Sending up Guitar Hero was a great idea for an SP episode. I liked that they used all real songs from GH2. I loved Randy standing there posing in his underwear getting ready to play and then totally wiping out in like ten seconds. I have so been there done that in every respect.
I didn’t think the episode was very funny, and I’m a GH nut. It seemed like there were no riffs on GH, just jokes around GH. I did like when Thad was playing GH at the table at lunch though acoustically. Other than that I feel like they could have done more. I would have liked to have seen Cartman be one of the players.
I liked the reference to That Thing You Do! too (the “I quit” part). Or maybe that was a reference to Rock Star. I don’t know for sure since I’ve been pretty successful at scrubbing all memories of that movie from my brain.
Pretty good one. I especially loved the famous Coloradoans. Too bad they didn’t get the real Tom Shane, I can’t believe he would have asked for very much.
It was basically just one single large joke, but it was a funny joke–tell the most cliched rise, fall and redemption rock story you can think of only base it on Guitar hero instead of real music—so it worked.
I really liked Heroin hero and Rehab hero.
ETA: “I quit I quit” was from That Thing You Do.
You guys saw an episode of South Park? All I saw was an episode of some show called Assassin’s Creed with occasional ads for what looked like a South Park version of Guitar Hero.
That’s why you need to get Tivo. 
Overall, I liked the episode. It wasn’t spectacular, but we can’t expect them all to be.
–FCOD
FWIW, **Spinal Tap ** also had the arc of a guitarist quitting the band, but later returning.
I’ll ask it here sicne , hey, why not?- I have sporadically watched South Park during its run. Are they slowly aging the kids? It seems that the boys voices are getting deeper but I’m not sure if that is on purpose.
I agree. On a scale of 1 to 10, it’d be about a 4 or 5 for me. Kinda felt like an SNL skit that went on too long–it was just the same couple of jokes over and over and over again. A shame, because there was so much potential here. As far as video game pisstakes, the Warcraft one was magnitudes better.
I don’t know for sure but I don’t think so. Matt and Trey, who do the voices, are older now and also I would think it is just easier to do a characters voice close to your own pitch than try to do a kids voice in a higher pitch. probably easier on the vocal chords too. That’s my WAG.
They did go from 3rd grade to fourth grade a while back.
So, no one else noticed that the record company boss was modelled on the Mark McKinney character from Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy? Who, in turn, was modelled after Lorne Michaels.
I’m pretty sure they pitch up their voices digitally for the kid characters. But in long-running animated series, the voices always change a bit, just like the animation - it’s just part of a show growing into its style. A couple of seasons ago, the boys took on a more cynical tone (that sounds deeper) to their voices (especially Stan), and that’s been the tone of the show since. Notice that Stan has been an annoyed know-it-all lately rather than the wide-eyed innocent that he was in the earlier seasons.
Funny idea, not sure it was enough to really carry an entire episode. Of course, South Park often tries to get laughs by really stretching an idea to absurdity.
I never did get the appeal of Guitar Hero.
I did get a laugh out of “I mean, you kinda suck, but my dad says you may be good someday.”
Overall, an average episode for me. It’s really hard to follow Imaginationland, after all. I liked the huge pile of coke at the party, the guy just burying his head in it. I loved the ending though.
Also, seeing Randy playing X-Box was very funny. First GH, then Heroin hero.
Is Heroin Hero a riff on a specific video game? The uncatchable dragon moreso than the heroin part…
What do Parker and Stone have against video games. The WarCraft episode was fantastic. I didn’t see this one but it sounds like a lame re-tread of that one.
I don’t think so. Chasing the dragon has been slang for using opium/heroin for a long time. They just made a game that was the easiest possible translation of it literally.
“Chasing the dragon” is drug slang.