244. World Wide Recorder Concert
Season 3, Episode 17
Season three of South Park ended on a brown note, literally – the entire world shits their pants. I wonder what Parker and Stone were saying about their show with this episode. Maybe nothing; maybe everything: who knows? The central plot of the episode isn’t very satisfying despite the massive shit show it ends with. The boys spend most of the runtime trying to prove they’re not dumb bumpkins to a kids from New York City because they didn’t know what “queef” meant though the brown note prank wins the respect of the NYC kids.
Mr. Garrison’s story though is fantastic. The concert is in Oklahoma City, his hometown, and he has to confront the trauma of his father not molesting him. Garrison felt neglected because his father never molested him and now thinks he’ll die if he doesn’t get molested. Garrison’s father can’t understand how he could have so terribly traumatized his son by not molesting him. There’s a great scene where he asks his friends at a bar, “Would you have sex with your son to save his life” but they all they think it’s a fun hypothetical question. In the end he decides to molest his son in the night and Garrison wakes up a new man, but it turns out his father hired Kenny G to molest Garrison for him. Only Mr. Garrison could be this backwards and I wouldn't have it any other way.
243. Oh, Jeez!
Season 20, Episode 7
With the original plan for Season 20 being built around Hillary Clinton winning the election, Parker and Stone had to rewrite almost this entire episode in the middle of the night for the episode to air the next day. The results, while having enough laughs, still feel like a hastily last-minute rewrite. A lot of things introduced into this episode don’t get a satisfying conclusion. Garrison went from panicking that he was actually going to win to a total character shift upon winning and plot that it was the memberberries responsible is dropped after the next episode. Sad! It's a credit to their talents that the episode isn't a total disaster.
However, the humour manages salvage the episode, even if the continuity is all messed up. People flip out over the election results. Bill Clinton/Cosby Gentleman’s Club teaches Stan and Butters about how men need to change because women are about to make men pay for all the shit they’ve done, and now that Hillary lost the election she’s “gonna be pissed”. The vomiting of memberberries into people faces to infect them like the Rage Virus in 8 Days/Weeks Later is funny, but empty in retrospect. Gerald being sent by Hillary to Denmark to sabotage Troll Trace (like James Bond) ending with his finding all the trolls there and the EMP devices they were given opening up to rickroll them is one of the best laughs of the season.
242. Tonsil Trouble
Season 12, Episode 1
A Kyle vs. Eric episode is never disappointing, even when it’s not very funny. The HIV positive jokes are funny though (despite Kyle insistence they’re not). But the episode tells a good story and prevented it from being lower on the list. After Cartman accidently gets HIV from a botched blood transfusion of a tonsillectomy, he cries out about how everyone told him the operation was safe. The episode really asks you to feel bad for Cartman. Even the kids (kinda) feel bad for him and butters gentile support makes it worse for Cartman. But Kyle laughs because he sees the karmic hilarity, which only draws the wrath of Cartman, wrath made worse by the fact Jimmy Buffet plays at his charity benefit instead of Elton John (because AIDs is “so retro” and cancer is the popular disease now) and only Butters and Jimmy attended.
Cartman enlists Butters to help give Kyle HIV. Butters has major reservations, but Cartman manipulates him by saying, “Helping people who have AIDs is one of the most important things you can do”. Upon being told he has HIV, he knows what happens and beats up Cartman and is then castigated for being a tattle-tale. Enraged, Kyle starts breaking everything Cartman owns, including decapitating Clyde Frog. Cartman saves his Xbox by promising to find a cure, and he does find it. They visit Magic Johnson to discover he stays healthy because he sleeps with all his money. The cure being injecting “about $180,000 directly into the bloodstream” is a good commentary on the healthcare system and how people can only be cured by spending tons of money they likely don’t have. And despite Cartman finding a cure, Kyle leaves to smash his Xbox. Not cool, Kyaal.
241. Fat Camp
Season 4, Episode 15
Cartman being sent to Fat Camp is a story that writes itself. Naturally, he finds a way to exploit the other fat kids by selling them junk food at a mark up by getting a kid from a nearby rehab center to fool to be his imposter so everyone thinks he lost a bunch of weight. What makes this episode so good from a character point of view is that Cartman’s always been in sensitivity and denial about being fat yet he feels no guilt exploiting the cravings of his fellow fat campers, who have so little control that, when they escape, are captured by fake taco trucks and ice cream stands. The plight of the fat kids is handled with a decent amount of empathy from Parker or Stone and it’s Cartman who ends up with no support system to change at the end.
If any image from early South Park sticks in the mind, it’s the end of this episode. After Kenny gets famous doing anything disgusting for money (Jesus calls him a prostitute) with The Krazy Kenny Show, he gets arrested for prostitution for undercutting Johnny Knoxville and Tom Green by giving Howard Stern a hummer for five bucks. This episode brings the two plots together perfectly as Kyle, for not exposing the imposter Cartman, forces him to dress up as the imprisoned Kenny and do Kenny’s big stunt on live TV, spending 6 hours in Mrs. Crabtree’s uterus. The mentally-scarring yet hilarious image of the imposter’s corpse being squeezed out of Crabtree’s “tight, virgin flower” was the most disgusting thing the show had ever done…for about ten seconds when another dead child slides out of her snatch.
