I hate to admit this and I've been in denial for weeks, but after seeing Chef Aid, the unthinkable has become apparant: the quality of Southpark is going down. I thought it couldn't get any worse than Cow Days and Planetarium but Chef Aid proved me wrong. Comparing these recent episodes to gems like Pink Eye, Tom's Rhinoplasy, Ike's Wee Wee and others, I shudder to think what will become of Southpark if they keep churning out weak episodes like these. Are Matt and Trey moving away from Southpark? Is there no more content left for any good episodes? i sincerely hope that this week's episode can help South park rebound. regardless of what happens, the first and second seaon of southpark till the clubhouses episode are priceless and will always be treasured.
Is SouthPark dying?
Pink Eye had to be one of my least favorite episodes. I, personally, think that Cow Days and Chef Aid were much better. I laughed so hard! I just thought it was so creative that the cows commited mass murder because the clock told them too! I thought they kinda ruined it when the guy said he hadn't seen one of those for a least a month or whatever, too lazy to go check, but I still laughed. And almost everyone loved Chef Aid. I think they did have a few episodes that weren't quite as funny, to me anyways, but the last few have been almost as good as the first few, when the shock was still new, or whatever. I really don't think South Park is dying.... not unless Matt and Trey decide to let it, and move on to other things. We can only hope they don't... :)
South Park isn't dying. What's dying (or dead) is the ability of a certain subset of fans to tolerate anything that doesn't knock them on their ass and dazzle them to the max.
You want perfect episodes that fry your brain to a cinder every week? Open your own universe and broadcast them there yourself. Or watch C-Span. That'll do it.
-- Mark Tangard -------------------------------- ----------- "Life is nothing if you aren't obsessed." --John Waters ------------------------------------------------------------------- ***** Tired of trolls, troll feeders, and off-topic bullshit? ***** Join SouthParkNet, the new, *moderated* South Park discussion list. Subscribe free at http://www.onelist.com/subscribe.cgi/SouthParkNet -------------------------------------------------------------------
Ahem. Trey and Matt fan I am, I must defend them.
BASEketball: they agreed to work on it before they knew South Park would be a success (they figured it would be over by February when they started shooting for BASEketball). It was, in fact, before South Park's first episodes even started. By the time SP was a success, they couldn't back out of it, so they had to do both at once..and they did pretty damn good, IMO. It's one of the reasons I admire them, actually.
Orgazmo & CTM (Cannibal the Musical): These were both Trey's independant films before South Park came out. He finished Oragzmo right when he started working on South Park, actually, says a recent interview. In the article he also says that with these only getting attention and actually being released now, they're looking like they're selling out and totally bastardizing themselves.
South Park getting worse or no, it's not because fame is going to their heads. Not at *all*.
-Kim (more a fan of Trey and Matt then of South Park itself, it seems)
I'm not accusing Trey and Matt of being sellouts, or of their fame going to their heads. I'm just saying that, although BASEketball, Orgazmo and CTM were thought of before South Park, these things wouldn't do jack shit in the box offices without South Park. I, for one, wouldn't have even considered seeing BASEketball if Trey and Matt weren't the creators of South Park.
I just watch South Park, though. As long as the episodes are funny, and the show constantly challenges the censors, I'm happy. Mike K.
"Censorship is a load of bollocks" - Chumbawamba
thought of before South Park, these things wouldn't do jack shit in the box offices without South Park.<<
Um...dude....BASEketball DIDN'T do jack shit at the box office even with all the South Park hype. So your point of box office draw and South Park having some sort of correlation is totally moot.
I think that what is happening is that the humor in South Park is changing to a little higher level, actually. Sure, I died when I first saw Terrance & Phillip (and I still do), but now they don't do as much T&P type jokes, or similar stuff. One thing I really like about South Park is that they have a lot of different types of humor, and they are able to mix these together well. A show full of only fart jokes wouldn't be funny, but South Park has a ton of them and we still love it. The reason is that even though there are a lot of one type of joke in each episode, there will also be a lot of other, higher types of humor to counterbalance it.
Matt and Trey are moving away from South Park, however. I worried this would happen actually. They've become overnight successes and now they've let it go to their head. Baseketball, Orgazmo and other such projects are focusing the duo's attention away from South Park, which instead they should be working on even more because it made them famous and South Park is what they're known for. What I see happening is Matt and Trey will turn to the huge quantity of fanfics on the 'net to use as actual episodes. There are plenty of websites out there with South Park fanfics (Mr. Hat's Hellhole has some, there's Snow's site, mine (http://members.xoom.com/spscripts/index.htm) and many of them are really good, and I'd like to see them as episodes. So I wouldn't worry too much about South Park's future, as there are plenty of people who would be willing to work on it if Trey and Matt left.
Just my opinions, though. Mike K.
"Censorship is a load of bollocks" - Chumbawamba
I've always had mixed feelings about the show. That is to say, I like it enough to tape it each week, but from the beginning, I was weary of its "if one fart joke is funny, then thirty would be 3000% funnier!" kind of philosophy.
The show never, ever takes the high road, it never chooses wit over shock value (though it has had a few witty moments).
Not to be inflamitory, but could it be that the show's creators are simply following the template that has brought them such success so far, and that it's actually the audience becoming accustomed to it - jaded to the unrelenting shock value of the show? When a show expends all of its content, and tries the censors _each and every week_, it's not too much of a surprise that some people won't like the things they may view as regurgitations of previous concepts, and ideas.
I hope they choose to again, expand on some of the less prominent characters, as they had recently. Beyond the first season, they didn't seem to have much to say with the original show's template. That's why I enjoyed the "Not Without My Anus" T&P special more than the tiresome "Cartman's Father" saga; as well, I think the better episodes of these seasons have been the one where they expanded on Mr. Mackay's character, and the "Chicken-Fucker" episode, where they expanded on the Barbrady character.
-Just MHO
-Err
"Shoes for industry, shoes for the dead!"
"I am simply not credible."
"He was already dead when I hit him!"
"Science makes the toast pop up every day, but it's not going to reveal the secrets of the universe."
"It's like the difference between shooting a bullet, and throwing a bullet…" -Larry Miller
"When I see a motorcyclist tearing up the mountain meadows, I don't want to fret about how to get revenge safely. I want to see a bullet rip through his flesh, and kick him in the face while he is dying."
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Just because an episode here or there doesn't make you bust a nut as much as a past episode doesn't mean the show automatically sucks. Personally, I've found pretty much all the episodes to be really funny...I try to judge them on their own merits, rather than comparing them all to each other. It's not like South Park's become all lame ass like Scooby-Doo or some shit! I think South Park is still the funniest show on TV....of course I still love The Simpsons too...hehe.