Cartman Needs To Quit The Matchmaking Business

South Park, S16E07

A new girl named Nichole came to their school, and Cartman was determined to hook her up with Token, since they were both black.  He went through a lot of trouble to make that happen, including telling Nichole that Kyle (her initial crush) was his boyfriend and locking Token and Nichole in the boys' locker room together.  After wondering if they were just together because they were the only two black kids at school and worried about people looking at them as if it was a given they were together, they split up.  Kyle tried to date Nichole after that (despite all the rumors that he was dating Cartman in secret), but Cartman ruined their date with a big confession to Kyle over the megatron.  In the end, Nichole and Token decided to get back together simply because they liked each other and nothing else mattered.

I guess if you consider the kind of person that Cartman is, his actions in this story could be considered sweet.  If only he wasn't focusing matches on race, you might think that Cartman had a shred of decency in him.  Besides him forcing the hand of fate with people's love lives based on color of skin, he took away Kyle's chance to ever get together with Nichole.  He wouldn't even consider the idea that they might be a better couple because he was too concerned with skin color.  Felt bad for Kyle because he was getting excited about have some female attention, but all of that was due to Cartman lying about them being Kyle's boyfriend.

What I find really funny about Cartman spreading that lie is the ease in which he declared his love and ownership of Kyle.  He wasn't just convincing enough for Nichole who didn't know him any better than any other boy at school, but he convinced me.  Cartman is pretty obsessed with Kyle in general, even if it is always in a negative way.  Maybe the reason why he is always giving Kyle a hard time and trying to make him look like a fool is because he has a secret crush on Kyle.  I'm just saying--Cartman may be a psycho and a pathological liar, but he's not that good of an actor.  Also, the rest of his schoolmates must have thought Kyle and Cartman have some kind of chemistry because there seemed to be few who didn't believe it (Token even thought Kyle was trying to hit on him).

Regarding Cartman's imaginary friend, Cupid Cartman, it only shows that Cartman is never playing with a full deck of cards.  He wasn't just talking and playing with it, but he imagined it taking a dump in the toilet and thought he had its dead body in a shoe box in his closet.  I liked when he beat the crap out of it when he lost his faith in love after Token and Nichole broke up.  He really commits to his delusions, I'll give him that.  However, the best thing that Cupid Cartman did was suggest that the poster girl for halitosis was his perfect match.  I thought Kyle would be the one to give Cartman a little payback for all of his meddling, but once again, Cartman is his own worst enemy.  I thought it was an appropriate ending to a good episode.

I don't have any complaints really for this episode.  It was nice to see a story about how even dating within your own race could make people judge you on terms of race.  It was mostly a Cartman-centered episode, but that was a good thing because he needed to be alone in his insanity so that it could fester to a comedic point.  Even if he was doing things for his own twisted reasons, I'm fairly sure that he has some unresolved feelings for Kyle that he isn't being honest about.  Not sure that Kyle is on board for that, but it's still pretty funny to think about it.

The Boys Get Real With Zipling

South Park, S16E06

Stan and the rest decided to go ziplining, so that they could end their spring break with something new and exciting.  To their dismay, zipling was the most boring thing ever, and they spend the rest of the day trying to escape other tour groups and boring activities.  They were eventually saved by Mr. Hankey.

I liked the mock-reality show vibe of this story because it made fun of some of those shows that start with "I Should Have" etc.  It made their trip seem like such a life-threatening disaster (although for kids of that age, being stuck doing an activity all day they hated with annoying people would be).  I thought from the beginning when they were showing clips of them shouting out in terror that the conflict might have been from some kind of malfunction with the zipline.  The fact that they didn't meet my expectations made the satire work really well for me.

What was also interesting was that they kept showing the inter-workings of the boys' bodies during certain moments of annoyance, boredom, and digestion.  It was gross, though, to see what was going on in Cartman's stomach.  I cringed when we had to see things like crap building up in his intestines going all the way out of his butthole.  Crapping his pants is bad enough without us having to see the whole process.  Still, I liked the over-dramatization. 

One of the best jokes was the long-winded guy in the tour groups who kept saying "long story short," but then continued to ramble on forever about something.  They made a good point about the majority of people who use that expression don't actually make their story any shorter.  I guess these windbags must realize their story is going on too long and say that, but in the end don't know how to edit themselves.

