South Park Review: You're Getting Old

How about blowing your shit up, right? South Park has absolutely earned the right to do anything they want, and if they want to make a depressing, John Cassavetes-esque movie with shit jokes, well, I really want to see that.

This episode, mostly the ending, reminded me very much of the arc in Moral Orel. Where by the 3rd season they abandoned the comic storyline and focused on the crumbling family and each character's internal struggle. You can also draw comparisons the use of 'Landslide', which South Park used, to Moral Orel's usage of various Mountain Goats songs. But where Moral Orel used the final 2 seasons to build, South Park just BLEW THAT SHIT UP right in front of our faces. Both metaphorically AND physically, and I love that. The divorce happened so abruptly that there was no time to pick sides. You just had take in every last bit of depression. For a show that basically admitted they've been coasting for a couple years using a same basic format- I feel rewarded that I get to think about these characters as real people.

Example- during another great episode this season (Season 15- shaping up to be one of the best ever)- "Crack Baby Atheltic League", Kyle and Cartman work together profiting off of crack babies. When Kyle is trying to show Stan his side of the story, Stan simply says "You sound like Cartman". I fully expected Kyle to stop right there and the episode would turn off into something else. But no. Kyle and Cartman continued working together. I viewed this as a betrayal of Kyle's character (but didn't care because that episode had one of the better non-sequitar endings in South Park history with Vaunter Slaush). Now- we see the continuing of that relationship with Kyle and Cartman exchanging knowing glances at each other during this episode. I see change, I see growth. The seeds were planted, and now they're sprouting.

I always was annoyed when people say "South Park isn't what it used to be" because those people, for the most part, don't watch the show regularly. I imagine for them, the pay-off of this episode, and hopefully the following episodes after their hiatus, won't be as free-ing.

"I know how much you like Legos, Stan."

South Park Review: City Sushi

This is entirely spoilers because that is how lazy people write.

A Butters' story usually revolves around a misunderstanding and then being taken advantage of. Here he is taken advantage of by a therapist who diagnoses Butters with multiple personalities, with the misunderstanding being "he is just a kid who pretend-plays". It is believable because, more so than any other character on South Park, Butters is overflowing with innocence and naivety.

That's half the episode though. No Cartman, Kyle, Stan, or Kenny in this episode. But a longer look at City Wok's Lu Kim. The schtick here is that Chinese people get confused with Japanese people. South Park makes this touchy subject funny by relentless commitment to the joke, over the top accents, and focusing more on the character we know, Lu Kim, rather than developing the new City Sushi owner.

This all pays off in an amalgam of a third act. Butters' therapist at this point is the real crazy person with multiple personality disorder, and one of those personalities is Lu Kim. All this time, throughout the history of Lu Kim (Mongolians, his wife Wing), he was a white guy. This also justifies the racist attitudes he had of his Japanese counterpart (who killed himself, because honestly- we don't need to see that character again, they needed to get rid of City Sushi, and The Kenny Rule: it's always funnier on South Park when someone dies).

For a Butters' episode, I was semi-disappointed if only in the fact the worst thing Butters was led to do was rob a bank. While I also appreciate the backstory on Lu Kim, this is very Armen Tamzarian-esque. There was something about stereotypes that they could've hit harder, though. Stereotypes is a thing not easily solved and South Park makes enough points already. So for them, bringing light to this issue (by exploiting it) is just piling on jokes. Which is why I watch.

Review: when Kenny was inside Cartman

It was a 4 episode arc. A double-decker sandwich if you will, 2 delicious breads, with weak meat but with condiments to make up for it. Twas season six, the end of the Professor Chaos season where they weren't hanging out with Tweek anymore. In fact it was the 2nd run of episodes of 2002, premiering in November.

In the episode 'Ladder to Heaven' hilarious things happen and notable to this post- Cartman drinks Kenny's ashes thinking they are chocolate milk mix. Thus he inherits Kenny's soul. This arc plays for initial value in the Ladder to Heaven episode, and is mentioned and played with for 2 episodes (The Return of The Fellowship of The Ring to the Two Towers and Death Camp of Tolerance) and is dutifully wrapped up as the other plot in The Biggest Douche in the Universe.


Let's look at this phenomena, which happens seamlessly in in the wacky world of South Park. A character sharing bodies with another character? Don't even bat a lash, just go with it and enjoy. Great. In the Ladder to Heaven, Cartman uses Kenny's memories to retrace the steps to find a ticket so that the boys can have their candy shopping spree, but soon Kenny's presence makes itself even more known calling Cartman a 'blood belching vagina'. Here we see the layer of character development. We know Cartman would never say anything bad about himself as he is his favorite person, and we finally get to hear the dialogue of Kenny, the member of the group with the sickest mind and twisted knowledge of sex (he did know what Fingerbang actually meant). Over the next two episodes, we are simply reminded of the fact that Kenny is in Cartman. Sure, it is fun to play with, but we do get a pay-off episode of the Kenny in Cartman body. So these 2 "tween" episodes just show us- crazy things happen to the boys and the boys just keep living. Why? Because they are 9.


