200. Terrance and Phillip in Not Without My Anus
Season 2, Episode 1
I remember when this episode aired. I was twelve and we’d spent a few months (at this point, if I remember correctly, Canada got episodes delayed from the American broadcasts for a couple years) waiting to find out who Cartman’s father was. We tune in only to be told that WILL NOT BE SHOWN TONIGHT with a big fart-accompanied APRIL FOOLS on the screen. I remember being so upset. But then the episode started and I loved it. Perhaps your mileage will vary, but as a Canadian, any time Canada does an episode about Canada I adore it. I can only imagine how outraged some Americans must have been watching this episode live, or at least in utter disbelief as what they’re seeing…which is part of the reason I love it so much.
While the content of the episode itself has quite a lot of jokes Americans probably won’t get, like the Roughriders versus the Roughriders or Kroff Dinner, as an episode unto itself, it’s fine overall. There are episodes ranked lower than this I prefer. However, the chutzpah of Parker and Stone to start their second season with an elaborate April Fool’s joke instead of following up on their big cliffhanger that people were actually invested in…well, it’s just legendary. What a risk! They received thousands of angry e-mails. Some critics said it would be the death of South Park (LOL), that they duped their fans, that the joke was lamentable. Other’s praised them for taking the risk. Some people held a grudge against the show for years. For me, I think it’s the moment I first truly loved South Park.
"If you get that pissed off because you don't know who a little construction paper kid's father is, then there's really something wrong with you.”
- Matt Stone
199. The Scoots
Season 22, Episode 5
What I appreciated most about this episode was that it played like a homage to classic South Park Halloween episodes with the modern twist of basing it around a contemporary menace: in this case, E-Scooters. It was a stroke of genius to base the story around Mr. Mackey because his voice adds to anything to the point him saying “scootin” never stops being endearing. His escalating outrage as he’s bombarded by people on E-Scooters not paying attention to the point he rounds them all up (scooters, not those scootin) and disposes them only for him to wake up surrounded by scooters is the type of stupid comedy South Park pulls off so well.
The four kids have the brilliant idea to use E-Scooters to get more Halloween Candy than ever. This of course excludes Kenny who is too poor to have a phone to get the app to unlock them. Kenny finds out every kid is using the scooters, leaving him to team up with Mackey to stop the scoots. Meanwhile, the parents of South Park enter mass hysteria due to a projected mass candy shortage and reports that each household will need to spend 6,000 on candy to protect their houses from eggs and TP. It’s a silly episode without much in terms of message. South Park needs episodes like this to break up the more thoughtful episodes.
198. The Problem With a Poo
Season 22, Episode 3
I’ve said before Mr. Hankey isn’t that great of a character. Yet this is the best use of him yet. Mocking Roseanne’s infamous tweet, Mr. Hankey can’t stop tweeting out horrible, offensive things about the kids, adults, and government of South Park. Like Roseanne, he blames it on taking Ambien. His tweets are pretty funny as is the reactions from the townspeople, who effectively cancel Mr. Hankey who isn’t politically correct anymore. Pairing Mr. Hankey’s attempts to remain in charge of the Christmas pageant by enlisting Kyle’s help makes sense since Kyle is the one who always believed in him. The analogy of Kyle getting stained by defending a piece of shit is telling of how people associated with social pariah’s get lumped into it is pretty accurate.
The PC Principal and Strong Woman angle to the episode is the strongest part for me. They try to hide their tawdry affair that impregnated Strong Woman yet the jig is up when Strong Woman gives birth to quintuplets, who are all PC Babies, who all inherited PC Principal’s sunglasses. Whenever someone is insensitive, they start crying, which is just a great lampooning of SJWs – I think my favourite bit here is their crying over a problematic Speedy Gonzalez T-Shirt. After Mr. Hankey offends the PC Babies, he’s kicked out of town, leading to one of the funniest endings in the show’s history I won’t spoil if you haven’t seen it.
197. # REHASH/# HAPPYHOLOGRAMS
Season 18, Episodes 9/10
This is one of the episodes where I don’t know how I’ll ever feel about it. While many episodes have moved up in rankings as this process continues, this one keeps sliding back. It’s such a hodgepodge of ideas, from satirizing commercialized Holiday Specials, holograms of dead musicians, the explosion of Let’s Plays and PewDiePie, how entertainment has turned from something shared to something private and constrained, the monetary and cultural value of trending, Bill Cosby, generational shifts, not to mention the continuance of the Lorde storyline as she runs up against the oversexualized realm of pop music. There’s a lot to process, too much, I think. Frankly, it’s a feat that they even managed to make this two part episode not only make sense, but tell a mostly competent story. Still, not all of it works, and not all of it is funny.
