Tag: South Park

Bible in Pop Culture Week 7: Cartman’s Favorite Psalm

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In episode nine of season four of South Park, titled “Do the Handicapped Go to Hell?”, we find out what Cartman’s favorite Psalm is. The episode starts with Stan, Cartman and Kenny sitting in church. Mr. Garrison is called up to the lectern to read his favorite Psalm. As Mr. Garrison begins to read, Cartman leans over his pew and tells Stan and Kenny his favorite Psalm is: “It’s a man’s obligation to stick his boneration in a woman’s separation. This sort of penetration will increase the population of the younger generation.”

Father Maxi, the church’s priest, catches the boys repeating this Psalm and delivers a fire-and-brimstone sermon to the congregation, criticizing the children for not going to Sunday school and the parents for not going to confession. Father Maxi’s depiction of Hell terrifies the kids and they wind up rushing off to Sunday school to learn how to avoid swimming in the lake of fire. They learn that they must go to confession and take Communion. Problems arise when they realize that Kyle is a Jew and is going to go to Hell and that Timmy, a mentally handicapped boy that can only say his name, is unable to give a confession, meaning that he will also wind up in Hell. The boys become increasingly terrified and rush to the church to confess. On the way, a bus strikes Kenny and he is apparently killed.

Meanwhile, in Hell, Satan is celebrating Luau Sunday with his friends, Conan O’Brien, Adolf Hitler, Jeffrey Dahmer, John F. Kennedy, John F. Kennedy Jr., Princess Diana Spencer, Michael Landon, Mao Tse-Tung, Gene Siskel, Allen Ginsberg, Jerry Garcia, Tiny Tim, Walter Matthau, Bob Hope, George Burns, Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra.

Bible in Pop Culture Week 6: Cartmanland and Job

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“Cartmanland,” the sixth episode of season five of South Park, contains a specific reference to the Book of Job. In the story, Cartman’s grandmother dies and leaves her entire life savings to Cartman, because she believes the rest of her family would just spend the money on crack. Cartman decides to use the money to fulfill his dream of having a theme park all to himself. So, he purchases a theme park that was on the verge of going out of business and renames it Cartmanland. Cartman uses the park solely for his own fun and makes it a point to advertise on television that no one else may enter the park or ride the rides.

Kyle is horrified that a person as despicable as Cartman is experiencing such good fortune and questions his faith in God. Kyle’s faith is further damaged by the discovery that he has a hemorrhoid. Kyle and Stan decide to try to break into the park by climbing the fence, but this only makes Kyle’s situation worse: his hemorrhoid breaks and becomes infected, leaving him hospitalized. Kyle’s parents try to cheer him up by reading him the Book of Job, but they forget to mention the ending, where Job receives more material wealth than he previously had. Kyle is horrified and his health begins to fade as the hemorrhoid infection spreads to his lungs.

Kyle’s health only improves when he discovers that Cartman’s plan to have Cartmanland all to himself fails and he ends up worse off than he was before inheriting the million dollars. Cartman had to allow in guests to defray operating expenses, was fined by the IRS for not keeping tax records, was sued by Kenny’s parents because Kenny died in the park, and ends the show by losing the park and being $13,000 in debt to the IRS, sprayed with mace and crying, restoring Kyle’s faith in God.

Bible in Pop Culture Week 3: Jacob’s Ladder in South Park, Se. 6 ep. 12

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Genesis 28:10-19 describes a dream experienced by one of the Jewish Patriarchs, Jacob. In the chapter 28 version of events, Jacob is hoping to obtain a wife from his mother’s family in Haran. After a day of traveling, he stops for the night in an undisclosed location and dreams that he sees a ladder reaching from Earth to Heaven, on which angels are both ascending and descending. Jacob believes that the place where he slept is “the house of God” and “the gate of heaven” (The New Oxford Annotated Bible, NRSV with Apocrypha, 4th ed., p. 50).

The idea of the ladder being a way to actually access Heaven utilized in episode 12 of season 6 of South Park (Nov., 2002), “A Ladder to Heaven.” In the cartoon, Stan, Kyle and Cartman win an all-you-can-grab candy prize. They give the ticket stub to Kenny for safekeeping but, as usual, Kenny is killed. In an effort to recover the ticket stub, Kenny’s friends decide to build a ladder to Heaven. Initially, the larger community sees the ladder as a tribute to Kenny’s memory, but the ladder quickly becomes an international competition when Japan decides to build their own ladder into Heaven first. The US Army becomes involved and the ladder passes above the clouds. Stan and his friends are disappointed that they couldn’t find Heaven (and the ticket stub) at the top of the ladder, but the military does discover suspicious-looking clouds that they believe might be a heavenly WMD factory being run by Saddam Hussein, who is deceased in the show. The U.S. government decides that the only option available to them is to preemptively bomb Heaven. The show later reveals that Saddam’s chocolate factory was indeed a WMD factory and he has been lying to God about what he manufactures there.

November 2013 Loot Crate

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November 2013 Loot Crate Contents
November 2013 Loot Crate Contents

The contents of this month’s Loot Crate are nice but I guess I’m not too excited about them because I’m not that into Batman or Doctor Who. I always preferred X-Men comics and I just recently decided to actually have a look at Doctor Who. Maybe it’ll be cool. I haven’t decided yet.

The breakfast drink is nice, though. It’s something I can actually use. I checked the nutrition information and it is comparable to a Slim Fast. It’s 180 calories in a small bottle so you can drink your breakfast on the go.

I also like the shot glass and the playing cards. I’m not sure I’ll ever use the South Park speaker, because when I’m out I use headphones. I don’t think everyone around me should have to listen to my music. When I’m home I use my big speakers. I’ll probably hang-on to the Doctor Who balloon for a few months and then throw it in the trash. The wallet I think I’ll send to my nephew.

Next month will probably be better.

Robocycle Bicycle playing cards, face cards.
Robocycle Bicycle playing cards, face cards.