South Park 18 April 2007

Does this episode have anything to do with George Romero’s upcoming Dead movie, Diary of the Dead? :wink:

Hmm… second week in a row that Trey & Matt have done a Zack Snyder flick (last week it was 300 with lesbians, as led by Mrs. Garrison; this week it’s this tribute to his **Dawn of the Dead ** remake).

Unfortunately, doing an affectionate tribute to something doesn’t always translate into biting comedy.

I’m also picking up some vibes from 28 Days Later.

I’m suggesting to the mods that they collapse one of these threads into the other. :wink: Only one will live; the other will be a zombie thread.

I thought that it was a fun episode, but I’m surprised they ran it, considering this week’s events.

Why? It does seem to correlate at all to this weeks events?

Fairly funny episode. Several standard Zombie cliches. Randy was the biggest and most dangerous idiot as usual.

Ditto.

To the OP- the Homeless Expert’s lab was a direct homage of the original DAY OF THE DEAD. I don’t know to what extent the new movie replicates that. Btw, is the new movie DIARY O.T.D. now? I know it had been titled DAY.

Well, there was the rather graphic suicide scene, and then Randy blowing that one guy’s head off.

George Romero’s new movie is Diary of the Dead. There’s also a remake of Day of the Dead that Romero has nothing to do with. The thing with the bus was a clear reference to Zach Snyder’s 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead.

Randy killing the guy on the roof who had recently become homeless could be a loose reference to the original Dawn of the Dead when:

Roger is bitten and dies sitting by a wall with a blanket, and as he raises his head up and has clearly become a zombie, Peter shoots him.

Also, the part with Kyle’s father becoming “one of them” was priceless. The part where he heads the homeless who break into that scientist’s house could also be a reference to the finale of '78 Dawn of the Dead.

There’s definitely someone on the writing team who has seen at least both Dawn movies as well as Day. I love how they do their homework when they decide to parody movies and TV.

Since when did South Park turn into a bunch of weekly half-hour movie parodies?

I loved when the show was about silly, irreverent crap. You know, back before Parker and Stone had the confidence of Jesus. Now the episodes are either shallow ham fisted political commentary or one joke movie parodies.

Time to file South Park in with shows that need to be put out of their misery, along with The Simpsons and Family Guy.

I agree.

[spoiler] With all due respect, you don’t see the graphic depiction of a head being blow off with a shotgun and the depiction of a body riddled with bullets laying in a pool of blood as correlating with this week’s events?

Don’t get me wrong, I love South Park and I think it is one of the most important shows on television, but I think the last thing we all need right now is a graphic reminder of how the final moments for the victims of VT must have been like.

Especially for the victim’s friends and family. I mean, can you imagine? Your daughter has just been shot dead. You try and take your mind off things and you turn on the TV. Yay, there’s a guy shooting himself into Swiss cheese before he crumples to a heap in a pool of blood. Oh, and that guy only has half a head. I wonder if that hurt?

Sure, there’s a difference between fantasy and reality but once in a while it’s a little too much to have the fantasy resemble such a grim reality so graphically and so soon.

[/spoiler]

Even if SP used a movie parody as a vehicle, this episode was an excellent satire of the homelessness problem.

Freaking brilliant!

Best line was in the “lab” where the expert references that the chained bum seemingly forgets “that I JUST gave him some change!”

His “painless” suicide also cracked me up.

Cartman, usually the best character, really did nothing for me this week. His jumping subplot did nothing for me.

Randy’s dad is becoming a new “focus” character. In the past few seasons, he’s really come into his own. I loved how he kept talking to the guy he killed.

Finally, I loved how the writers breached the fourth wall and referenced “Matt’s House” in the song at the end.

What I came to say.

< cartman > “California knows how to party. California knows how to party. In the city, the city of Santa Monica!” < / cartman>

I seriously fell off the bed laughing at that part.