Well, with the next post I’ll be one third done. I know the last two episodes in the previous post were contentious with some of you! I just wanted to drop a few stats on the process so far.
As of this post, Season 14 is the only season to not have a single episode ranked yet. Season 15 was as well until this post, where two episodes are included from it. Two seasons only have one episode each ranked thus far, Seasons 19 and 22. Season 21 only has four episodes remaining to be ranked, while Season 1 has only five episodes left. Below I have how many episodes in each group of seasons I have ranked in the bottom third.
Seasons 1-5: 41 episodes
Season 6-10: 13 episodes
Seasons 11-15: 13 episodes
Seasons 16-23: 23 episodes
While it may look like I don’t like classic South Park, it was just a different show back then. For what it was at the time, it’s great stuff. Some of it simply hasn’t aged the greatest, and some later episodes are just so much smarter, cleverer, and more offensive. Who would’ve thought in 1999 that South Park would ever seem quaint and chaste?
209. Rainforest Shmainforest
Season 3, Episode 1
This episode is just good old classic South Park fun. I’m pretty sure this is the show’s first adventure episode, where the boys go somewhere far away and get up to some shenanigans. Jennifer Aniston does a great job as a guest voice (something they don’t do anymore) playing the leader of the Getting Gay With Kids choir. Watching her naïve optimism get broken down until she becomes a total nihilist from her experience is a fun ride. It’s a good satire of what we now consider to be a ‘woke’ person breaking under the stress of experiencing the actual socioeconomic and cultural realities of their cause.
A lot humour revolves around Cartman’s intolerance of other cultures (the Choir leader was warned about this ahead of time) and his hitting all the wildlife of the rainforest with a stick. It’s a nice touch when Cartman breaks off from everyone after they’re lost and is not only well fed by the crews bulldozing the rainforest, but he also gets them to heroically save the day by bulldozing through the indigenous peoples of the rainforest. In the end, Cartman’s beliefs are rewarded and the Choir leader is punished for hers and Cartman’s beliefs, to an extent, claim her. The episode ends with a nice little PSA message about how the rainforest must be stopped.
This is only the second episode where Kenny isn’t dead at the end. However, it’s the first episode where anyone cared enough to bring a dead Kenny back to life…though he dies immediately in the following episode Spontaneous Combustion to make up for it. Kenny is struck by lightning and he’s brought back to life by his new girlfriend in the choir, setting up a nice meta joke on his habitual dying as Stan and Kyle say their habitual lines much to the girl’s confusion…since lightning can’t be a ‘they’.
Stan: Oh my God! They killed Kenny!
Kyle. You bastard!
Kelly: What? Who? Who killed him?
Stan: They did.
Kelly: Who’s they?
Stan: You know…they.
Kyle: They’re...bastards.
208. Do the Handicapped Go to Hell?/Probably
Season 4, Episodes 9/10
The first two-part episode to be ranked is certainly no bad episode. It’s pretty good, actually. The main plot of the episode revolves around Satan and his lover Steve, and the complications that arise when his former lover, Saddam Hussein, returns to hell after be killed (again) in Bigger, Longer & Uncut. The running gag of Steve and Saddam killing each other over and over again, only to get sent straight back to hell gets a lot of mileage. The other plot involves the faith of the kids being shaken when they learn Timmy won’t get into heaven because he can only say his name and thus can’t confess any of his sins…Cartman naturally uses this to scam a bunch of money as all the school kids become brainwashed by the church they built in the backyard. Cartman has schemed before in the show, but we really see his intelligence for evil here.
The message behind this Satan story is a poignant one. Saddam offers sexual passion and excitement whereas Steve offers sensitivity and warmth. Satan is torn between the one he should be with because the positives of both are cancelled out by the gaping negatives in both. He eventually goes to see God to ask for advice, only for God to remark, “Gee, when did you become such a pussy?” God does dole out one great piece of advice, about how Satan is so dependent on having a partner in his life he never considered being with neither of them to be an option. It’s a good lesson for people out there who are so codependent that being alone for any length of time is agonizing torture. It must be sad to live like that.
