South Park: Eek, A Penis!
By fred | April 10, 2008
(S12E05) I love South Park. Over their past eleven seasons (that much already!) they’ve obviously had some episodes that didn’t work, or simply weren’t funny (at all), but most of the times they’re simply brilliant. We’re in the 12th season, no less, and the show remains as fresh and hilarious as it was when it first started, if not better. I’m not sure how they manager to do it, but they really deserve all the praise they get, and then some.
With that said, and while so far this season had been quite good, in recent episodes there were some things that bugged me a little, when they decided to put their focus first on the message they intended for this episode to carry, and only after came the comedy aspect. It’s never a good thing to do so, especially for such a show, and it resulted in some scenes (or episodes) that weren’t always the funniest.
Not this week.
No, this week they still had things to say, like making fun of the Patriots and their cheating coach, or how cheating is only bad when you fail and get caught. And in a pure South Park tradition, we also had lots of parodic elements in this episode, the main one I believe being Mr Catmanez, almost straight out of the movie Stand and Deliver — although to be fair, most of what they did here would apply to any movie that had some new teacher coming in to help the poor black kids and lead them to better lives.
But the most important part for me, what I certainly enjoyed the most this time, is how they focused more on and successfully managed to create an episode that was nothing but hilarious. Comedy was first, and I loved that. The proof is simply that I, and I suspect many of you as well, didn’t stop laughing throughout the entire episode.
Cartman teaching kids how to cheat, because cheating is the “White People Method”, was just great. The only thing I missed from this plot, came before when he was teaching his own classmates. First, I thought it was odd that there was no “smart kids” to ask to be the teacher instead of Eric, someone like Wendy for example. Then, I really hoped Cartman would throw us a little “respect my authority!” in there, just for old times sake.
I’m not sure what the whole plot about Mrs Garrison going back to being a dude was about, nor do I know what it will mean for the future (will he be openly gay, or overly macho now?), but seeing that penis running all over South Park was just hilarious ! Every women starting to screaming because they saw a mouse penis, Mrs/Mr Garrison grabbing somebody else’s penis by “mistake” (though he wasn’t fast to let it go…), asking kids: “Boys, have you seen my penis? My penis is on the loose, if you see it, just try to catch it with some cheese!“, or going to the police where they’d sketch Mickey Mouse with a giant boner, all that was just awesome material.
Really, I couldn’t stop laughing. I’m not sure if it was suppose to mean anything more, and I’m pretty sure the penis starting to sing by the moon was a parody of something, though I don’t know why, but either way it was just great, and so was the return of Mr Garrison, who after hearing that Thompson’s wife had ovarian cancer and as a result can’t have babies, all he had to say was this : “Well then get an AIDS test Thompson, cause your wife’s a dude, fagget! *turns around* Yay! I’m back!”
This episode felt to me almost like a return to the basis for the show, because after spending a few episodes more or less focusing on delivering a message, sometimes at the expense of comedy, this time it was all about the comedy, all about making us laugh out loud, but of course that didn’t come without a satiric side and something to say, still.
This is the South Park I love, and I believe this episode was one of the funniest one this season ! I just can’t wait for the next one.
Posted in Reviews
Shows: South Park
