The Shopping Network Scam

South Park, S16E02

Somehow a kindly gesture from Stan's grandfather turns into a quest to find the origin of all of the overpriced jewelry sold around America.  Typical of this show, a simple matter is taken way out of proportion and the boys manage to get themselves in the middle of it.  At least this time, there is a sort of happy ending and Stan learns that it's better to give than to receive (at least if his grandfather is going to give him a gift he doesn't want in the first place).

I liked that this episode dealt with the sort of a scam that the shopping networks operate in order to fleece customers out of their money.  It's true that many elderly people, such as Stan's grandfather, buy items on there with their retirement/social security money and don't realize that they are paying much more than necessary.  Stan finds out that his bolo tie is worth no more than 15 dollars, and at the worst price is worth about a 7-layer burrito from Taco Bell.  Through the worthlessness of his own gift that has real gold and diamonds, he figures out that old people are targeted by shopping networks on TV.

I rarely watch those sort of things except a few seconds when flipping to another channel, but this episode did a good job of expanding upon the annoying points of shopping channels.  I think that the host displaying the different products, Dean, was particularly funny.  He was even better when he had to deal with Stan calling in to tell him that he should kill himself.  My favorite part might have been when Dean was trying to stay professional on air while Stan said things like:

You're the definition of evil--kill yourself.

Stan was not playing around with that guy.  Even when Dean suggested that they might have to sue Stan if anyone did kill themselves, Stan still didn't give a damn.  It was great.

I didn't care too much for Cartman's own shopping network until he had to stock up on more supplies (I'm surprised he got anything from the playground at all) at a discount jewelry store that used the same tactics on him.  There's nothing better than karma catching up with Cartman, although sometimes it takes a while.

Rather than be amused by the cycle of jewelry from the American pawn shop all the way back to an Indian sweatshop where they recreate the same jewelry from pieces sent to them from the smelting factory, I wanted it to be over with.  The showed the process for much longer than I cared for.  It did emphasize the pointlessness of Stan trying to point fingers at someone for his grandfather getting deceived, but it didn't do much for me as a joke.

I thought it was nice that Stan gave his grandfather a picture of the dog he had loved but couldn't remember its face anymore.  They, of course, undercut the sweet moment with a joke (Stan's grandfather said his bolo tie was gay just like Cartman had said earlier), but I still liked the moment.

As messed up as it is to tell someone to kill themselves, I couldn't help but laugh when Dean had nothing but elderly callers telling him to end his life in the same fashion that Stan had done.  Since they had turned the camera away from his face, we sort of knew that he was going to do it in the end and a little before the episode finished, he finally did it.  A grim ending, but pretty typical of this show, so it was good to see that they aren't ever going to change.

I didn't like this one as much as I did the first one this season (mocking the TSA with toilet safety was genius), but it was still pretty good.  With a lot of shows approaching their season finales very soon, it's great to know that South Park will be around to pick up some of the comedy slack.