207. Grounded Vindaloop
Season 18, Episode 7
Chalk up another score mark under Contentious Rankings because I know people love this episode. Frankly, I wish I knew why it's so beloved. It’s a fun, creative story, sure. I’ve just never found it overly funny. It’s not without its charms, obviously, but it’s one of those episodes that simply doesn’t connect with me like it connects with others. I think a big deterrent for me is that Cartman taking advantage of Butters' gullible naivety was played out for me at this point. There are some laughs to be had with it though like when Butters starts acting out in the “virtual world” like bagging his dad and getting stabbed by a hooker, which is funnier because we don’t see it. Though I do like the customer service agent “Steve”, it wasn’t as good as Cartman dealing with customer service agents in Insecurity. I like the ending with the “real” kids, and Steve Stotch not knowing why Butters is grounded and sensing when he isn’t grounded anymore.
While I applaud Parker and Stone tackling technology in an episode it doesn’t reach the height of say You Have 0 Friends, which marvelously tackles how Facebook affects people from various perspectives. I think what this episode lacks for me is a statement about how Virtual Reality could affect people. In the end, this episode felt like a hodgepodge of lesser versions of meals I've eaten before; I felt full, but it's not a meal I'm going to eat often.
206. A Scause For Applause
Season 16, Episode 3
I’ve always felt indecisive towards this episode. I like both halves, the Scause storyline about the rubber cause bracelets that were popular at the time, skewering slacktivism, and Stan’s self-delusion about his stance of not cutting off his WWJD wristband makes him a momentary celebrity. Both stories have always felt a little rushed to me. I think they could’ve gotten two episodes out of these stories and explored this more than they did. The Dr. Seuss animation sequence looks fantastic. I like Cartman decking himself in the bracelets to seem like someone who cares (when we know he doesn’t) to the point he says he doesn’t care about causes only to be reminded he does care because he’s wearing the wristband for that cause. I think the social currency aspect of this episode is what needed to be expounded upon.
The inclusion of Jesus being discovered to have taken performance enhancing drugs to perform his miracles, however, is the type of genius only Parker and Stone are capable of. The disillusionment of people no longer being able to wear their What Would Jesus Do? wristbands and cutting them off with such grief is hilarious. If you think about it and Jesus was the son of God and had powers, then they weren’t really miracles at all. The mocking of Nike’s advertising the dawn of motivational marketing with Stan Your Ground (which has quickly turned into social awareness marketing) is something I really appreciate. It’s also fun seeing that Stan really is Randy’s son in this episode as well as in Butterballs a few episodes later. Wait, Jesus is in that episode too…I wonder if that means anything.
205. Bass to Mouth
Season 15, Episode 10
I love Lemmiwinks. The music, the animal spirits inside Mr. Slave’s ass, the lore…it’s all so fucking stupid and perfect. Here we see Lemmiwinks’ evil brother Wikilinks spy on all the kids in South Park and air all their dirty laundry on his online tabloid. It’s a little repetitive with the kids laughing at leaked info before being terrified about their own info being leaked. However, the plot with Cartman trying to prevent kids from killing themselves due to the bullying after they shit their pants in school (he does the bullying) by making other kids shit themselves to deflect the attention is too much. It even shows Cartman beating up Selena Gomez in exchange for his services to the school, services of arranging a pizza day with pizza loaded with Arby’s Horsey Sauce to make all the kids shit their pants at school so no one is singled out. Once Wikileaks threatens to expose the teachers plan, they literally throw Cartman under a bus which is so on the nose I love it. The positively violent diarrhea Mr. Mackey suffers at the very end after eating the cupcakes Cartman made is the cherry atop this shit sundae.
The final battle between Lemmiwinks and Wikilinks is just two gerbils fighting each other, but the big battle music makes it seem way more intense than it is. It’s been almost 10 years since this episode aired. I hope we get another Lemmiwinks episode soon!
204. Band in China
Season 23, Episode 2
I really wish I could rank this episode so much higher. The skewing of China’s strict censorship laws with depicting the way American companies bend over backwards to appease China because it’s such a ripe market for them is so satisfying. My biggest issue with the episode was I didn’t think it was funny. Randy getting arrested because he took a bunch of weed to China was great as was his garroting Winnie the Pooh to appease China, and I liked seeing Mickey Mouse smoking a joint, but other than that I wasn’t really laughing. I’d have ranked this episode a lot lower if I didn’t appreciate the subject matter itself so much. I’ve only watched it once so maybe upon a second viewing I’ll find it funnier? I don’t know.
That said, I think this episode is legendary for the off-screen stuff, like the way South Park was banned in China after this (which they clearly expected with the episode title), which basically proved the point they tried to make, so the episode is genius in that respect. Also, the Hong Kong protestors played this episode on a massive screen out in public and that is hilarious and shows the power of art and freedom of speech that China suppresses. If I let such things impact the ratings of the episodes themselves, this might be a fair bit higher.