My favorite part of the episode was when they got on the boat and it turned to live-action versions of the boys.  It was adorable and funny!  Usually when cartoons do that sort of thing it's pretty damn annoying, but I guess either the South Park kids are just funny whether 2D or 3D or they just selected really great actors to play the parts of the boys.  It was cute watching Cartman and Kyle argue and yell at each other when Kenny died, and even funnier when Stan had to come clean, and they turned their hateful words toward him. The only thing I didn't like looking at much was when Cartman crapped off the side of the boat like a fountain and them all with cold sores (I hope) around their mouths.  Still, it was good overall.  I was actually disappointed they had to go back into cartoon form for a minute, but then again, I didn't want to see anymore of the real version of Mr. Hankey.  It's bad enough just seeing cartoon poop.

Great episode.  I love when they can make heart-wrenching drama from something that shouldn't amount more to anything than a bad day they wasted on doing something stupid.  I doubt they will ever do some live-action scenes again (as they don't seem like the type to repeat themselves very often), but I still want to hope they might incorporate them in some other story along the road.  Really proves that this show can still be funny even if it's portrayed in non-cartoon format.

Bullying is Bad, M'Kay

South Park, S16E05

Stan took leadership of a video to combat bullying in schools after watching Butters struggle to do anything about his bully problem.  Stan's role as head of the cause got him fame, and Butters was just a means to inflate his ego.  When they went to the Dr. Oz show, Butters finally let out the rage against all the bullying he had been put through (including his participation in Stan's project and the hosts prodding him for information) and ruined Stan's movie production.  He ended up just as Kyle predicted, naked in San Diego (that joke went way over my head).

Wasn't quite sure what the parody or commentary was underlying this episode, but I heard it had to do with either (or both) a movie coming out that documented bullying or the Kony 2012 film.  I don't know much about those so that message was lost to me.  I did get that the creators were decrying those who basically use people like Butters for their own gain.  I didn't think that was Stan's intention until Kyle pointed it out and Hollywood got involved with something that was supposed to just be a school campaign.  And of course, nothing about the video or the campaign was really helping Butters stand up to his evil grandmother.

I liked that they didn't have your typical bully, or at least the one that you would expect.  Basically, they showed that anyone could bully anyone, even a seemingly sweet old lady.  I really liked the bathroom scenes where the bully would wait for their target, leaning against the sink.  The best of all was when Stan did it to Kyle.  I totally didn't see that coming.  Kyle was just as annoyed that Stan was resorting to such tactics as Stan was that Kyle wasn't supporting his video.  He brought a great point that if he wanted to just educate people, he should have put the video on the internet where exposure was possible without so much profit to be made.  Stan didn't have much to argue his point after that.

I wasn't too clear on why Butters' grandma wanted to make his life hell so badly, but it was a little sick.  I mean, family members bullying each other is nothing new, but it just seems worse when the bully isn't even your own size or age.  It made Butters look even less capable of defending himself against her--how could he really fight back against his grandmother (without getting in trouble with his parents)?  It looked like Butters was going to have to just suck it up until he had a late night talk with his grandmother about understanding her feelings.  It was great how Butters basically said that she could continue to treat him how she wanted, but one day she was going to die (soon, too), and he was going to keep living and being happy.  Way to go, Butters.  And all it took was kicking the crap out of Dr. Oz to get to that conclusion.  Guess Stan's failed campaign had a little meaning after all.

I liked how they handled bullying in this episode.  It didn't really offer a solution to the problem, but it did show how people make issues like that worse for the people involved and that sometimes people have to personally take care of their problems instead of having people rally causes for them.  I wish that I could understand the "hidden" jokes that they were making, but I was happy enough to enjoy a story about Butters in general.  I also didn't care for the song about San Diego (nor understood what the joke was all about), but it was just something at the end I could easily ignore.  After that Passover story, I think just about anything is a step up and welcomed.

