South Park "200"

When I saw my first episode of South Park I was so young that I needed to ask my parents what a dildo was. So if you had told me 13 years ago that it would evolve from a show about 2nd graders who swore a lot into a cultural institution, my first response would have been "What's a cultural institution?". However if an 8 year old version of me shared my critical thinking skills, I would have scoffed at that suggestion, thinking that South Park would be nothing more than a funny offensive cartoon that would attract a cult following.

South Park eventually evolved from a show about foul mouthed children into one of the best satires on TV. Some have correctly suggested that South Park satire is too overt. That they often pick at low hanging fruit or lack subversion. I think all those criticisms are fair, except they are missing the point of South Park's satire. The ethos of South Park is that 8 year olds kids (albeit incredibly precocious 8 year old kids) frequently notice how bullheaded adults are about important while ignoring common sense. That ethos requires overt satire. Satire that even an 8 year old could understand, which is why South Park doesn't attempt to be more subversive.

Like most shows that reach 200 episodes South Park has been slipping in the last couple of seasons. It has had a couple classic episodes (Super Fun Time), but recently the episodes have felt derivative and sloppy. For those who don't know every episode is written the week before it airs, which I think has led to some incomplete episodes. In recent seasons many episodes have had no real B plot and those episodes have been one or two jokes repeated for 22 minutes. South Park has ceased being much watch TV and has turned into a show that has 3/4 episodes a season worth watching.

Going into the 200th episode I was very wary; anniversary shows need to strike a weird balance between not acknowledging the anniversary and turning into a clip show. I feel this show hit the sweet spot pretty well. It was not the funniest or most poignant episode they have ever done, but it was funny and brought back enough characters to make the fan boy in me ecstatic. While some jokes were gratingly meta, I think the premise of the episode worked a lot better than I would have initially guessed and they had a real B plot for the first time in weeks. Once you put yourself in this world everything that followed actually made a lot of sense and the show did a good job of using callback to make jokes instead of just having a carousel of former characters or celebrities appearing on screen. As for now I am really looking forward to the conclusion next week and hope it is as strong as this week.

Stray Thoughts

- Stone and Parker have both referenced showing Mohammed in "Super Best Friends" several times in interviews over the years, but it is nice that they mentioned it in the show. And while this satire is a rehash of what they have done before, I still think it is relevant.

- I never really liked Hennifer Lopez or Fat Butt and Pancake Head but I love Mitch Conner.