240. Gluten Free Ebola
Season 18, Episode 2
From dead children coming out of Mrs. Crabtree’s snatch to penises shooting out of pants like drunken rockets: that’s South Park for you! Season 18 is where they really began experimenting with serialization as the boys, trying to atone for the events of Go Fund Yourself, announce they’re hosting a huge party. But gluten is discovered to be toxic and the adults of South Park panic as they cleanse the town of anything containing gluten (everything) and the party is doomed. Like they previously made fun of SARS, they mocked the hysteria around Ebola by pairing it with how no one would shut up about the dangers of gluten. After an FDA scientist drinks pure gluten to prove it’s harmless, he shrivels up and his penis flies off. Panic ensues. Much like The Coon I appreciate the concept without slapping my knee.
Those who consumed gluten are quarantined at Papa John’s; Randy gets nabbed because of beer, Mr. Garrison because of “tricky, tricky soy sauce”. One of the other detainees gets so hungry he eats gorges on pizza dough. When nothing happens he proclaims it as proof of it gluten hysteria being a hoax and then his penis flies off. This is all more amusing than funny. I most enjoyed Cartman’s visions of Aunt Jemima showing him that solving the crisis lies in the food pyramid being upside down. The kids' party happens and the guests eat butter and meat while “Lorde” performs. ya ya ya!
239. Jewpacabra
Season 16, Episode 4
Kyle and Cartman…bond? What? After Cartman’s lies make him terrified he’ll be sacrificed to the Jewpacabra for exposing its existence offer the best laughs as Butters and Token prove to be horrible protectors. Kyle will only free Cartman if he admits he got himself in chained in the woods wearing a bunny outfit, but he doesn’t. Bigfoot Researchers looking for Jewpacabra find Cartman, think he’s Bunny-Man, and tranquilize him – I love that they take the tranquilizer gun as evidence of Bunny-Man’s existence. Cartman then has a fantastically animated (some of the best in the series’ history) vision where he’s a Pharaoh’s son in ancient Egypt. In the dream the nine plagues are occurring and Cartman begs God that he’ll become Jewish if he’s spared…this sequence really saves an otherwise subpar episode. Kyle’s guilt of leaving Cartman to his fate causes him to free Cartman in a rare moment of bonding between them. The episode ends with Cartman converting to Judaism (though it’s never referenced again), making the ending as strange as it is uncharacteristically pleasant.
238. Pee
Season 13, Episode 14
The central joke here is Kyle’s disgust at everyone peeing in the water at the water park because that’s normal behavior. The disaster parody as the park’s PH are discovered to be “almost all P, no H” and the water turns into pee is a pretty great scene. I like Cartman’s obsession with minorities outnumbering white people (Kyle says “if there are more of them than us, than they aren’t minorities”) hits a head when he’s on a life raft as the only white person. His visions of living as in a world run by minorities, with each scenario ending Cartman going “nooooooo” are excellent, and Cartman’s Song “Minorities in My Water Park” is one of his best. The testing of the mutating, enraging effects of pee on monkeys and Randy volunteering to be the first human test subject is fucking funny, but the monkey test in Sexual Healing is even fucking funnier. I like that the antidote is a banana because Kyle, after swimming through a lake of pee to be rescued, is forced to eat a banana at, the only thing he finds as disgusting as pee, at gunpoint. Thumbs down for Pi Pi, the park owner, who is easily top 5 worst characters of the show.
237. You’re Not Yelping
Season 19, Episode 4
There are many episodes saved by a tiny portion of the episode: this is one of them. The song “Boogers and Cum (Yelpers Special)” at the end is utterly sublime. It’s catchy, hilarious, and perfectly closes the episode’s story – it’s very similar to “Jackin’ it in San Diego” that way.
The rest of the episode is, like many preceding this in the rankings, has a great idea, but not overly funny. Cartman harasses and extorts the owners of a new Mexican restaurant (of course), especially their son David, with threats of a dangerous 1-Star review, which offers some par for the course Cartman’s a racist humour. I love how Gerald drinks wine as he writes egregiously florid restaurant reviews (a precursor to Skankhunt42). The image of all the Yelpers talking over each other because they think their reviews are the most important and everyone needs their opinion to better their lives is telling of modern times (I say this as I’m opining on South Park). Their overinflated egos are placated when Mayor McDaniels individually gives each of them the gold medal for food criticism. While bad reviews are a real concern for restaurateurs, the lampooning of a modern day need for acknowledgement through Yelpers speaks to how people in an internet-driven society need to feel unique and important because they're one voice drowned out by billions. This is easily the weakest in a stellar Season 19, which makes it seem lesser than it is. Strangely, it was the S19 episode nominated for an Emmy.
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