The Official South Park Thread

[Andrew]

I suppose it's not too surprising after 14 seasons and now over 200 episodes, but for me it's felt like a sharp decline, not completely unlike what happened with The Simpsons and Family Guy. They had their prime, they wavered a little bit following their respective "classic eras" and then boom, a really noticeable difference in the quality.

[Oznogrd]

im going to give them one more half season to redeem. I thought seasons 5-8 were South Park's prime and 9 was off. But 10-12 were also fantastic.

So..im just seeing this as a rut.

Im also wondering if they're just too pissed off about last week to give a shit.

[Andrew]

Yeah that's an interesting point to ponder, perhaps they did decide to just phone it in. They probably just got caught up in the idea of the Intervention parody though.

[ixcuincle]

New episode coming up this week

http://www.southparkstudios.com/news/360751/episode-1408-press-release

Cartmans dream is to join the exclusive ranks of great NASCAR drivers in an all-new episode of "South Park" titled, "Poor and Stupid," premiering on Wednesday, October 6 at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT on COMEDY CENTRAL.
Cartman wants to race with the pros and he's ready to do whatever it takes to make it happen. He's afraid that no matter how hard he tries, he'll never reach the the level of the other NASCAR drivers. Working with Butters as his pit boss, Cartman pulls out all the stops to compete in the race of his life.

[Andrew]

Cool, thanks for the heads up. I'm hoping for a stronger finish to the season, as I've said before I wasn't that high up on the first half of the season. Watchable and a couple of good episodes for sure, but a bit dull on the whole.

[Oznogrd]

Cool, thanks for the heads up. I'm hoping for a stronger finish to the season, as I've said before I wasn't that high up on the first half of the season. Watchable and a couple of good episodes for sure, but a bit dull on the whole.

I've heard trey and matt have been busy working on their broadway production "the book of Mormon". I know alot of their emmy winning truly epic shit was made while they were working on the South Park Movie and Team America. So lets hope the lack of sleep makes them write some excellent jokes.

[ixcuincle]

Another show takes a shot at "Two and a Half Men"

This episode was a little disappointing...I was hoping Cartman would actually race but all he did was goof around and act stupid. SP has gone that route before, though, so I'm not really surprised.

[JaoSming]

This episode was a little disappointing...I was hoping Cartman would actually race but all he did was goof around and act stupid. SP has gone that route before, though, so I'm not really surprised.

My thoughts exactly, could have been better if there was a little more of "Cartman buys a Theme Park" in it but eh, it's good to have it back.

[Oznogrd]

Agreed with you two. It was a good joke but it couldn't be sustained for a whole ep. I despise Nascar and almost everything it does and i feel like i could've written jokes better than this. it was almost like matt and trey didnt have enough knowledge to really tear it up.

[Andrew]

Shows takings shots at other shows has become my least favourite joke/comedy device. I think Family Guy killed it for me but South Park hasn't been much better. It's too overused these days and even if the show deserves it, the potshots usually aren't any funnier or more clever than your average fifteen year old with a blog or a forum account could muster. Yeah, I know I harp on it a fair bit, but I really do find those jokes to be that cringe-worthy these days. For me, they're overused and fall flat, even when they're on target.

Anyway, with that out of the way...it wasn't horrible but like you guys I felt the joke was wearing thin by the end of the episode. I'd say that's been a problem all season, trying too hard to stretch a couple of jokes out over the course of an episode to the point where you could almost making a drinking game out of it. Funniest parts for me was Butters' "Those ladies all have stinky vaginas?" line (simply because it's Butters saying it) and Cartman's video blog. Some of the GTA-like stuff with Cartman racing was pretty funny as well but apart from that, they spent the ep running the jokes into the ground.

I think this is just going to be one of those seasons where they're not at their best, or maybe the show is just beginning to show its age. It's still watchable but like I've said before, it's been a bit of a sharp decline for me.

[ixcuincle]

Typical South Park, keeping nothing off limits.

A lot better than last week's episode.

Can't stop laughing at Randy waving the flag while screaming "FUCK NEW JERSEY!"

[Doobie]

This episode was too funny.. I'm from New Jersey so this episode meant something too me, I laughed so incredibly hard. Seriously.

[Jackal]

That's because you look like Snooki.

I liked the episode, best part was the end bit with Bin-Laden, caught me totally off guard.

