The “South Park” first season DVDs could have really benefited from some excellent bonus material. Could have and should have. Sadly, this is not the case and we are left with little more than the episodes.

There is certainly nothing wrong with the episodes themselves, however, and they should be the main focus of anyone buying the discs. All 13 first-season episodes are present and just as funny as ever, and this set is a great way to have them all collected in one place. While some prefer later seasons over the first, this season’s episodes still include many classics and every episode is full of laughs and memorable moments.

The episodes even include introductory sequences by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, although these are the same as on previous DVD releases. They are funny, but just not something you watch again and again like the episodes.

Sadly, the quality of the episodes is not altogether great. The nature of the show itself, at least in early seasons, limits how good it can be, but even with that considered, these DVDs are a bit low on the quality scale. It’s not worse than what you would see on TV, but just not up to the standards we are used to with DVD releases, even for TV series.

The most disappointing thing with this DVD set is the lack of any extras, or at least any worthwhile extras. With releases like the “Simpsons” DVDs showing us how good episode commentaries can be or other TV

releases giving us decent bonus materials, it is a major detractor to hardly have anything on these discs.

What is included are several promotional skits aired by Comedy Central. This includes two Christmas music videos, the Jay Leno appearance, and the Cable Ace Award presentation. While good for a quick laugh, these skits are all short and not something you go back to often.

Also, commentaries do exist for these episodes. For whatever reason, though, they were left off the DVDs and are only available through Comedy Central’s Web site on CDs. This means you must order them separately and then sync them with your DVDs with a separate player. This kind of effort is not what is expected with DVD and is frankly a major slip-up for this release.

For fans of the series lacking these episodes in any other form, this set may still be worth the purchase. As I said, you get all thirteen episodes and they hold up well enough that you can sit and enjoy them time and again. However, if you already have the previous DVDs or are in no big hurry, it is definitely worth the wait to see if a better version of this set is eventually released, fixing the mistakes made with this one.