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The boys of South Park: Stan, Kenny, Kyle and Cartman
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I never truly understood why the utter lack of propriety shown on South Park was so hilarious, until I watched the Season Nine episode titled “Best Friends Forever.” For those unfamiliar with this particular episode, allow me to elucidate.
South Park revolves around four little boys, Cartman, Kyle, Stan and Kenny, who all live in a small Colorado town. On this day, the always indelicate Cartman wakes his mother up bright and early so he can be the first in line to get the new Sony PSP. Unfortunately for Cartman, all the other kids in South Park got up bright and early too, so when he gets to the store, he is stuck at the back of an extremely long line. To add insult to injury, his friend, little Kenny, is at the front of the line, so Kenny gets a PSP and Cartman is left out in the cold. Kenny excels at the PSP game “Heaven and Hell,” until he is hit by a truck and killed. Ironically, the truck driver was too busy playing his own PSP to notice where he was going. Kenny’s spirit rises up towards heaven. He is told by St. Peter that everyone is so impressed with his gaming skills that God wants him to command the army of Heaven in a battle...
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America has never been particularly comfortable with satire. A gentle poke at the powers that be is allowed, even encouraged — witness the success of good-natured softies like Jon Stewart or The Simpsons, nudging decency in the ribs and tipping a wink to the audience. But genuine, hard-hitting satire is frowned upon: somebody might really be offended, and nowhere in the Constitution does it allow for that. There’s no American equivalent of British figures like Peter Cook or Christopher Morris, authentic anti- establishment comics who nonetheless achieved mainstream success. Even so—called ‘dangerous’ American figures like Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor kept their comedy largely personal. Topics like religious extremism, sexual abuse, disability, and AIDS, questions on the efficacy of democracy or America’s role in history and the world, these were never acceptable topics for comedy in any mainstream venue.
Until in 1997, an animated show began that would eventually break all boundaries of accepted decency on television, and manage over the course of ten years to offend just about every living person on the globe, including me. There are moments of true...
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Opinion by
dilly53
posted
8 months ago
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Twelve years ago I sat at a friends house, doing my best to stay awake. We were waiting for midnight, for the very first episode of South Park to air. I can still remember how excited I was, this show was supposed to be funnier and more vulgar than "Beavis and Butthead" or "Ren and Stimpy". Which at the time were considered to be the "bad cartoons" that kids would watch behind their parents back.
As everyone knows the first episode was about Cartman getting an anal probe. That was a big deal at the time. Parents freaked out about the show, kids were banned from wearing South Park merchandise from schools. I myself was suspended for wearing a t-shirt with a dead Kenny on it.
Over the next decade I was a loyal viewer of South Park. I loved the show, and I loved it for the intelligent humour that underlined each episode, not the poop and fart jokes or the swearing (although on occasion that stuff can be funny). The downside being that most of the other people my age who watched the show, didn't pick up on that humour.
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