[JaoSming]

dude the Bin Laden stuff was hilarious. I loathe everything about that damn show but that was great.

[el badman]

Much better than the 1st one indeed. The Snooki thing was funny as hell.

[Oznogrd]

/agree with everything said here.

I havent cackled like that when watching SP probably since the 200/201 2 parter and that was more nostalgia cackles than real laughing like this one

[Andrew]

Honestly, I found it to be a bit ordinary. Kyle vs Cartman for the umpteenth time didn't help, some funny stuff but on the whole just not my kind of episode.

[Oznogrd]

Honestly, I found it to be a bit ordinary. Kyle vs Cartman for the umpteenth time didn't help, some funny stuff but on the whole just not my kind of episode.

I can understand since it was basically one giant potshot at Jersey Shore...I'm curious Andrew, what are some of your favorite eps of the show? Just trying to get an idea.

[J@3]

I loved it. Randy's video message to Al Qaeda

[Andrew]

I can understand since it was basically one giant potshot at Jersey Shore...I'm curious Andrew, what are some of your favorite eps of the show? Just trying to get an idea.

The potshot at Jersey Shore doesn't actually bother me that much in this case. I should clarify that while that's become one of my least favourite techniques in comedy, it's through overuse and poor execution. A well-crafted potshot that's a bit more clever than "That show sucks" is fine but therein lies the problem; most potshots you see in shows these days are aimed at other shows/things that don't suck, are entertaining enough or are no worse than the show that's taking a shot at them with the only joke being "You suck". Everything should be fair game but with that in mind, for me it's got to at least be clever and it's funnier when the show in question deserves it.

In the case of Jersey Shore, from what I've heard I'd agree that's the case but that's the thing: I've never seen the show, so I'm not at all familiar with it outside Kevin Smith and his friends who also have shows on his podcast network (and of course hail from New Jersey) express their distaste with it and what little else I've heard about the show, which is enough to know it's not something I want to watch. I have no doubt that it's awful and deserves to be ridiculed but having never watched it I don't really have dislike for it beyond "Well, I'm never going to watch that", so to base a whole episode around it didn't do much for me.

And on top of that, by this point I'm tired of Kyle vs Cartman. It's kind of like the marriage crisis plots The Simpsons were doing for a while there, there's no variation and we've seen it done before (and oftentimes better) in previous episodes. On the plus side it did give Sheila some of the funniest moments she's ever had in the series and even if I'm not that familiar with Jersey Shore, the Snooki stuff was so over the top and insulting to someone I'm guessing deserves it that I could appreciate that. As for the Al Qaeda stuff, it felt like that was crammed in there for the sake of being controversial, but the ending was good and the line about only caring about the families of victims of 9/11 reminded me a lot of the "AIDS is finally funny!" stuff, I liked that commentary.

As for my favourite episodes..."It Hits the Fan", "Proper Condom Use", "Here Comes the Neighborhood", "Jared Has Aides", "Raisins", "Good Times with Weapons", "The Jeffersons", "Douche and Turd", "Something Wall-Mart This Way Comes", "The Losing Edge", "Trapped in the Closet", "Cartoon Wars", "The List", "The Coon", "W.T.F." and "Butters' Bottom Bitch" would be some of them. To be honest, some of the episodes they've done this season including the most recent one are probably ones that I would've enjoyed in the past but I've just felt are a bit stale at this point.

[ixcuincle]

Loved this episode and I've never seen Inception

SP recently has had Kyle and Cartman feuding a lot, but this wasn't the main issue today. Not that I have any problem with Kyle and Cartman feuding ("Jew Gold")

One of the funniest moments was the Cop episode where Cartman stood up for Kyle, and of course the World of Warcraft episode. He needs BenGay!

[Jackal]

I found this episode extremely boring to be honest, the whole sheep herder thing was just lame too.

[JaoSming]

it was dumb, i figured they were going to do a hoarding and inception episode but it just kind felt thrown together with a bunch of cheap shots at the movie. the "twist" with Freddy was, well, interesting, but as a whole that sucked.

[Oznogrd]

Maybe its because i didnt see inception, i thought last nights was hysterical. *shrug*

[el badman]

I didn't like it that much. It had its moments but the sheep herder thing was weak and some of the cheap shots at Inception were really unnecessary.