star Wars (and Star Trek) that showcases the creators' fascination with Chewbacca and Endor in "Starvin' Marvin in Space!" which links back to season one and takes us to planet Marklar. The year's best star cameo is Jennifer Aniston as Miss Stevens the Choir Teacher in the love/hate of Green issues in "Rainforest Schmainforest". --Paul Tonks