Ambition can be friend and enemy to South Park, and sometimes both. The three-part "Imaginationland," which concluded last night, did an excellent job of highlighting some of the show's hugest weaknesses and greatest strengths. Overall, though–even if you hated it, which some of you on the Sarah Silverman blog clearly did–you've got to admit to some respect for a show that's been done on its own terms for so long and still manages to get some laughs. (That's especially true for you who think Sarah Silverman, in her second season, is already delivering diminished returns.)
Anyway, the genius: This whole 90 minutes of television revolved around a bet between Kyle and Cartman. If Cartman can prove that leprechauns exist, Kyle will have to suck his balls. (Should Kyle win the bet, he gets ten bucks.) Even over the course of three shows, some of which dragged like crazy, Cartman's savoring of the possibility was gold. The two even end up in court over it, which felt like the South Park of old.
What didn't feel like the SP of old was the slow-moving, occasionally funny main plot: The jokes within worked, but the actual story–terrorists blow up the gateway between bad imaginary characters and good ones, causing havoc–felt more like an excuse for a nostalgia trip than a good arc. In Family Guy/Robot Chicken style (and I like those shows, so don't start), they trotted out a bunch of recognizable faces from Transformers to Ronald McDonald to Snarf from Thundercats (okay, that one was pretty funny).
The setup did allow for some of the funniest moments in SP's recent history, though, particularly when the evil characters break free and it turns out that the most evil ones ever dreamed up come from Cartman's brain–the Christmas critters. Where the other evil cartoons want to simply pluck Strawberry Shortcake's eye out and then kill her, Cartman's mind-beasts want to find someone with AIDS to urinate in her eye socket. (This is, of course, much funnier when delivered by a smiling squirrel.)