South Park: Canada On Strike!
By fred | April 3, 2008
(S12E04) Time for a new dose of South Park, and so far this season it’s been quite good. Not all episodes have been that great, and a few times I’ve not liked it when they put their message first and only later came the comedy, when they didn’t completely forget about it that is. Their take on the Britney mess was pretty funny for the most part, but by the end of the episode there just weren’t any jokes anymore.
That’s never good, because as much as it is good to have a message, especially when it’s from those guys who always find a fun way to express it, the first reason we watch South Park isn’t to get the position of Trey Parker & Matt Stone on something, it’s to have them makes us laughs for half an hour.
Last week, it wasn’t really working. This time, I think it was better already, but I have to say that once again I feel like they focused on their message first, and only then came the comedy. It’s not that it wasn’t funny, because it was and it had some pretty great lines/moments, but overall it wasn’t one of the best episodes we’ve seen from this show, it was not hilarious.
Especially when it started, I’m sure I wasn’t alone to have flashbacks of Bigger, Longer & Uncut with Canada being involved, everyone going musical during Canada On Strike and, yes, a message behind all that. But while during the movie they had something to say as well, they put their focus on ensuring that it was a God damned funny one, that was essential. And chanting Blame Canada was simply way more fun that Canada On Strike.
This week they (finally) let us know what they thought of the recent writers’ strike, and it wasn’t pretty. And while it was mostly funny and I agree with them for the most part, that’s also probably one of the rare times when I don’t agree with them 100%. Yes, the WGA – as in, the Writers Guild of America, not the World Canadian Bureau, of course – probably rushed into striking way too fast without really considering everything and the impacts that this would have on writers and the industry. Yes, they didn’t seem to have any real strategy planned as to how to go into this and, more importantly, how to get out of it. And yes, by the end it sure looks like they didn’t get what they wanted, far from it, but acted like it was a huge victory while in fact, it was not.
For all of that they nailed it, no questions. I mean, so much that even NBC President Jeff Zucker is making fun of the writers ! But where I disagree is that they also went on to say that Internet was a great place for creative people to experiment – and yes, with their southparkstudios.com they have showed they were willing to make good use of it – but they also pretty said it wasn’t a mature place yet, still evolving and hadn’t reached a place where money could be make.
Obviously, that’s only half the truth. Yes, the Internet distribution is still brand new and shaping up, no it’s not yet come to maturity and it’s nowhere near being ready to replace other distribution models, still as it was said before, there’s money to make out of it, if you don’t believe me just Google it! It was important for writers to start getting their piece of the pie here, even though they got screwed big time with that 17-days window BS, that’s right.
Posted in Reviews
Shows: South Park