What really saves this episode for me is Randy…I mean Lorde…who almost seems primed to be the next sacrifice for harvest (I guess Miley Cyrus didn’t pan out) as we see Lorde doing things like flicking her bean on stage. I also like the meta commentary of Parker and Stone recognizing that they are grandpas just crapping on the new popular thing they don’t understand. One thing this two parter does exceptionally well, however, is tying up and referencing previous episodes and established serialization as a successful experiment until Season 20 almost ruined it.
196. Super Best Friends
Season 5, Episode 3
NOTE: I will not be showing an image of Muhammad our of fear of retaliation against Jesus and Buddha.
It’s funny that Muhammad is shown in this episode and no one cared, something the kids point out in 200/201. As a parody of The Justice League, The Super Best Friends are a pretty good parody though, outside of Semen (sic) and Swallow, it isn’t an overly memorable, except maybe for the finale where they make a giant stone John Wilkes Booth to defeat the giant stone Abraham Lincoln. The David Blaine story where he’s a cult leader with almost god-like magical abilities is pretty good. I like the gag where once all the kids are in Blaintologist cult with shaved heads and identical outfits, the only one you can pick out of the group is Cartman. I like how Jesus did his “magic” by making people turn around as he performs it. There’s a solid Cartman vs. Kyle plot too where Cartman foils Kyle’s plan at exposing the Blaintologist cult by getting the Blaintologists to drown Kyle while they all drown themselves in the Mall of D.C (which of course Cartman can’t bring himself to do). While this isn’t the most glowing review for the episode, it doesn’t have any real faults and the lack of negatives is a major positive.
195. Mexican Joker
Season 23, Episode 1
This must be one of the most contentious episodes ever made. It parodies the southern-border facilities and ICE in such a unique way. ICE are portrayed as people just following orders, the Nuremberg Defense, yet they’re also portrayed as buffoons in a way that makes them seem more naïve than evil - they think they're doing good. I think ICE agents do important work in terms of human trafficking while also doing controversial work many consider evil…I think the latter overshadows the former. The kids too aren’t treated with overt sentimentality or depicted in a way that could be seen as activism this season either. I think this is a time where people have been very critical of South Park’s middle ground approach because it didn't admonish ICE and Trump enough.
All that housekeeping aside, it’s a pretty hilarious episode that sees Cartman, who has been fairly muted in recent seasons, realizing he can round up all the Mexicans by simply reporting them to ICE. When Kyle crossed Cartman, Cartman gets Kyle and his family interned in one of the camps…where Cartman later ends up because Stan called ICE on him. The Joker parody lampoons the media going after Joker so perfectly through placing the hysteria of white incels being created by Joker and making ICE soldiers terrified they’ll create Mexican Joker. The first episode of the first season of Tegridy Farms is a welcome addition to the show as Randy is furious that legalization also means people can grow their own weed instead of buying his. "Hey. Fuck you!"
Of course, Kyle, a Jewish kid, ending up in an ICE detention facility makes everyone in ICE freak out over how bad it would look on them. Kyle also raises a valid point that the "Mexican Joker" they are trying to prevent might be created through the prevention itself. This is a pretty wide-reaching metaphor, like the War on Terror potentially creating new extremists or how prohibition for "the good of society" creates a bunch of crime that is bad for society. We also see the polar opposite play out where legalization of weed creates terroris...err, Randy.
194. Prehistoric Ice Man
Season 2, Episode 18
I think this episode played better in 1999 when 1996 was only three years before, not 25 years ago. I wonder how people watching now for the first time would react to that, especially with all those great 1996 references in Larry/Steve/Gorak’s enclosure like Ace of Base and the Falcons going to the Super Bowl would be lost on them. Hell, I don’t even think they’d get the Steve Irwin Parody now that it’s been nearly 15 years since his death. I know his family has a TV show now, but I don’t think it’s resonated quite like Irwin did. I suppose in many ways this episode is prehistoric in terms of its central jokes. For myself though this is still a very entertaining classic South Park episode. One of my all time favourite conversations in South Park is when Larry/Steve/Gorak visits his wife after being frozen for 3 years. It’s so fucking brilliant, I’ll just put the conversation here when Larry/Steve/Gorak knocks on his wife’s door.
Leslie: Can I help you?
Larry: Leslie. It’s me, Larry. Your husband.
Leslie: Husband? You’re not my husband.
Larry: Think hard, Leslie. We used to be together. For over eight years?
Leslie: I seem to remember a husband, but I think he was lost and never found on Kenosha Pass.