203. Starvin’ Marvin
Season 1, Episode 8
If this episode is remembered for anything, it’s the first memorable celebrity skewering. They’d made fun of other celebrities before this episode, but they hit Sally Struthers really hard…and then even harder in Starvin’ Marvn In Space when they made her look like Jabba the Hutt. This is also the first episode where South Park showed they weren’t just a crass TV show, but one that could bring attention to things like child starvation in Africa while also having fun with it. The look of abject horror at Starvin’ Marvin’s face when he sees everyone chow down like pigs at a trough is fantastic. And I’ll never forget Cartman teaching Starvin’ Marvin, “This is what we call ‘appetizers’. Appetizers are what you eat before you eat, to make you more hungry.” Is there a better representation of Western decadence contrasted with deleterious poverty?
Of course, the real meat of this episode is when Starvin’ Marvin (who was sent as a gift for sponsoring Ethiopian kids instead of a sportswatch) tells the Feds Cartman is Starvin’ Marvin and he gets sent to Ethiopia. This was the first time in the series we see the true splendor that is Eric Cartman because as entertaining as it is when he is super evil and manipulative, it’s even more satisfying when he receives some comeuppance. Seeing Cartman starving and pissed off in Ethiopia is some of the best classic South Park has to offer.
202. The Poor Kid
Season 15, Episode 14
I wasn’t sure how to rank this episode. It’s both not very good and very good at once, if that makes any sense. The mockery of agnostics is bland and only funny at times, like how the only thing they drink is Dr. Pepper because no one can be sure what it is. The Penn State running gag is one of the worst examples of topic jokes not landing years later. When that story was hot, these jokes had more edgy weight to them. I can’t imagine if these would even be jokes if someone watched them in 20 years with no reference level, though that can be said of a lot of South Park, I guess.
On the other hand, Cartman’s obsession with being the poor kid in school now that Kenny’s parents were arrested for being white trash in trouble and Kenny went to a foster home. All the best stuff is involved with this quest, like Cartman berating his mother for not being able to afford to buy him the new iPad and telling everyone his mom fucked him at Best Buy. Cartman tries to get ahead of the mockery by ragging on himself for being poor yet no one cares because only he rags on the poor kid. He gets his mom arrested, expecting to go to a nice foster home in Hawaii, and ends up in the Agnostic foster home with Kenny. He then celebrates not being the poor kid at his new school with a 20 minute song and dance number (with a fireworks finale) making fun of the poor kid. Add to this Mysterion protecting his little sister, Pabst Blue Ribbon making white trash fight each other, and one of the best Kenny deaths of all time (which makes Cartman the poor kid again) and there is a lot of greatness here even if it’s got some downsides.
201. Quintuplets 2000
Season 4, Episode 4
I have a feeling this is the most forgotten South Park episode. It’s a strange South Park episode that sees the boys take in Romanian Quintuplets from Cirque du Cheville to start their own circus, Kenny learning to sing like Andrea Bocelli, and an international situation between Romania and South Park. There are extremely funny bits, like Stan’s Grandpa fucking the Quintuplets’ grandmother to death and an epic boat chase on Stark’s Pond that makes no sense in terms of spatial logistics.
Kenny and his mother discover they’re fairly wealthy (in Romania) and choose to stay so Kenny can study music at a Romanian conservatory. The quintuplets dress down basically everyone in great fashion for their selfishness in how they treat them. On the flipside, Romanians are protesting to let Kenny stay before a fantastic Kenny death that sees American soldiers raid their house to bring Kenny back; Kenny is hiding in the closet, held in his mother’s hands, and the solider accidently unloads a full magazine into Kenny from point blank. And this was based on an actual event and real quintuplets from nearby in Ontario, though the two things are unrelated.
What brings this episode ahead of some of the recent entries in this list is just how jam packed it is yet it all still works. There is some excellent social commentary in here and it’s rare the characters in this show get put in their place quite like how the quintuplets do it. It was the precursor to how Stan got shut down by the mormon kid in All About Mormons, except even better if you ask me. And once I learned a bit behind what this episode was based on, it furthered my appreciation for how well this episode was put together. I believe this was the first South Park episode to directly tackle a current, major news story to this degree. This episode laid the groundwork for how they tackled current events in the future and is one of the most important episodes in that respect.
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