Cartoon Wars Part I
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Cartoon Wars Part I is episode 1003 of South Park which aired on April 5, 2006. It is part one of a two part episode arc, which concluded on April 12, 2006 with "Cartoon Wars Part II".
Plot
The town panics when Family Guy shows an episode with the Prophet Muhammad as a character, though he appears only in a brief cutaway drinking tea; leading several townspeople to hide in the Community Center. The episode winds up being censored, but it is revealed that a second half of the two-parter, without censors of Muhammad, will be shown. Kyle, who likes the show, finds no problem and thinks it's wrong to censor Family Guy; shockingly, Cartman actually finds it to be offensive and declares it's wrong to do this. Kyle thinks he is faking, but when Cartman gives an impassioned speech about keeping people from getting hurt, Kyle is guilted and, after a terrible dream where he and his little brother Ike are killed, agrees to go with Cartman to get the episode pulled.
The people in South Park, however, decide to literally bury their heads in the sand, as a way of showing Islamists they don't want to insult them; on the way to Hollywood, however, Cartman suddenly reveals something shocking---he simply wants Family Guy taken off the air, and wants to use fear to destroy Freedom of speech. Cartman reveals that people always assume he loves Family Guy, but he finds it stupid, as it uses jokes without having a point to them (see Matt Stone and Trey Parker's opinions on Family Guy.). Kyle and Cartman then start racing on Big Wheels to Hollywood in order to decide the fate of the show.
People literally bury their heads in sand; meanwhile, Kyle loses his Big Wheel as a result of Cartman throwing various objects at him (the Big Wheel also explodes), and yells profanity as a result of not being able get to Los Angeles. President Bush meets with the FOX executives, who say that something secret about the Family Guy writers must be revealed.
At this point, it is suddenly revealed this is a two-part South Park and the conclusion will be explained in the next episode. According to the ending and the "Next Week On South Park" segment, President Bush and Cartman will learn a horrible secret about the Family Guy writers that supposedly "explains everything", while the entire nation buries its head in sand. The Next Week On South Park segment hints that Cartman and Kyle are finally going to have a fight, at last venting years of hatred against each other.
Trivia
- Ironically enough, Mohammed appeared uncensored in South Park Episode "Super Best Friends" (Episode 4, season 5). He is presented as one of Jesus' Super Best Friends: "Mohammed, the Muslim prophet with the powers of Flame."
- In this episode, just before the credits, an accusation is levelled at television executives of refusing to stand up for free speech, particularly under pressure from organized religious communities. Comedy Central and some foreign networks that show South Park have not aired or re-aired the ninth season episodes "Trapped in the Closet" and "Bloody Mary" because of protests from Scientologists and Catholics, respectively. "Trapped in the Closet" is particularly infamous because it may have led to the resignation of Scientologist Isaac Hayes (who voiced Chef), as well as the fact that a repeat of the episode was pulled from the schedule amidst rumors that famous Scientologist Tom Cruise refused to promote ' if it was aired again, prompting the film's producing studio, Paramount (whom Viacom owns along side Comedy Central), to force the network to withhold the episode. Despite their cooperation, Tom Cruise later decided not to promote ' anyway.
- This episode references the Fox animated series Family Guy, a show often compared to South Park for its raunchiness, despite the fact that South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have criticized it. In this episode, Cartman claims that the show’s jokes, often absurd, out-of-continuity cutaways, are interchangeable and have nothing to do with the plot. The characters are ambivalent, however, as Kyle, Matt Stone’s alter ego on the show, admits to liking Family Guy. In a twist of perhaps intentional irony, this episode contains an uncharacteristically high number of references to movies and movie/television clichés like Family Guy would do, only here, they're coherent to the plot of the episode, as noted below.
- Fox has actually censored Family Guy for perceived religious intolerance. They refused to air the episode "When You Wish upon a Weinstein" due to fear of a backlash from Jews and Catholics. (The episode eventually aired, with much ado, on Adult Swim with no major controversy, although a song lyric was edited.)
- In this parody, Peter Griffin's nose was far longer than on the show, suggesting a phallic connotation to couple his chin, which the Family Guy writers previously suggested resemble testicles [A comment which has furthermore been parodied and joked about in episodes of the show itself]. South Park also depicts Peter Griffin wearing a blue tie, which he does not in Family Guy.
- Brian Griffin's ears are black in the Family Guy parody, which causes him to resemble Snoopy, the anthropomorphic dog from the Peanuts comic strip. On Family Guy, Brian's ears are white, but he has been compared to Snoopy on the show twice.
- This episode references the recent Muslim protest over the Danish comic strips depicting, among other things, Muhammad appearing as a shepherd-like figure, Muhammad telling suicide bombers that they've "run out of virgins," and Muhammad with a bomb in his turban. Several American news outlets were criticized for reporting on the controversy without reprinting the cartoons for fear of offending Muslims. An earlier episode, "Super Best Friends", portrayed the Islamic Prophet with no controversy.
- The dream sequence featuring a nuclear bomb references the movie .
- The scene in this episode where Cartman's Big Wheel knocks Kyle's Big Wheel off a cliff and Kyle's Big Wheel explodes, is a typical part of most Hollywood car chases. Cars falling off cliffs and crashing into flames is a generic comedic scene. Similar jokes have appeared in countless other comedies, like the Family Guy episode "I Never Met the Dead Man". In the previous episode "Smug Alert!", Stan had a poster of The Road Warrior, hinting the desert setup and over-the-top chase.
- Cartman claims that by getting this one episode pulled off the air, Catholics and the disabled will be able to get episodes sensitive to them pulled as well. This may be a reference to the South Park episodes "Up the Down Steroid" (for the disabled) and "Bloody Mary" (for Catholics), both of which provoked considerable controversy. Family Guy has also poked fun at the disabled (in the episode "Ready, Willing, and Disabled") and Catholics at times (the Griffin family is Catholic except for Lois), though it has generated less publicity.
- Music from the movie can be heard near the ending of the episode.
- Cartman refers to Family Guy's offending the Muslim community saying "How would you like it if a cartoon made fun of Jews, Kyle?!" This is, of course, poking fun at Cartman himself, who makes Jew jokes all the time just to annoy Kyle.
- The character of George W. Bush now resembles the real President and is voiced by Matt Stone, as opposed to previous episodes, where he was depicted as the George W. Bush from Parker and Stone's short-lived sitcom, That's My Bush! and featured Trey Parker's voice.
- In the March issue of Rolling Stone, Matt Stone recalled turning on his TV one afternoon in February and seeing protests throughout the Muslim world. Stone was shocked, thinking that the protest was towards the episode "Super Best Friends", in which Muhammed was depicted as a superhero. At first glance Stone said, "Oh, fuck, look what we did! We have to get on the phone to a lawyer!" As it turned out, the protests had nothing to do with the South Park episode; they were about political cartoons in a Danish newspaper. Stone was disappointed. "I was like, 'Danish cartoons? That's our competition? The fucking Danish?'" [link]
- This 2-part episode is the third 2-part of the series.
- When the professor discusses the plan to bury everyone's heads in sand, he first mentions they'll need eighteen-dozen shovels. When the mayor later reiterates this at the end of the scene, she says they only need eight-dozen.
- The mayor suggests the town use 20-25 dump trucks to haul in 16 tons of sand. In reality, 16 tons would fit in about 1 dump truck and would be far too little to bury everyone's heads
See also
References
External links
| Preceded by: Smug Alert! | South Park episodes | Followed by: Cartoon Wars Part II |
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