South Park: About Last Night…
By fred | November 6, 2008
(S12E12) Holy Molly! Yeah, that was one Hell of an impressive episode, to say the least. Now because I don’t want to spoil it right now before the jump I won’t go into specific for now, only to say that while in the past weeks we’ve seen some giant guinea pigs, rabbits, mouse, bees and other spiders attacking the world and destroying everything, and maybe you were, too, wondering why this didn’t had a stronger connection with the Presidential election, why South Park never said anything about either candidates, and this episode was our answer.
Two days ago was the election of the next President of the United States, and last night Trey Parker & Matt Stone finally had their special episode about it. And the first thing that comes to mind, when thinking about it, is no less than a “Holy Molly!“. I think we all knew that those guys were able to react to current events much faster than anybody else, but that one was impressive.
Only 24 hours after Barack Obama was elected President, the next President Elect was featured in a South Park episode. And let’s face it, maybe McCain supporters would have partied as well if their candidate had been elected, but in all fairness I don’t think it would have been the same reaction. There was something very special with Obama’s victory, something that just wouldn’t have happened had McCain been the winner.
What I’m trying to say here, is that I don’t think you could take this episode, switch Obama and McCain’s role in that evil plan, and get away with it. I don’t know if they had another episode with a completely (or very largely) different story, in case McCain won, or if they just didn’t go there at all and only had another election-free episode just in case, but that one episode couldn’t have worked without Obama’s victory.
Too many jokes (like the grandmother faking her death! Pure South Park goodness…) wouldn’t have worked, and you wouldn’t have seen such partying in the streets with that kind of excitement for change, had McCain been elected. Just like I don’t think Obama supporters would have gone to hide in a bunker; this all worked only with the victory of Barack Obama.
And what’s really mind-blowing, is that this episode opened with Obama’s speech, as in his actual victory speech !! I don’t know how they managed to pull it off, but they must have been working their asses off all day, listening to Obama and McCain and then going at it, because less than 24 hours after the events actually occurred out there, in our “real” world, they were all part of this South Park episode! Really impressive.
Now, about the actual episode. I gotta say I never saw the whole Ocean’s Eleven parody coming, that was a surprise. I’m not exactly sure what it all meant if anything, and quite frankly I didn’t find this episode to be that hilarious. Funny, yes, good, without a doubt, but hilarious, not really. But it was pretty awesome to see the whole “gang” working all together only to steal some diamond, I loved to see the Clooney version of Barack Obama, and many many things were just great : Barack and Michelle not being actually married, that she was in on the whole thing, Sarah Pallin not being such a moron (because no one can be that dumb), Ike, the Canadian brother who’s been kicked around so many times, being all wounded after a little jump from the window, Pallin’s British accent as she walked off stage, Ike – of all people – being in on it, Cartman stealing people’s TVs and selling them back to them, Randy’s over-the-top excitement and “change of heart” the next day over his idiotic behavior… it never stopped.
It was a great episode, and it was fun that instead of taking position or “attacking” one side, they decided to simply moke everybody’s excitement for this election. Emotions were running so high and people reacted to it so strongly, what better thing to do than just making fun of that and simply have fun with a goofy premise ?
What did you think of it ? Is this a new classic already ? Do you think they had a McCain-version of that story in store ? Just how impressive is it that they managed to react to the election so quickly ?? “Boom, baby!”
“…Obama you’re so fine, you’re so fine you blow my mind… Hey Obama! Hey Obama!…“
Posted in Reviews
Shows: South Park
100% agreed! greetings from holland
I dont agree, I thought this episode was a missed chance. They could have made an episode that was 10 times more awesome the whole oceans 11 theme was kind of lame. It wasn’t bad but certainly no classic.
I think “mind blowing” is a bit much… the speeches were no doubt retroscripted – not that impressive. If anything it is telling of how little effort goes into these later episodes…how cheap it is to produce them. I miss the days when the animation looked like construction paper cutouts (rather than some generic cgi) and the episodes seemed like they had been written vs assembled.
Loved the episode, and I’ll agree with Fred that the speeches were impressive; I have yet to see that kind of reaction time on any other show (besides from SNL.) Two criticisms:
-Obama’s voice was way off. And he was grey.
-Not to say that Matt and Trey are champions of good taste, but the joke about Obama’s grandmother was a little too soon, IMO. I’ll admit I laughed, but more at the prospect of an old woman saying “I’ve put a bomb in the building.” They might have been better off with, say, Joe Biden’s mother.
All in all, good episode, showing the absurdity of both sides; the world isn’t going to suddenly be a better place with Obama, nor is it going to suddenly become hell.
I think this episode could have been better for sure, and (a lot) funnier, so no it won’t become a classic (after all, haven’t they before done the same kind of episode, about how overreacting to such event is “stupid”?); but it was a really good one, still.
And I really don’t think that them pulling it off that fast means that there’s only little effort going into it, at all.
FYI when asked if they prepped two versions in case McCain won the election, Trey Parker and Matt Stone said no.
“We’ve only ever worked on an Obama version. We followed Vegas odds. If McCain would have won we would have been screwed. It would have been our ‘Dewey defeats Truman’ moment.“
why is Obama grey actually? knowing south park, their must be something behind that, right? maybe they were just out of brown paper… i do love the consistency of south park, you just know which characaters would vote Obama and wich McCain. that’s really good writing! but randy sang the anti-war part in “im a little bit country” and mr macky, was really anti-war… still, mr macky voted McCain…