Revenge is a dish best served... "chili."

[thehefner]

After all these years of highs and lows, I still love SOUTH PARK. It's hard to find others who do. At least other who like it the same way I do. Some people did love it, but feel it's past its prime, ala THE SIMPSONS. Some people have strange preferences for what they consider funnier, which makes sense considering the amount of high and low humor the show balances.

Many people hate the show for its crudeness, others find it unfunny as satire... most bizarrely, there are a lot of people who think it's too preachy. As if the "I learned something today" speeches at the end of each episode are completely without even a trace of irony themselves! I don't always agree with Parker and Stone's libertarian politics, but I can usually still laugh.*

'Course, they've been in the news lately due to the MuBLEEPad debacle over their recent two-part episode. The shows themselves were fun, but fell short of their finer hours, possibly because Comedy Central reportedly censored huge chunks of dialogue without SP Studios' permission.

Honestly, even when we do hear those uncensored speeches down the line, I doubt they'll drastically improve the episode. It was fine, fun purely for long-time viewers like me. And many of those moments made me cackle most heartily.

But none more so than the moment they brought back Scott Tenorman. Let's face it, there was really no reason to do a follow-up to Cartman's finest (and most horrifying) hour, an episode beloved by everyone, even geeks like me who weren't giddy at the TITUS ANDRONICUS reference. Really, in terms of sheer I-can't-believe-they're-referencing-this-who-else-would-get-it value, I never imagined they could have topped themselves.

And then they introduced Scott like this:





Look familiar?





Right down to the garish (and superior) original coloring by John Higgins. As surrealname put it with his reaction: "OH MY GOD! Dude! DUDE! It's like God is rubbing my tummy!"





*Al Gore and ManBearPig, for example. It was shitty satire, but the quotable absurdity won through, I'm super-cereal.

Comments

[sharkbites.livejournal.com]

I feel asleep when I was watching SP this week. I was Farmvilling. Damn it! I only found out about Killing Joker yesterday. Yes, it is a reference and it is so cool.

Speaking of origins, what do you think about Joker's origin in KJ? What do you think about Catwoman's origin? I ask this because they both came out in 1988 and I don't think I asked you when you visited.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

If it weren't for the abhorrent treatment of Babs in the story as canon fodder (as Len Wein reportedly said when Moore asked permission: "Cripple the bitch."), I might well consider it one of the greatest Batman stories ever made.

But it's surely still one of the greatest Joker stories. I do prefer to keep the Joker's origin ambiguous and "multiple-choice," while myself choosing to prefer the tragic, sad, lonely origin from TKJ. There's no emotional weight to a brilliant monster who was simply a regular boring evil criminal or inventor beforehand.

There's not much to comment on Selina's origin from B:YO because she was barely a character there, but I have liked what people like Cooke and Brubaker did with it from there.

[sharkbites.livejournal.com]

I agree with you. I also like the Killing Joke origin. There was a review on amazon that I agreed with that said that what happened places him in a realm of realistic fiction. But at the same time, I don't want to be reminded that Joker is a 'tragic' character. He had an intense reaction but nothing deeper than that. You are probably gonna hate me and revoke my comicbook nerd card but I actually liked Hush Returns.

I like that DC does not tie him down and not focus on what happened in TKJ. To me, the J does not really suffer through PTSD unlike Bruce or Two Face which is understandible.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Wait, if you don't like to be reminded that he's a tragic character, why do you enjoy HUSH RETURNS, which actually solidifies the TKJ origin as canon?

And really, I don't feel that the Joker's tragic element at all takes way from the fact that he's a remorseless monster now. It's not like Harvey, who still has one foot in humanity.

[sharkbites.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed it primarily because of the art and because it expounded upon what happened to Jeannie a little bit. I do not *cry* for the Joker because of that, no way! For me, the tragic origin makes me look at the clown and say "That was you?!Brrrrrr!"

That being said, I do not need to see TKJ origin all the time because it would ruin the mystique, kind of like the dirty secret you know about someone and you don't want them to know that you know but don't want them to know, you know?

Take a look at the Emperor Augustus. He is widely regarded as a good emperor but he chucked Cleopatra and Mark Anthony's kids. Adolf Hitler never cheated on Eva and he was a vegetarian but he killed six million Jews. These little figures make the figure more interesting and enriching.

[harper-knight.livejournal.com]

A 'good emperor' who essentially founded his empire over the backs of his (and his great-uncle's) best friends, as well as the whole killing kids and so forth :P (he actually didn't kill most of them, I think. it has been a while since I did classics)

You make a good point though.

[2sick2pray.livejournal.com]

I still love South Park... I have to say I really enjoyed all the self-referential humor in episodes 200 and 201. The more I think about it, the bleeping over whatever Kyle, Santa and Jesus said at the end probably made their point better than whatever it was they actually said. I know a lot of people thought it was done intentionally by Matt and Trey for just that reason, but apparently that was not the case. At any rate, I am pretty pissed at Comedy Central over the whole issue. For god's sake, they let Buddha snorting coke and Jesus watching internet porn slide and I just watched Team America World Police completely uncensored. At 2am in the morning, apparently, you can say "Fuck" on basic cable. It's kind of ridiculous they made such a big deal over some internet wankery that wasn't even necessarily an actual threat.

Also, I'm glad you said that about Matt and Trey's libertarian politics. It's funny how few people seem to notice that. When I say casually that sometimes their political messages are a little right-leaning for me people tend to look at me like I'm a crazy person. Because if you say things like "suck my balls" in a cartoon, you're obviously a democrat or something.

[swimpenguin.livejournal.com]

It took me until Cartman on the roller coaster ride to put the two together lol
I still like South Park-it's a great mid-week break from work stress, and even if it has highs and lows, I like that I can laugh either from spot on satire or utterly stupid things; whichever they decide to present that night.
And for the whale slaughter episode, I love them still.