South Park: Stanley's Cup
17th Nov 2006, 03:55 GMT
Filed under: OpEd, Animation, South Park, Comedy Central (S10E14) After relentlessly satirizing current events for several episodes, the minds behind South Park took a nice departure with this episode, offering up a hysterical take on mainstream movie conventions, complete with a voiceover and musical score provided by a man who follows Stan around to clue everyone in on what's happening while he plays music on a portable record player. Following the old comedy standby that pain is always funny, this episode sees Stan trying to become responsible, but having more pressure put on him from the town's adults than he can handle. First his bike is towed (that's right, I said "towed"), so he can't do his paper route, and if he can't make money from the paper route, he can't get his bicycle back. He ends up enlisted to coach the pee-wee hockey team, a group of toddlers who can barely skate and never score a single goal. Everyone in town wants Stan's team to win the big game, and even Stan's father shows up, despite still feeling the pain of seeing his own son miss a goal at the same arena years ago. It's hilarious in its ludicrousness, and it's another great pot shot at sappy, overdramatic movies where the things all normal people go through are overdramatized and blown completely out of proportion. There's even the player with cancer tossed in, just in case our heartstrings haven't been finagled enough. I always enjoy it when South Park goes after recent events and social issues, but once in awhile it's nice to see an episode that just wants to be funny without all the commentary. Of course, it wouldn't be a South Park episode without at least one attempt to rile the masses, and the comment from the doctor telling Stan that Nelson, the little boy with leukemia will "die faster than Steve Irwin in a tank full of stingrays" made sure of that. Social commentary or no, it's not really a South Park episode without a little provocation. Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
Latest news from TV Squad:
- Family Guy: Whistle While Your Wife Works
- Moral Orel: God's Image
- Creators of 24 developing comedy for ABC
- It was a guest-a-rama on SNL... and NBC ruins the surprise
- Henson company aims for puppet primetime
- Degrassi scribe takes on The Best Years
- The Amazing Race: Being Polite Sucks Sometimes
- Desperate Housewives: Children and Art
- Alan Moore to guest star on The Simpsons
- The Simpsons: G.I. (Annoyed Grunt)