Another round of ‘South Park’

Season Nine of South Park begins today, Wednesday (9 p.m., Comedy Central), and when I e-mailed the publicist to ask for a review copy, I could almost hear the laughter in her response.

Season Nine of 'South Park' begins today, Wednesday (9p.m., Comedy Central)

Um, no, she said. The episodes aren’t delivered until a day or so before airtime. All the better to keep jittery network executives from asking for major changes, I suppose.

But she kindly sent along the newly released DVDs of Season Six, which reminded me what a sharp, funny show this still is. If you stopped watching (as I had), it’s time for another look.

South Park still works on many levels. At its most basic, it’s a cartoon about four 8-year-olds living in small-town Colorado. They’re raunchier than any real kids, but they have genuine kid-like relationships. They tease and torment each other like all little boys do — like sticking a sleeping friend’s hand in warm water. Or much worse.

It also has brilliant asides. In one episode that parodies Jared Fogel, the Hoosier spokesman for Subway restaurants, Stan, Kyle and Cartman decide to fatten up Butters, then put him on a Jared-like diet so they can get an endorsement deal. They go to Chef, the cook at their school cafeteria, to ask the quickest way to add weight.

“If you want him to get really fat as fast as possible, one of you will have to marry him,” Chef says.

“Marry him?”

“It definitely worked for every woman I ever met,” Chef says.

South Park works, too, as fierce social satire, whether it’s skewering Russell Crowe (one episode has him hosting a show called Russell Crowe Fighting Around the World, in which he goes around the world beating people up), animal-rights activists, small-town mentalities or even 1980s movies.

The episode called “Asspen” mocks the many guy-has-to-win-back-girl-through-athletic-competition movies. As Stan trains for a skiing competition, he does so in a montage. “In any sport if you want to go from just a beginning to a pro you need a montage,” goes the deliberately cheesy accompanying song. “Always fade out in a montage. If you fade out, it seems like more time has passed in a montage.”

Through it all, South Park continues to have the power to shock. In the Jared episode, Cartman gets Butters in trouble, then sits outside Butters’ house and listens to the beating. “Oh, man,” he says, “if I was older, I would totally start jacking off right now.”

What’s truly shocking, though, is that you can now watch South Park in reruns (albeit cleaned up) on local over-the-air TV (11:05 p.m. weeknights, WNDY Channel 23).