South Park Open Thread

David Weigel | March 21, 2007

Since previous threads on South Park have drawn in armies of commenters, I'm posting an open thread to yack about tonight's episode: "Lice Capades."

Trey and Matt's Reason interview is here.

Comments

|3.22.07 @ 12:06AM|#

Reason is always pimping the Matt and Trey interview. You should just give that interview its own link over on the side. Or hell just change the name of the magazine to "Hey look, we got an interview with Matt and Trey"

I kid, I kid. :)

|3.22.07 @ 12:10AM|#

You guys are just shills for Big Comedy. ;0)

|3.22.07 @ 12:17AM|#

Regarding the other thread on whether the S.P. guys are or are not political or partisan:

I also read an interview with Stewart and Colbert - I think in Rolling Stone - where they claimed they were also non-partisan. Now, I love Stewart and Colbert, and I like some of the South Park stuff, but c'mon, at least wear yer schtick. Stewart and Colbert are obviously liberals and Stone and Parker very obviously are more biased against liberals than they are conservatives which shows up in not only who they choose to target, and how much, but also who they don't. Parker and Stone's bias might make sense in the era of Clinton but it seems weird and denialist in the age of the Neo-con crazies.

|3.22.07 @ 1:50AM|#

Weak episode, but the Thing bloodtest and the cheap shot at the end both made me chuckle a bit.

Adam|3.22.07 @ 1:56AM|#

Just wait for the next Clinton era. Imagine what Janet Reno would be like with Patriot Act powers.

|3.22.07 @ 2:57AM|#

Just watched it.

Hilarious, really.

All that needs to be said.

Towelie|3.22.07 @ 2:58AM|#

Funny episode, I'm a huge SP fan, but no real political meaning. It was about LICE.

|3.22.07 @ 2:59AM|#

lees,

You say this about the guys who made the movie Team America?

Good grief.

sean|3.22.07 @ 3:24AM|#

This did have political meaning the head represents new orleans and the shampoo represents katrina you dumbasses. New olreans is below water level so that must mean that the earth, like the head, is alive and does not want them there.

|3.22.07 @ 9:39AM|#

The problem here is that some people view the show with their, as another reader put it, "political blinders" on. I watch the show to relax and have a good chuckle.

|3.22.07 @ 10:03AM|#

Sean pwned Towelie. No political meaning? I can't remember the last time SP had an episode without it. Not that I let it cloud my ability to laugh at it...but I'm always cognizant of it at least.

|3.22.07 @ 10:03AM|#

So now they've parodied They Live and The Thing. Were there any other Carpenter films they parodied?

And I guess they didn't think Team America was enough of a parody Roland Emmerich? I guess they felt the need to revisit it with a direct parody of The Day After Tomorrow.

It had it's moments, but the episode gets a C+.

VM|3.22.07 @ 10:05AM|#

jimmydageek -

you're forgetting to learn new, diabolical plans from Cartman!

Remember - don't piss off Cartman!

{confession: I thought Cartman would shave heads of everybody, give them a number, and herd them into camps.}

|3.22.07 @ 10:17AM|#

I gotta say, though, the episode(s) that stick in my craw and really take credibility away from Trey and Matt is the 2-part Go, God, Go episode, where Cartman freezes himself and ends up in the future. Now, I have no problem with Matt and Trey expressing their views on what they see as "militant atheism", but all of the main themes of the show that they use to rip on atheism and Richard Dawkins (such as the idea that, even without religion, people will hearken back to their tribal nature and find a reason to fight) are, amazingly, addressed and refuted thoroughly and competently by Dawkins himself, as well as Sam Harris, in books that were written LONG BEFORE the episode was created. In fact, if one didn't know the dates of the books and the episodes, it would be a reasonable assertion that Dawkins and Harris were responding directly to them. I just find it rather disappointing that Matt and Trey, usually so competent and spot-on, would dedicate an entire episode to ripping on Dawkins and his "militant atheism", without first reading the very book(s) that addresses all that they seem to have a beef with. Do your f'n homework, boys, or you end up looking like turds.

