Funny, when I first saw the title of this episode (Smug Alert) I thought maybe Matt and Trey might actually have devoted an episode to some much needed self-satire. They certainly are a coupla self-righteous sum-bitches.
Then I remembered the cardinal rule of South Park: nobody’s safe from Matt and Trey’s lampooning, except for Matt and Trey. :rolleyes:
One thing I can say about South Park is that it’s consistent: I haven’t noticed much of a decline or increase in quality in the last 9 seasons. The episodes have always been hit-or-miss, with about five misses for every hit (and one completely worthless trainwreck out of every ten misses). And they’ve always wallowed in scatological humor, although I think my gross-o-meter has been been edging into the red more often lately. The whole death/ bowel evacuation thing has been run into the ground – I hope they decided to give it a rest after Chef crapped his final load.
As I’ve mentioned before, South Park is an odd guilty pleasure of mine. I know with almost 100% certainty that I’ll be offended at least once during any given episode, but I keep tuning in anyway. It’s morbid curiosity, I think. How far will they push the gross-out or stupidity envelope this time? What absurd premise will they take to the extreme this time?
And then – just when I’m ready to give up on the show, Matt and Trey pull a work of pure genius out of their asses, like “The Simpsons Already Did It”, “Butter’s Very Own Episode”, “Scott Tenorman Must Die”, “Free Hat”, or “Trapped in the Closet”. Go figure.
Now that I think about it, that’s right. Consistently churning out classic episodes for nine years is quite the coon. Have any other series on TV avoided jumping the shark so deftly?
IMHO, this was a classic. I love the wacky, cartoony eps.
As you asked: Here is the official Jump the Shark site and their list of never Jumps is the last link on the left hand side. Barney Miller is the only show to have lasted as long without jumping except for the Simpsons that built up too many never jump votes for the last 5 or 6 years to knock it out.
Of course enough people feel even South Park has jumped the shark, but I don’t agree.
Maybe I’m the only one who saw it this way, but I had a pretty good sense that Matt & Trey were making an inverse point: it’s an absurdity to blame hybrid cars for some sort of environmental disaster (in this case a phony problem, “smug”), so it’s also an absurdity to blame, say, SUVs for an environmental disaster. I suspect this they were inspired by Katrina and New Orleans–a storm wiping out a city, a la San Francisco in the episode–and the ensuing furrowed brows about the hurricane being the product of global warming, which is blamed on tailpipe emissions from gas guzzlers (among other things). Or so I read the episode.
Now, I don’t particularly agree with their assessment (if I read the ep right). But I think that was the overarching theme of the show.
On the whole, I thought is was a decent episode, a few good laughs, but not up to the usual standards.
“Good Times With Weapons” was a current issue episode… regarding our cultural views about nudity vs violence. (Triggered probably by the super bowl tit fiasco)