Larry: That was me!
Leslie: Oh. (Man appears beside her)
New Husband: Who is it, love?
Leslie: It’s my former husband, who I had forgotten all about.
New Husband: Well sir, let me shake your hand. I’m proud to meet the man whose wife I am currently sticking it to every night. (New husband leaves)
Larry: So you…remarried.
Leslie: Yes, Lorry.
Larry: Larry!
Leslie: Uh, Larry. Larry, you disappeared. I waited for you to come home for over three days! I remember how cold and lonely the nights got. By the fourth day I knew. I had to move on.
Larry: Didn’t anybody send out a search party?
Leslie: We did, Larry. We looked all afternoon! But we found nothing. No trace.
Larry: Please, Leslie. I don’t know where else to go. I’m confused.
Leslie: Leslie, I’m with Buck now.
Larry: You’re Leslie.
Leslie: Right. I’m with Buck now. We have children together. (two kids appear) Calvin is eight and Little Buck is thirteen. I can’t just up and leave them. I’m sorry.
Larry: I’m sorry too. I’ll leave you alone
(Larry starts walking away and stops)
Larry: Eight and thirteen?
193. Hell on Earth 2006
Season 10, Episode 11
It’s merely a coincidence, I assure you, that the episode parodying Steve Irwin is ranked right before the episode that shows Steve Irwin at Satan’s Halloween party with a stingray coming out of his chest less than two months after his death. Satan tells Irwin his costume is offending his guests because Irwin just died and it's too soon. Upon being told he is Steve Irwin, Satan promptly ejects Irwin for not being in costume.
Hell on Earth 2006 is an extremely stupid episode full of memorable things like Dahmer, Gacy, and Bundy being The Three Stooges, Biggie Smalls being Bloody Mary, questioning if Diddy did it, Hitler dressed up as the Verizon “Can you hear me now” guy, Priests trying desperately to get into Satan’s party, and Satan acting like a spoiled teenage girl. This is one of those episodes where at times there are so many tiny jokes on the screen you have to look for them, like Imaginationland on a smaller scale. Butters and Biggie Smalls steal the show here though. So much of Season 10 had really expansive parodies or were about major issues that this simple episode that says nothing about anyone or parodies anything contemporary really helps round out arguably the best season of South Park.
192. I’m a Little Bit Country
Season 7, Episode 4
This episode is memorable to me as the first South Park episode that truly tackled a current affair with a strong stance, one where their centrist leanings are in full view. This episode aired a month following the US Invasion of Iraq in March 2003. People were extremely divided over the war. They contrast the liberal opposition as protesting with rock music with the conservatives supporting the war with country music. It’s a brilliant metaphor in that it shows not only the political divide, but the divide between city and country, whom differ culturally as much as politically. It’s easy to forget just how divided America was at the time with how divided we seem now. I think it was worse then and it just seems worse now due to the omnipotence of social media.
The kids join an anti-war protest where sound bites they don’t comprehend are placed in their hands because they wanted a day off school, which results in them to write papers on the Founding Fathers, of whom they know nothing. In a moment of great Cartman stupidity (that pays off…we think?), he invokes a flashback with a TiVo full of The History Channel and a tub of water rather than doing research. He flashes back to Colonial Philadelphia where he sees the Founding Fathers argue over whether or not they should go to war against England, which mirrors the fighting over Iraq.
Cartman tells everyone The Founding Fathers designed America so that people have the right to protest going to war, which means the country can go to war yet also act like it doesn’t want to. “It’s called having your cake and eating it too,” he says, which prompts a country rock concert where everyone joins together to celebrate hitting 100 episodes!
191. Cartman’s Silly Hate Crime 2000
Season 4, Episode 1
This episode overall should’ve ranked lower. The sledding race between the boys and the girls in which they need Cartman’s fat ass to win is okay. Cartman being in prison with Romper Stomper is okay with Cartman hooping contraband being the best part. But it’s everything around Cartman hitting Token with a rock being declared a hate crime that rises this one above so many other more complete episodes. The trial is fantastic as we see Cartman on the stand where he’s asked who Token is and he says “He’s a black kid at our school”. The response is “Black? Did you say black?” and Cartman says “Well, he is black!” It’s a great moment because we know Cartman is a racist, but his crime against Token wasn’t racially motivated while also parodying that someone how being described as black is considered racist.
The kids make a presentation to the Colorado Governor to free Cartman to win their sledding race against the girls (something these days would be considered misogynistic). It’s one of the most pointed points South Park has ever made and it cemented South Park to be more than toilet humour: it's a vehicle for intelligent and layered observations on society. I’ll just link the presentation below.