Created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone
Featuring Voices by Matt Stone, Trey Parker, Gracie Lazar, Mary Kay Bergman
“Did she also tell you my dancing got eight people killed?”
Leopold ‘Butters’ Stotch
South Park continues to be one of the wittiest and subversive shows on the air today. It is hard to believe that the show has been on since 1997. A little character named Butters has turned out to be such a fan favorite, Comedy Central gave him his own DVD release and I gave it a try.
The Collection
Just to get you up to speed in case you haven’t been watching South Park, Leopold “Butters” Stotch is a 4th grade student at South Park Elementary in South Park, Colorado.
Butters began as a background character, and then progressed to a minor character. But his popularity with South Park fans had Parker and Stone making Butters a more important part of the overall narrative of the show.
Butters is generally cheerful, naive, optimistic, and more passive than Cartman, Kyle, Stan and Kenny. And the thought of being punished in any way by his parents sends him into a major panic attack.
Fans have asked for it and it is finally here: a collection of Butters focused episodes.
Included in this release are 13 episodes: Butters Very Own Episode, Professor Chaos, The Simpsons Already Did It, Raisins, You Got F’d in the A, Awesome O, Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset, Marjorine, Cartman Sucks, The Ungroundable, The Coon, Butters Bottom Bitch, and The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs.
While I dearly love little Butters and enjoyed every episode offered in this collection, I do have my favorites from among these little gems.
Professor Chaos finds Butters being fired as Kenny’s replacement in the gang so he becomes Professor Chaos, the ultimate supervillian and he is out to not only destroy South Park, but the entire world.
The Simpsons Already Did It is another Professor Chaos episode. The Professor is nearly driven insane trying to come up with an evil plot that hasn’t already been featured on the long running animated show on Fox entitled “The Simpsons”.
In the episode entitled Raisins, Stan’s girlfriend Wendy breaks up with him and Butters has a female interest of his own: the new waitress at the pre-teen version of Hooters. There are lots of inappropriate jokes and references in this one but hey, this is South Park, what else do you expect?
Butter’s Bottom Bitch finds Butters in a new profession: schoolyard pimp. While he is trying to manage his stable of women, he finds out that a rival girl is selling her kisses on the playground.
In Cartman Sucks, a prank on Cartman goes awry and somehow this ends up with Butters in a camp to that promises to remove his homosexual urges from his psyche. This is another great Butters episode.
While diehard South Park fans are collecting the season boxsets as they are released, these special character focused boxsets are great for the more casual South Park fan.
So, if you don’t have the full season boxsets and you love little anxious Butters as much as I do, find some space on the shelf for this release.
8/10
The Video
This collection of epsidoes is presented in anamorphic widescreen. The colors are vibrant, the black levels are respectable and I did not notice any instances of grain or artifacts. This is an all around solid presentation.
8/10
The Audio
The audio is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0. The dialogue is crystal clear and mixed well for the 5.1 environment. The soundtrack is also mixed well in this presentation.
7/10
The Packaging and Bonus Features
The presentation of the episodes is really cool: it looks like a pencil box that Butter’s would have in school. The discs themselves are in an envelope, but it is the extras that really make this presentation sing. There are some cool novelties that refer to different Butter’s episodes: a fake check from Paris Hilton, an Inspector Butters badge, a gold “pimp” necklace, mock newspaper clippings, a copy of the manuscript of The Poop that Took a Pee, a “Butters Bottom Bitch” button and other assorted items.
In the DVD extras, the only ones offered is Its Butters! A Trivia Game which is self explanatory.
In this category, all the points are really for the presentation, but it may make it hard to display on your DVD shelf. But, still cool, nonetheless.
6/10
Overall (Not an Average) 7.5/10
The Review
The Collection 8/10
The Video 8/10
The Audio 7/10
The Packaging and Bonus Features 6/10
Overall ( Not an Average) 7.5/10