On Wednesday, December 17, at nine p.m. EST, Fox had an hour-long special featuring the greatest holiday moments in TV and movie history. Too bad it became outdated the minute it was over.
"A South Park Christmas," "Mr. Hankey," or whatever it's supposed to be called, started right off with a hoot when the nativity scene featured labor pains. There were also two Peanuts take-offs in the beginning - Linus' speech and eating snowflakes (at least I think the latter is from Peanuts - the music seemed familiar anyway) - and now poor Kenny knows what bird doo tastes like.
As all of them do, this episode had some great lines. Some of my favorites were "I'm not fat, I'm festively plump!" and the discussion about Jews not being allowed to eat Christmas snow. There was also another reference to the second SOXmas - "Dude, this is pretty fucked up right here."
The songs were pretty well done. I'm glad this wasn't a full-fledged musical episode where they sing every three minutes (like the Simpsons did once), 'cause those really get on my nerves. The best song, IMHO, was none other than Cartman's "Kyle's Mom Is a Big Fat Bitch in D minor." Even Mr. Garrison got down with that one. And I'm glad Mr. Hankey didn't sing any lengthy songs with that shrill voice.
And about Mr. Hankey: I don't know. I was mildly amused, but it just seemed more weird than funny, maybe because I already knew going into the episode what he was - if I had found out while watching it that he was a talking piece of crap, I might have been ROTFL. Although, I will say the live-action short was hilarious - the clinchers were "I wish Daddy were still alive" and the baby eating poo followed by the generic happy laughing you always see in commercials.
Anyway, the whole Hankey thing seemed like something out of the old Ren & Stimpy - that is, if John Kricfalusi and Spumco had ever been able to get away with that.
If there was ever to be a "historic" episode where Kenny didn't die, this was the way to do it. A couple dangerous situations where you think he might die (although you can't be sure because you know they keep you guessing sometimes) up to the boys looking at him near the closure, saying that something doesn't feel right, with the end accompanied by a resounding "Woo-hoo-hoo!" from poor little McCormick. In fact, we STILL thought something might happen when Jesus came on (that was a nice touch by the way - I was wondering if he was going to be in this episode, and it turns out that everyone had forgotten about him the whole time). Don't worry though, I'm pretty sure Kenny will be dying again in no time - it's the character's only appeal outside of his vaguely dirty comments.
Now for the inevitable over-analysis (after all, it IS just a fun little cartoon show). I know there are some people who are going to say that the "Kenny lives" episode happened too soon in the series, that it would have been a lot more of a big deal if they had waited a season or two. These same people might say - and I'm not necessarily saying they're wrong - that the show is developing too fast (i.e. in the span of just two first season episodes, we already knew FOR SURE that Cartman's mom is a slut and exactly how poor Kenny's family is - they could have developed those facts over the course of, again, a couple seasons). I don't know if I completely agree with those points, but one thing I do know is there may be no more ideas for Chef. This last song was really weak, and he didn't do much else in the story. Plus, his big acts the previous two episodes were just straight parodies (although I somewhat enjoyed the Halloween song).
All in all though, a good episode. It had your usual zanyness, insults, and social commentary, plus a big Christmas present for Kenny - life.
One more thing: I was watching "A Christmas Story" on TNT before South Park came on and noticed the little brother looked a lot like Kenny in that winter get-up. Since this is the favorite movie of one of the SP creators (I forget which one), that may have been the inspiration for creating Kenny, or at least his look.
-L. Wilkes