Something in "Mecha-Babuda" (have yet to see a mention of this...)

First, my take on the episode itself.

It was an excellent show. Not the funniest thing I've ever seen, but well crafted and original. They're proving every week that South Park is rich with intelligence, full of creativity, and certainly not afraid of lampooning *ANYTHING* (from slavery to Ms. Streisand). I, personally, don't want to see a show where they *have* to get the Chef song in every week and a "really cool!" Kenny death each time to please the masses (and for those complaining that Kenny didn't get stomped by Babuda, that *was* the joke). And to those who can't stop bitching about how downhill the show is going, remember that the jokes are, for the most part, fresh and untested...some will fail and some will fly. So far, by continuing to be original (and not getting sucked into the pitfalls of writing a popular show- predictability being a big one), they're definitely headed in the right direction.

Anyway, onto what I'm posting about. I loved when Chef and Leonard Maltin are driving and they had the flat *real life* background of the trees moving behind them to simulate motion. After thinking it was just something weird that the animators wanted to do, I began to think that they were probably satirizing the commonplace use of that background in a real live show with real live people (or they were too damn lazy to animate trees).

I wonder if some people are so used to seeing that stuff on TV, that they didn't even *notice* the video background....It was on the screen so long, it would have been hard to miss, but if you were engaged in the dialogue, I could see how it would get by you. I think.

Did *anyone* miss it? Did anyone laugh when they saw it?

-Jason

If replying via email, do us all a favor and remove the exclamation point from my address

Amen, brother!!! I liked this one alot. I agree on all points, particularly the one about Kenny's death. I liked it, and to have him get stomped would have shown no creativity whatsoever. Also, I am rather fond of the random celebrity references, which are obscure enough that they probably go unnoticed by non-GenX'ers. Robert Smith, Tina Yothers (!!!!), John Stamos, this is clearly a show written by GenX FOR GenX. I think some of the best stuff just flies over the head of those older and younger than this age group....

YES!! The random celebrity references are great! The whole "Tina Yothers" thing suprised me! I had completly forgotton about her until she was mentioned in "Pink Eye."

Missy

I agree, and who else thinks the more Sally Struthers eats, the more likely the chance of HER exploding!

Rock

A lot of the pictures and posters on the show are real life people or settings

I saw the background, but just treated it as another one of those "live" pictures that pop up in the background. Like the animal pictures that frequently appear in Garrison's classroom, or the girls picture that was on the table in Cartman's house in the Anal Probe ep.

I must admit though that by that scene I had pretty much lost interest in this episode and was only watching to edit commercials outta the ongoing SP tape.