According to Wikipedia, tonight’s episode was the 182nd South Park, and Trey Parker and Matt Stone are under contract to deliver a whopping 42 more. I predict that each of those episodes—assuming we continue to cover them in TV Club—will be met with approximately 50% “worst episode ever” and 50% “classic!” That seems to be the way around here; even my fellow writer Sean O’Neal and I seem to be in complete disagreement about what constitutes a good episode and what seems like a painful cartoon treadmill.
I have to admit, seeing the premise for tonight’s episode—Kenny takes his girlfriend to see The Jonas Brothers—I didn’t have high hopes. Few targets are more like fish in barrels than those loveable singing moppets. But who knows? I’m usually the one that likes the really obvious jokes. (Just thinking about “fingerbang” is making me smile.)
Oh, but something that might actually lead to extra enjoyment tonight: My satellite provider just started offering Comedy Central in HD, so South Park should look extra awesome. (It did wonders for The Simpsons this season when it went HD, regardless of what you think of the actual show.)
First, the commercial: Holy shit, I’m so excited for Resident Evil 5. I don’t even play videogames much anymore, but I’m fixin’ to buy a Playstation 3 just for RE:5. Obviously it’s tough to tell from the commercial if the gameplay will be any good, but it looks great, and if they didn’t fuck with perfection too much, it should be awesome.
Okay, so on to the show: Pretty damn funny, amirite? A solid 30 minutes, with just one storyline, lots of laughs, and it looked fucking awesome in HD.
Kenny having a girlfriend was a stroke of genius, to start with, and I absolutely knew from the moment the other boys heard the rumor that she was a chain-restaurant parking-lot skank that Kenny would be super psyched—and he didn’t let me down. When Cartman gave him the news that his new lady, fifth grader Tammy Warner, had given another boy a blowjob, Kenny’s “woo-hoo” was amazing. (Jimmy saying “If you guys found out my girlfriend was a raging whore, I’d want you to tell me” was pretty great, too.)
When Tammy spills the beans about her parking lot encounter directly to Kenny, he dances. Again—amazing.
But it can’t be that easy, of course, and I was a little worried that the introduction of the Jonas Brothers would lead to some of that aforementioned barrel-fishing. But, as we learned a little later in the episode, the real villain was the man behind the boys. Or rather the mouse behind the boys. But Kenny’s got a good plan: Get Tammy to the Jonas concert and she’ll get, in her words, tingly, and she won’t be able to resist him.
It works: The concert was pretty priceless, especially the shots of all the girls in the audience freaking out. Just when you think the South Park gents can’t come up with a filthy thought they haven’t already beaten into the ground, they give the world 8-year-old girls saying “My giney tickles!” But when those horny kids get invited backstage, it’s not for the requisite rock-star BJs—it’s to give them purity rings and share a love of Christ. Poor, poor Kenny—his fit at the bus stop was totally understandable. I felt his pain.