I don't mean to stray from the topic episode, but, let's face it...there really wasn't much to delve into with "Lice Capades".

VM|3.22.07 @ 10:26AM|#

Evan!

how about S.Park's ability to turn on recent events. Remember the Wizard of Oz/Saddam/ Trip to Canada episode when fucktard.... er... SH was captured? Like that.

That was a hilarious episode!

Also, the episode, "Cartman tries to cheat at the Special Olympics/ Jimmy does roids" was also hilarious. Some good social satire in that one.

|3.22.07 @ 10:32AM|#

(Fischer is an anti-libertarian "vital center" liberal in the Arthur Schlesinger Jr. mode, and these are not the only traditions he limns.)

There's that word again.

|3.22.07 @ 10:32AM|#

oops wrong thread, sorry.

|3.22.07 @ 11:08AM|#

VM | March 22, 2007, 10:05am | #
jimmydageek -

you're forgetting to learn new, diabolical plans from Cartman!

Remember - don't piss off Cartman!

{confession: I thought Cartman would shave heads of everybody, give them a number, and herd them into camps.}

True, VM, Cartman does come up with some really great plans.

I didn't watch last night's episode, but I would have expected Cartman to make money off it by selling wigs made out of pubes, or something akin to that :)

|3.22.07 @ 11:29AM|#

Thank you, thank you :)

VM|3.22.07 @ 12:09PM|#

:)

|3.22.07 @ 12:16PM|#

No one saw the obvious Lovelockian Gaia referenc: living scalp=living earth?
And bizarrely enough, it was treated quite sympathetically.
Or am I just imagining this?

|3.22.07 @ 12:32PM|#

That's exactly what I was thinking, pinko. The references to the Gaia Hypothesis seemed pretty clear to me. I'm surprised anyone saw it as a Katrina analogy or even as having no socio-political point at all.

On another note, the parody of a stereotypical action/drama movie was hilarious.

"I've got to save mah bebe!"

|3.22.07 @ 12:50PM|#

MP,

What's sad is that there was never an "Escape from South Park" episode with Chef driving around in a car with chandelier hood ornaments. Damned shame.

|3.22.07 @ 1:00PM|#

That's exactly what I was thinking, pinko. The references to the Gaia Hypothesis seemed pretty clear to me. I'm surprised anyone saw it as a Katrina analogy or even as having no socio-political point at all.

Yea, but were they saying the theory was credible?

I thought it was about global warming, Mr. Vice President as Cheney and the earth is alilve lice as Gore. Still, no clear message besides Angelina Jolie is dirty.

Not only that, it simply wasn't very funny. Weak episode.

|3.22.07 @ 1:32PM|#

Grand Chalupa,
Well, I got a Gore vibe from the central louse in the narrative. Granted, it was no ManBearPig thing, but he seemed like a lonely Gore type. The Gaia theory seemed pretty credible if you just take the whole plot trajectory at face value. As far as it all being a set-up for a joke, Lindsay Lohan--aka firecrotch--would have been way better. Jolie seems pretty clean and well-intentioned to me. But I did like how stout and healthy the crabs appeared at the end. Easily the cleverest show on TV.

|3.22.07 @ 3:28PM|#

I fell asleep while watching it. I was very tired.

|3.23.07 @ 2:19AM|#

'I'm posting an open thread to yack about tonight's episode: "Lice Capades." '

So then what's the definition of an 'open thread'?

"So boys and girls, ask me anything at all, anything at all, but limit your questions to what's on the lunch menu today?"

Or from 'Raising Arizona.'

John Goodman as bank robber: "Put your hands up and get down on the ground!"

Old man: "So, which one is it mister, do you want us to get down on the ground or put our hands up?"

Goodman: ".......(eys shift back and forth)....shut up!"