South Park - 3/31/04 (1 Viewer)

[Paul_Medenwaldt]

What I really enjoy about this forum is that 2 people can see one episode and see 2 different things. While watching the scenes with Cartman leading the others in the march, my thoughts about those scenes were that these people were being shown as sheep and in a way, being made fun of because of their renewed faith in their beliefs after seeing The Passion.

Paul

 

[Jason Harbaugh]

One of the funniest parts in this episode was the very beginning with them in the Van just being kids. This is also what made the ninja episode so funny. I hope they do more stuff like that.

I enjoyed the rest, not their best episode but it had some great stuff in it.

 

[Mikel_Cooperman]

South Park endearing???!!??

 

[Morgan Jolley]

The Mel Gibson thing was not random enough, nor true enough, to be funny. Hitler Cartman was good, but since I didn't catch the last segment of the show, I don't know how it played out.

A little disappointing. Over the top, but not great. It's going to be tough to outdo the first episode of this season.

 

[Travis Hedger]

What was the deal during his nightmares that showed the brief picture of Alan Alda? WTF was that about?

 

[Tom Foley]

Good points. Don't get me wrong, I still love the show. And I love the topical/pop culture stuff (especially on a political level). I was just saying that for next week, I hope they throw one out that's just plain silly, like "Cripple Fight" or "Raisins". To cleanse the palette, I guess. They've done this several times over the years.

I did laugh at Braveheart Mel chasing the boys in the Mad Max truck.

 

[WillG]

Just a random wacky thing they threw in there. Maybe it does have some meaning, but I have no idea what it would it be.

 

[Tom Foley]

Someone over at the SPS BBS site posted this regarding the German Cartman spoke:

Translation for German lines

In Cartmans room:
"Töten Sie die Juden!" - "Kill the Jews!"

At the convention:
"Es ist Zeit für Reich!" - "It's time for Reich (Third Reich/ Empire)!"
"Wir müssen die Juden ausrotten!" - "We have to eradicate the Jews!"

I don't speak or understand German, but I got the gist of it last night, so I guess that's why I thought it wasn't funny.

Re: the Alan Alda thing: maybe it's some odd reference to white male liberal guilt? M*A*S*H*?

 

[Keith Mickunas]

I think that's pretty far off from what they intended. It was clear that the people didn't understand Cartman's true intentions. Anytime he said something to close to what he wanted to do the people seemed to catch on and he had to quickly cover it up. Plus they didn't understand what they were saying, they all thought it was Aramaic. That was made perfectly clear by their dialog.

While to an extent they were being sheep, it was pretty clear they were not understanding nor going along with Cartman's anti-Semitism.

Overall I like this episode. I enjoy how they'll intermix social/political episodes with ones that are pure lunacy. Keep in mind that the weapons episode was only topical for a few seconds, all the rest of the show was just pure nonsense, which is great to see. And while the steroids one was topical, the take they had on it was pure genius. Jimmy beating up his girlfriend was a great moment.

 

[JustinCleveland]

Utter and complete crap. I don't think I actually laughed once. There were some clever moments, to be sure, but at the end, both my girlfriend and I agreed that this was a huge opportunity wasted. The "Daffy" Gibson was pointless... it's not satire, it's stupid.

After two weeks of WONDERFUL episodes that had me rolling on the ground, I was dissapointed here.

 

[MarkHastings]

LOL - That reminded me of the old 4th of July episode, where the presentation of the giant burning snake ended with a photo of Abe Vigoda and the guy said "and good times will be had by all" It's just random shit that SP throws in for no reason at all but to be stupid/funny.

I too wasn't quite sure where they were going with their portrail of Mel being crazy like that, but it was funny when he shit (or shat?) all over Cartman

p.s. how many of us would LOVE to go to a directors house and get our money back for a film we'd just watched and hated.

 

[Matt Stone]

I agree with you 100% regarding Cartman, Mark. Regardless of Cartman letting his feelings previously known on Jews...his villainy was uncharacteristic.

BTW: Casa Bonita (Beautiful House)

 

[Richard Kim]

Then what about Cartman having Scott Tenorman's parents killed and feeding him their remains? That doesn't seem excessively evil to you?

 

[MarkHastings]

I agree that he is excessively evil, it just seems like even his most evilest of deeds (i.e. Killing Scotts parents) were done because his main objective was still childish. He just wanted to laugh at Scott and make him feel like a loser, which all kids do, but they don't do it to the extreme that Cartman does. His main intentions weren't focused on the killing of the parents because he wanted them dead, it was just a side thing that he was willing to do to make Scott look like a fool.