Worst Passover Story I've Seen

South Park, S016E04

Kyle was wise to Cartman being up to no good when he found him in house asking about Passover.  After Cartman goes through a lot of trouble making a video that proved the existence of a creature he made up (Jewpacabra) so that he could have the Easter egg hunt to himself, the "experts" found his evidence a little too convincing and made Cartman a believer of his own lie.  His deceit made him the sole sacrifice for the beast, but nothing ever came to get him.  In his deluded state, he imagined himself in ancient Egypt during the time of Passover, where he experienced an incredibly vengeful God.  Kyle took him home the following morning and later on in the day Cartman claimed that he has converted to Judaism.  Of all things that I would think that would happen at the end of this story (or any South Park story) that was way out left field for me.

I didn't like too much of anything in this story, but I did appreciate that Cartman's plan to ruin the Easter egg hunt for everyone else backfired on him, and he thought he was being attacked by something dangerous that he created from his mind.  I can't say that Cartman really learned his lesson (or maybe just not the lesson you'd expect him to).  Well, at least Kyle didn't have to fight him too much about the lies he was spreading.  He basically just had to let Cartman crash and burn on his own.  The battle between Cartman and Kyle has been a constant of this show, but it's nice to see that Kyle can once in a while turn a blind eye to Cartman's slander campaign and schemes and save himself the trouble.

When Cartman imagined himself as an Egyptian boy, I hoped we wouldn't have to see much more than dead frogs dropping from the sky.  It only got worse with lambs having their throats being cut and boys having their heads explode in the bloodiest way possible.  It was all disgusting and making their point about God's wrath a little excessive.  I won't dispute that religion in general has many gruesome tales, but was it really necessary to show all that??  It did do a superior job of freaking out Cartman (who at times isn't the easiest to convince, despite being an ignorant moron), so in another sense I suppose it was completely necessary.  I just didn't like seeing so much blood in a way that wasn't funny at all.

I wonder if Kyle thinks Cartman is full of shit or really does think he has converted.  Cartman's new faith seems on a fairly superficial level, so I wonder if it's going come up again in another episode or if this really was just a "passover special" like they claimed at the beginning.  I would guess that Cartman would be even more offensive as a Jew in the way he understands it to be than he would be in his usual anti-Semantic mind.  I shudder to see what kind of crap he'll pull.  But I suspect it would annoy Kyle in a humorous way.  Still, I'd much rather see the writers wipe the slate clean with this one and not refer to it in any later episodes.

Who Doesn't Love Memes? South Park, Apparently

South Park, S16E03

I wondered if the big joke yesterday was going to be about the upcoming election, but instead it was about the certain fads that go along with memes.  I'm not fully acquainted with those (having just recently understood what "meme" even means), but the general idea of the story wasn't entirely lost to me.  Stan and the others found out what is popular and cool with the masses one day, will soon be lame and irrelevant the next.  The boys find a rain of sunshine amidst this grim reality that their favorite meme ("Faith Hilling") may be looked upon as a relic, but there's nothing wrong with sticking to what you love, especially if you can somehow bring it back with a bang like Cartman was able to do in the end.  

There isn't much that I absolutely loved about this story, as it was poking fun at the futility of trying to stay on top of what is "hot" with memes, but I think I liked that they made it seem like following trends like "planking" or what have you, had the possibility of getting you killed.  Luckily, it never came to that where the boys were concerned, but that film the students had to watch in class was pretty ridiculous.  The train gag at the heart of that film that appeared several more times in the episode (including the end) was less funny each time, though.  

I think what missed the mark for me most was that I didn't know some of the references (not unusual for me at all).  The one that bothered me the most was the one with the cat that kept saying "Oh, Long Johnson."  I've never been a fan of "cute" animal videos in the first place, so not only did I not know of this cat's popularity, I also didn't care.  But it, unlike some of the other internet fads, it wasn't just mentioned but was used as a part of the rising danger against the humans (super intelligent animals who were able to create memes of their own--bah), so I was had to endure that irritation throughout most of the episode.

This was a good episode that captured a moment in time (like many episodes of South Park in general) and made it more amusing than the actual thing itself (the number of memes and their various popularity are not that interesting alone).  I learn about some fad/news through this show, and I'm grateful that they "educate" some of us about current yet, stupid or infuriating matters.  Years later, I think I could look back at this episode and others and recall "history" with a laugh.  It's much better than looking through old magazines or newspapers.

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.