(S11E03) Sorry this review is a few days late, Becky, but I've been sick.
Overall, I thought this was a good episode, though it didn't floor me with hilarity the way some episodes do. Perhaps that was in large part to not quite understanding what the point of the episode was. Was it meant to mock those who see the Earth as a conscience entity that can actually choose to get rid of us the way the students of South Park get rid of lice? Or was the whole episode just a philosophical experiment and we're left to make up our own minds? Or maybe it was all just a really elaborate set up so they could do a gag about Angelina Jolie having crabs at the end of the episode.
The drama that takes place in the lice's' hairy world was a funny concept, though not quite funny enough to carry a full episode, and the way the lice epidemic turns the students against one another was just as funny, though easy for this series. I don't want to completely dismiss this episode, because even those episodes that seem to come easy can still be really funny. I loved Cartman leading his fellow students to the park with socks and soap, not to beat Kenny, but to clean him, and the parody of the scene from The Thing was a touch of genius.
Maybe I was just a weird kid, but on head lice inspection day I was always disappointed when I didn't have lice. Hell, any excuse to get out of school and go home was okay by me.















Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-24-2007 @ 11:20AM
Bash said...
Dude - to give away the final revelation of anything is just cruel.
I know it's just South Park but you should stick major spoilers after the jump. I know this is a neverending discussion and everyone has a slightly different opinion about it but in general I like the way TV Squad has been dealing with spoilers and you (I think) just violated the TV Squad rules (violate is a strong word but I can't think of anything similar that would describe it).
I already saw the episode and I guess that's another factor (the review being posted three days after the airing) but still, you know, in the future please stick to the way you guys (and girls) here usually do it. Thank you :-)
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3-24-2007 @ 11:51AM
Curt said...
Yeah, because a gag about Angelina having crabs is a HUUUGGGEE spoiler...
Anyway, I thought it was a good episode. Everyone has gotten so used to South Park always having a message, and this one seemed to have a bit of one, but why can't they do an episode just for fun?
And only South Park can make you feel sorry for lice.
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3-24-2007 @ 12:33PM
Mandy said...
Am I the only one who thought the lice storyline was a belated parody of The Day After Tomorrow? It had the basic elements -- one guy trying to convince everyone else of the dangers to come, everyone trying to get high up in order to survive, and even a vice president that look a bit like Cheney.
I thought this episode was hilarious. Since it aired I have been walking around saying, "Kelly, you have to hang on... for the baby." As soon as I can get a screen cap of Travis, he just might become my new wallpaper.
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3-24-2007 @ 12:58PM
AJ MacReady said...
A decent episode with some good laughs. I admit that The Thing homage had me dying (it's my favorite flick; hell, just look at my screen name).
And I don't know why, but every time Travis said the name "Kelly" it just slayed me.
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3-24-2007 @ 1:34PM
Bill said...
Mandy: They did a much more direct parody of the Day After Tomorrow a couple years ago called "Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow," so I don't think they'd go for that again. I think this was more of a pastiche of the disaster movie genre, which almost always features a guy trying fruitlessly to convince the autorities of an incoming catastrophe.
At first, I actually thought this one was going to be a Superman origin story parody. When the doctor mentioned lice latching onto flies to go from one scalp to another, I thought the main louse would stick his baby on a fly just before the RidX arrived.
http://popculturejunk.blogspot.com/
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3-24-2007 @ 3:03PM
Marshall Simmons said...
Its a parody of the movie "Children of Men." I'm surprised that no one has gotten that.
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3-24-2007 @ 5:57PM
malren said...
"Its a parody of the movie "Children of Men." I'm surprised that no one has gotten that."
One reason might be that - regardless of the quality of that film - about eight people saw it and Matt & Trey seem to have been two of them.
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3-24-2007 @ 7:18PM
fignuts said...
Doesn't Children of Men have something to do with the human race no longer being able to procreate? Anyway I thought it was goofing on the Powers That Be ignoring Al Gore's message of our actions having consequences for the planet.
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3-24-2007 @ 8:11PM
Bill said...
Or the problem could be that this episode had little, if nothing, in common with Children of Men.
******Children of Men Spoilers******
So... in Children of Men, the entire human race has been infertile for about 20 years, but most of the people are still alive, just getting older and not having kids. Clive Owen gets approached to take a pregnant girl to a specific place where a mysterious group of super scientists will pick her up and take care of the kid while trying to figure out how she got pregnant. They get chased around by government types, and in the end, Owen's character dies just as he finally gets her to where she's supposed to be.
In this South Park episode, at the beginning everything is fine. The big tragedy is most of the lice being killed by chemicals. The government (in the form of the Vice President) does try to interfere with the main character. And in the end our main character *almost* dies, and manages to get himself and his kid to safety.
******end spoilers******
Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see what one has to do with the other.
http://popculturejunk.blogspot.com/
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3-24-2007 @ 10:53PM
Erin Martell said...
For some reason, this episode reminded me of Apocalypto. The movie features a guy with a pregnant wife trying to survive, a doomed civilization--plus it was a Mel Gibson movie. Those South Park guys just love Mel Gibson.
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3-25-2007 @ 1:06PM
Jorie said...
So far, I've seen comments on different sites where people think the lice storyline is a parody of Apocalypto, 28 Days Later, The Day After Tomorrow, Children of Men, Rome, and too many other movies to count.
As Roger Ebert says, "If you have to ask if an object symbolized something, it didn't."
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3-26-2007 @ 7:27PM
dailybeating said...
i took it as they were retracting their previous position on global warming ("Manbearpig", "Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow") with a new parody of The Day After Tomorrow. The scene at the end with Kyle saying "I had the lice" and the rest of the kids following seems to reference "Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow".. but, in The Day After Tomorrow, the Dick Cheney character realizes he's wrong, but in this episode, he remains evil (which is more realistic)
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4-20-2007 @ 12:11AM
brian said...
This episode kind of reminded me of "Day After Tomorrow," but the part where Travis is getting carried by the fly is an exact parody of when Frodo is getting carried off Mount Doom by the big eagle guys in "Lord of the Rings," -- music and all.
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3-30-2007 @ 5:13PM
Sam said...
I agree, this was a kind of retraction to their global-warming = bullshit episodes. Although, frankly, this had nothing on MANBEARPIG in terms of shear hilarity. Manbearpig was more an ad hominem attack than a serious argument, however
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4-04-2007 @ 1:56AM
biggles said...
i would agree that this seems to be a timely take on recent disaster movies. apocalypto and other "end of the world" movies being the primary targets. what i thought was particularly cool about this episode was how empathetic that stone and parker make you feel for a louse civilization.
in particular, trevor was THE coolest character to come along since mr. hanky. "kelly, kelly can you hear me? i don't know if you can. but i want you to know...i tried to save our baby...but i let you down, babe." classic.
does anyone happen to know the musical piece that plays during the dramatic end to this episode? i have to admit, i was moved. these guys are great storytellers, to be certain.
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4-30-2007 @ 1:47AM
Eric Felder said...
Look this episode had nothing to do with global warming. When Matt Stone and Trey Parker make fun of anything it's always blatent and easy to see and laught at. When they made reference to the movie the day after tomorrow, that was easy to notice because they told us the world would end two days before the day after tomorrow. If they were to make fun of our Vice president he would be fat on a pace maker and resemble a penguin, in other words it wouldn't be a haircut that sorta looks that one Cheney has. This was one of their episodes that had no message to it. Most likely they decided to end an episode with Angelina Jolie having crabs and just backtracked from there. People are just simply over analyzing this. Remember this is south park, they don't hide their message, it's always clear.
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