As in The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers, Kenny is only there as a reminder, letting the plot really happen. "There are 4 of us, Kenny is in Cartman's body. Remember?", "There are actually 7 of us, Kenny is in Cartman's body," Stan says on seperate occasions. While in the Death Camp of Tolerance, a rich soil for Cartman to revel in, we only get one instance of Kenny's presence in Cartman. As Mr. Garrison returns as the 4th grade teacher, Kenny overtakes Cartman's hand with his sense of boyhood mischief as he throws a paper airplane against Cartman's best wishes. Mr. Garrison scolds Cartman, but the boys inform their teacher that Cartman drank Kenny's ashes and that Kenny is the real culprit. Garrison goes on to spank, for the 1st time, Mr. Slave. So an episode introducing Mr. Slave as well as Lemmiwinks much more than makes up for the fact they aren't playing with the Kenny-Cartman dynamic. In fact, I'd be disappointing if they actually did.


In the final episode, Cartman is sick with Kenny's spirit and the boys visit John Edwards to talk to Kenny. Cartman ends up going to Scotland with Chef to get the spirit out and everything working out hoo rah. I'd like to think that Kenny is always a sick, dying child. So while even in Cartman, that continues. There is a fun little instance where Cartman laughs at 'The Stapler' starring Rob Schneider rated PG-13 and says it was Kenny as well as Cartman telling Kenny 'The Carrot' isn't funny. The ultimate resolution is Chef and Cartman losing the pot roast that contains Kenny's spirit and in inevitably ends up in the body of the much maligned Rob Schneider. They wrapped up the loose end by doing a funny running joke. Calling out Rob Schneider for doing shitty PG-13 movies where he falls down as someone else is a great, specific pop cultural touchstone to poke fun of their own note character of Kenny, and an ultimate pay-off of seeing Rob Schneider die in an iconic Kenny scene fromt he first season. And there goes the Kenny in Cartman plot.

Kenny is really the forgotten character, and even while in the show's biggest star, he is still forgotten. Stan, Kyle and Cartman did forget about him (Kenny's mother even calls this out in Ladder to Heaven), until they want something from him. But as hardcore fans will note, Kenny should be forgotten, he is there to die, to mumble, and to play the dirty, perverse part of childhood. When dying became a crutch, they rounded Kenny out some, but he still is a mumbling character who won't convey much. And during the 5th and 6th season Kenny dies for good for awhile because South Park has smart writers who can make that work. Kenny is the least important of the 4 boys, but by playing with his character this early in the series (season 6 is about midway- but currently they are in season 14) they established they can do anything they want with Kenny. Which they do amicably.


Truly, one of the least recognized strengths of South Park is they know when to do things. Unlike the Simpsons, they have made a successful movie. They did so by doing it early in the series run at the height of its mania. And allowed itself to grow into satire. OK, sure, hearing more of Cartman saying more of Kenny's dialouge would be great, but simply knowing that a main character's spirit is in another main character's body and having it not be a big deal whatsoever is pretty great too. South Park, you sly dogs.

Review: South Park Episode 200

Sweet, sweet, straight, unfiltered reference. Nectar of the mind vines. The reference, in all their unfilteryness, remind you that this whole time- South Park is just a TV show. Sure, a TV show steeped deeply in its own meta world, but the first three words of that parenthetical were "a TV show". I am 24 years old, Park is 10 years younger than me, and thankfully has been smarter than me this whole time. South Park in its purest form is Matt Stone and Trey Parker. The are people, and people are what grows with you.

So, I agree with you all in saying that if you don't follow South Park you are not going to like this episode. As for me and m unabashed love affair with these smart people with a tv show. A tv show that happens to be a cartoon with children protagonists. These men get to do anything they want with these children, and they chose to make them to IE go into space and follow a Taco that pooped ice cream to save earth, which is a TV show to aliens, from being canceled. IE stab Jesus in the neck to a plot too involved to recap involving Easter and the disciple Peter actually being Peter Rabbit. I am not going to do IEs anymore. The point is: they are still on the air, remaining fresh, and challenging the viewer. Look how many Emmys they deservedly won. Look it up: The last 3, and 4 overall. This show did that. Because they have such a rich dynamic history that you can point to and is pockets of an era. Names like Pip, Miss Chokesondicks, Miss Crabtree, the time Tweek was their 4th friend. And they can, should, and will do anything they want to. Because that's called 'they earned it.' There probably is an actual word for that, but you need to be slapped with that. And please continue to support smart people making smart tv.