I know it's a fine line, but to me, it's about Cartmans intentions. If he intends to do it for some silly/childish reason, his evil-ness just seems funny.

But there didn't seem to be any childish/innocent reasoning behind this past episode, that's why I didn't really care for it. I mean, it was funny when he was making fun of Kyle because that was his childish side showing through...the "Ha ha ha ha ha ha!" - I'm better than YOU! (in the Cartman tune) is what shows that he's just doing it as a bullying/child thing that kids do.

So IMHO, Cartman killing Scotts parents:
Funny: Because Cartmans main reason was a simple/childish reason, yet South Park decided to take the normal 'bullying' that kids normally do and go over-the-top by having Cartman kill someone just to make a joke. It's this over-the-top stuff that makes it funny because the pay-off to the killing was so not worth what he had to do to get Scott to cry.

And Cartman dressing as Hitler, wanting to kill all the Jews:
Not Funny: Because there was no childlike reason for it. Cartman was just being 100% evil and it there was no "innocent" motivation for his actions.

 

[Keith Mickunas]

I think it comes from some of his beliefs that he's been spouting in interviews. Even the Vatican isn't as conservative as he is. That's kind of scary.

 

[Neil M]

What show have you been watching over the past years? This is totally in character for Cartman. His intentions are almost always evil, even if he doesn't succeed. To me, his actions towards Jewish people is consistent with his feelings towards Jewish people. He just needed a movie and a "god" in Mel Gibson to fulfill his desires.

I think people aren't looking at this episode in the South Park way. This is complete satire. It is a criticism of how Jews and Catholics perceived the Passion, which is only a product of Hollywood. Remember, the story existed well before the movie. To me, the whole Cartman as Hitler is only making fun of the fears that a lot of the Jewish leaders were having before the release of the movie. They feared anti-semitism so what would could be worse than the second incarnation of Hitler? Pure genius in my opinion. For the Catholics, they act in this episode as if they had no idea of their beliefs. I have made this same criticism. Being a catholic, I knew how much Jesus had suffered. I didn't need Mel Gibson to show me. Again, I think this was a brilliant criticism of the masses. And finally in the end,I think the message is clear. We could play the blame game but it really gets us nowhere. We should focus on our beliefs and not on our prejudices.

Maybe I'm the only one that sees the episode in this way. I'd like to think otherwise.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

This episode would be the equivilant of Archie Bunker dressing up in a white robe and going to a KKK meeting in an episode of "All in the Family."
Just because they make racist comments doesn't mean they'll take it to the extreme.

 

[MarkHastings]

Ok, so how about this...What they should have done is developed a NEW character to dress up like Hitler. This new character could be the "EVIL" that the satire needed, then they could have had Cartman following this character around innocently. Not realizing what he was actually doing (i.e. advocating the killing of all Jews), it would be funny because you would see how he was stary eyed for this figure who hated the same things Cartman hated, but they could have ended it by Cartman realizing that this "Evils Nut"'s REAL plan was to kill all the Jews and Cartman could some how figure out that that was even beyond HIS hatred.

This would seem more in character with Cartman than anything.

p.s. I know you can argue that the movie represented the EVIL character and Cartman was innocently following it's preachings, but this still lead Cartman to take matters into his own hands and get the group together, which seemed to detract from an innocent following into an evil action.

 

[MarkHastings]

You know, after re-reading my post, I just thought of something funny (although it may be a bit far-fetched)...

I wonder if South Park was trying to get us to hate Cartman to emulate the hatred people are expressing toward Mel Gibson? This could have been what they were trying to achieve.

If this is true, then YES they GOT ME!!! I was hooked into actually hating this episode by the way they portrayed his character.

 

[Michael Hall]

You know, I could be mistaken on this one, but didn't Jesus (the South Park version) die in an episode a while back? If I remember correctly, on the episode where the kids went to Iraq to bring Christmas to the Iraqi children and save Santa Claus, wasn't Jesus shot and killed on the rooftop?

Since he was pretty much represented as a corporeal being on SP, I suppose he could die, and that's the last time I honestly remember seeing Jesus on the show. Maybe they're sticking to his death the same way they've stuck to nobody saying "shit" in the SP universe (although one of the kids did slip and say that word a week or so back).

Again, I could be mistaken on this as I am a few steps below an avid fan (I love the show but don't know a lot of the smaller BTS stuff), so maybe someone else could confirm or deny that Jesus actually died.