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How This Became The Worst Episode Of South Park
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Mar 31, 2025
Aside from the Simpsons, South Park has been one of the most successful animated sitcoms in history. South Park has a unique ability to not only stay topical, but drive home satire based on some of the most recent news events. Though this can sometime be its downfall, like when Matt Stone and Trey Parker tried to cram too much topicality into one episode, and produced one of the worst episodes of South Park ever.
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Meow
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No, kitty, this is my pet. Meow, kitty, you're dead, kitty. Meow, kitty, it's my pet
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For 25 years, the boys of South Park have shocked and amused audiences in equal measure
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Despite controversies, boycotts, and protests, the show has soldiered on. Of course, not all of its seasons have been hits, as evidenced by one episode in particular
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which reveals the show's rapid turnaround for topical humor can leave the writers struggling to make a clear satirical point
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Alexa, Simon says I gotta take a stinky poop. I gotta take a stinky poop
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Most animated shows require months of pre-production time from scripting to storyboards to animation
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South Park, however, uses an in-house animation studio to complete its episodes within one week
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This allows the show's creators, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, to write every episode with a one-week turnaround
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often finishing episodes hours before they air. This process has given the show a truly unprecedented amount of topicality
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unlike any other scripted satirical comedy. Although it is challenging, they see this as the best way to comment on social issues with their own perspective
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There's a show on this Wednesday. We don't even know what it is. Like, even though that's the way we've always done it
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there's this little thing going, oh, you're screwed. You're screwed. However, it's important to point out that topical satire does not always automatically create great comedy
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What has consistently made the satirical elements of South Park so effective is the work that's put into the characters
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This ability to tell topical stories quickly can sometimes put satire at the expense of character
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And, most importantly, comedy. Originally aired in September of 2017 White People Renovating Houses is the season 21 premiere of the series And one can assume that Parker and Stone were eager to begin commenting on numerous events that happened since the end of the show last season But that leads to a very
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scattershot shotgun blast approach to picking the show's satirical topics. The primary motivator of
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conflict in the show's A and B plots is the overwhelming popularity of the Amazon Alexa
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in the town of South Park, an element that quickly feels like an eye roll inducing bit of product
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placement. Alexa, are you happy? I'm happy when I'm helping you. God, that's so cool. This obsession
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drives Cartman to have an emotional affair with his Alexa, ignoring his girlfriend Heidi and
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eventually accusing her of emotional abuse. Heidi's mentally abusive, guys. There, I see it
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The other story is an attempt to comment on the August 2017 Charlottesville Unite the Right rally
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that occurred about one month before this episode's premiere date. In this plot, a group of irate
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South Park citizens, the ones who scream about immigrants taking their jobs
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are now furious at Alexa for, you guessed it, taking their jobs
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Automated personal assistants, self-driving trucks, whatever happened to people, Jebs? The timeliness of this plotline highlights one of the flaws in Parker and Stone's rapid
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production time. First, these two plotlines feel very strangely disconnected from one another
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and are being held together by a very weak Amazon thread. Second, the entire plot line about Stan's dad
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starting a reality show entitled White People Renovating Houses feels undercooked. Could you do that somewhere else
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Trying to do a home renovation show here. Cool, thanks guys. The troubles with the quick turnaround
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of the writing process is also reflected in the way Parker and Stone chose to portray
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their version of the Unite the Right protesters. In our modern world, where social media
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often requires people to have a hot take ready for every conceivable topic
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the value of long reflection has been lost By comparison The Simpsons also takes its own approach on social commentary and satire but because of the longer turnaround time in episode production
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it avoids the pitfall of making episodes that are overly reliant on the most recent events
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As a result, many of the episodes from The Simpsons' Golden Age seasons
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contain satirical moments that continue to feel true decades later. Why should people vote for you instead of President Clinton
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It makes no difference which one of us you vote for. Either way, your planet is doomed
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Even when the show does use specific contemporary figures, as it does with Bob Dole and Bill Clinton running for president
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the jokes are focused more on the infuriating nature of America's two-party system
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than it is on any specific aspects of Dole or Clinton. Their choice to largely paint their version of the Unite the Right protesters
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as simply lower-class disenfranchised people ignores the severity of the bigotry at the heart of the protest
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Sure, the show makes cracks about the stupidity of waving around Confederate flags
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but the joke is always about how that behavior makes white people look bad
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Hey, there's a bee in here! I'll get it! Yeah! Yeah! I got it for you
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The rest of the episode's portrayal of these characters suggests that Parker and Stone
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rushed this plotline without more hindsight to understand the larger ramifications of that event
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Being topical in comedy is good, but it should never come at the expense of the humor being
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funny and the satire being insightful. It's telling that the most intriguing idea of the
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episode is the one that's most character-driven. Cartman's bizarre claim that his girlfriend Heidi
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is emotionally abusive is pure projection on his part. He's so fragile and ill-suited to be in a
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relationship that he sees any attempt to repair their strained feelings for one another to be an
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attack, making it clear he is actually the emotionally abusive one in the relationship
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But this idea flounders in connection with its other plot and ends up feeling like just another story about Cartman being a jerk with no real satisfying resolution How do you change someone who
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mentally abusive? I don't know, but Alexa will. Alexa's f***ing sweet. And it's not as if Parker
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and Stone are incapable of character-driven stories that also have satire. Originally aired
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in November of 2002, the season 6 episode, A Ladder to Heaven, involves the boys trying to
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as the title suggests, build a ladder to heaven to retrieve a winning prize ticket that was last
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in Kenny's possession before he died. Again, the boy's gesture is misinterpreted by the people of
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South Park as an attempt to grieve for their friend. Their work is celebrated and misunderstood
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by an escalating group of people all the way up to the U.S. government. The episode uses the
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frequent attempts by the media to understand the boy's actions as a way to skewer the post-9-11
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media landscape. With the news frequently searching to find meaning in what were often
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meaningless or senselessly tragic occurrences, Parker and Stone find humor during a time where
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it seemed like it would have been impossible to laugh again. Musical artists like Alan Jackson
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who pretty shamelessly used the tragedy of 9-11 to sell music, is directly parodied in this episode
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the perfect succinct bit of satire that fits neatly into the episode's overall plot
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rather than overshadowing it. Thank you. I have a new CD out with all my 9-11 songs for sale right here
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Ultimately, white people renovating houses represents a pair of creators biting off more
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than they could chew. Although their method of producing the show has served them well in the past, Parker and
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Stone should consider how that approach often leads to stories that are driven more by a
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desire to comment on current events rather than the characters that fans love
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For all of the witty insights into our society they've provided us with, South Park's
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popularity will always be accredited to their ability to make us laugh. If the laughs aren't
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there, then the show just won't work. And white people renovating houses proves that
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