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South Park:

Oh my god, they ran out of ideas!

by Michelle Klein-Häss

Before I get into the meat of this, I want to let everyone know that I've been had.

For those who didn't see it tonight, Sunday, May 3rd, 1998, 8:59pm, here's what's going to happen. The Hill family is moving from their digs at 320 Rainey St. in Arlen, the Republic of Texas, to Hollywood. Yes, the Hills will be Animation Nerd's Paradise's new neighbors. And yes, Fox already made the "Swimmin' pools, movie stars" joke.

Nope, King Of The Hill is not moving its setting to Los Angeles, thank Woomatanya. They're just moving to Tuesday Nights on the Fox TV schedule. I feel like an id-jit for falling for it, but a lot of people I know did too. I also fell for the idea that the X-Files movie was going to be good, and you know what a sucker bet that was too. Fox...in the words of the great Daffy Duck..."You...you're DETHPICCABLE!"

Enough of that, though.

I first saw "The Spirit Of Christmas" at a friend's house sometime around 1996. I laughed so hard it felt like my stomach was going to go rocketing out my ass. At that time nobody knew who did this, and the tape I looked at must have been a 10th generation dub, it was so sucky. But still, it was funny as hell and no amount of image degradation could get in the way of it.

A year later, Comedy Central unleashed South Park on the world. The first episode, "Cartman Gets An Anal Probe" was only slightly less funny than "SOX-Mas" as SP-junkies call the Ur-South Park episode, and I was hooked.

From that fresh perspective, there is no way of knowing that "Cartman Gets An Anal Probe" would be the absolute apogee of SP's craft. But as it turns out, they shot their wad with that one episode. It was all downhill from there. I mean, there were funny moments in other episodes..."Big Gay Al" comes readily to mind, as does "Pink Eye." But nothing matched the bust-a-gut funniness of "Cartman Gets An Anal Probe."

That first SP episode had all their best gags in it...Kenny dies, "Kick The Baby," Chef and his uncontrolled libido, the psycho teacher with the hand-puppet alter ego, the even more psychotic bus driver, aliens and intelligent cows...the model for all future episodes.

The first sign of trouble, in this reporter's opinion, was the Christmas episode. The story was mildly funny, and touched a chord in a person whose Jewish heritage forbade her from participating in even the secular commemoration of Christmas when she was a child. But something seemed very familiar.

I want to bring everyone back to a large conference room in the San Diego Convention Center, during the San Diego Comic-Con of 1995. Spumco and their then-partner Marvel Comics did an elaborate presentation hailing the first issue of Spumco Comic Book. It was a proud moment for Spumco, their friends (including myself) and their myriad fans.

At that event, John K. acted out a story which would appear in a future issue. If I remember correctly, it was called "Jimmy's New Friend" and began with Jimmy down in the basement on the crapper. John actually dropped trou (he was wearing boxers, nothing revealing) and acted out Jimmy straining on the toilet. Plop! Out pops Nutty, The Friendly Dump. To George Liquor and other associates of the Idiot Boy, Nutty was just another Turd.

Sound familiar? It should.

Those rather suggestive similarities aside, it seems that in later episodes Matt Stone and Trey Parker have been running out of ideas. They have taken a page out of The Simpsons' book and have milked the celebrity angle, with the occasional celebrity voice (albeit utilized in novel ways, like George Clooney doing doggy barks and howls and other sounds in the "Big Gay Al" episode) and many celebrity references, from Barbra (Mecha) Streisand to Cathy Lee Gifford. The constant repetition of "Oh my god, they killed Kenny! You bastard!", the Chef's libido, Pip as punching bag....all those repeated formulaic elements of the show...they have gone from being mildly amusing running gags to being actual annoyances.

Strip away the "outrageous" elements of the show, like the bleeped cursing (done with much more aplomb in the "forbidden" Dexter's Laboratory episode "Rude Remover") and Jesus and his public access cable talk show, and what you have is a sub-par sitcom about "adorable but bratty kids." The history of television is littered with this brood, from Eddie Haskell to Urkel. They aren't funny, and neither are Kenny, Kyle, Cartman and their friends.

I suppose that in the absence of the much wittier Beavis and Butt-Head, South Park is perhaps the only show of its kind left on Cable. But then again, for a fix of outrageous animation, the MTV anthology show "Cartoon Sushi" is a much more worthy choice. There's also many other worthy shows that are perhaps not as outrageous yet are worth supporting: Daria comes to mind, as does the upcoming series by Danny Antonnucci for the Cartoon Network.

If you have a rebuttal to this editorial, send it to mhass703@2cowherd.net. We'll be happy to post it here.

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