Good Times With Weapons
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"Good Times with Weapons"(a.k.a Ninjas) is episode 801 of South Park. It originally aired on March 17, 2004.
Plot
At the county fair, the boys come across a weapons vendor. After arming themselves with several dangerous Asian weapons, they set out on an adventure where they take on the role of four ninja. In these situations, the episode's animation switches from the usual "paper cut-out style" of a South Park episode, into a stereotypical anime design, displayed in letterbox format, with the boys drawn as adults. Asian style ambience plays in the background. After showing off their weapons to Craig, the boys encounter Butters who wants to play ninja with them. The boys refuse and Butters dons his cape, bracers, and helmet to become Professor Chaos: bringer of Destruction and Doom.
The boys soon encounter Professor Chaos after an argument about the rules of having ninja powers. They engage in a stylized anime fight, where Professor Chaos displays his awesome power. Stan first shoots a jet of flame at Professor Chaos, only to have it turned back by his titanium cape. Kyle then catches the villain off guard with an icy blast from his nunchucks. Professor Chaos then retaliates by trapping the two boys in his "Webs of Holding." Cartman then tries to use his powers, but realizes that Kyle had previously took them away bacause Cartman tried to have too many. Kyle returns Cartman's powers, only to be transformed into a chicken. Finally, Kenny throws a shuriken into Professor Chaos' eye. The style instantly changes from the fast-paced anime style back to the regular South Park animation, showing the reality of the boys' fight with the weapons as Butters runs around wailing in pain having a shuriken lodged in his eye. In order to avoid punishment that would follow questions asked at a regular hospital, Butters is dressed up (badly) as a dog (using fur shaved off Sparky) and taken to an animal hospital. Unfortunately, Butters escapes when the boys are waylaid by Craig and his friends, who have also bought weapons. After an epic battle, featuring the "Let's Fighting Love" song, the boys realize that Butters is gone and join up to find him before he can tell anybody about their weapons. Butters, meanwhile, manages to make his way to the hospital, but his disguise fools the doctor, who sends him to the vet. The vet makes no attempt to treat Butters and prepares to put him to sleep, only to find that he has escaped. Fearing that they have lost Butters, the boys try to return their weapons to hide the evidence, but the weapons vendor does not give refunds. At the end, Butters staggers onto the stage of an auction. Cartman, in a panic, pretends he has the power of invisibility, and takes all his clothes off so he can get Butters off the stage unseen. Obviously, since he doesn't have this kind of power, he ends up showing his penis (barely, as his belly covers all but a tiny portion of it) to the audience, and the boys' possession of ninja weapons fall by the wayside as Cartman is punished for flashing the audience.
Let's Fighting Love
The episode includes "Let's Fighting Love", a theme song that mixes Japanese and English lyrics without regard for grammar, tense or logic. This can be seen as a parody of the J-pop theme songs that are featured in many anime series, as well as "Engrish" commonly found in anime, pop music and everyday life in Japan as a whole. It is performed by series creator Trey Parker, who is an admitted Japanophile.Trivia
- This was voted the second best South Park episode of all time by fans.
- Trey Parker, who sang "Let's Fighting Love", majored in Japanese language and music.
- There is some resemblance to the fighting games Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. For example, Stan stands exactly like Ryu. Also, Professor Chaos' costume (in Butter's eyes, anyway) appears to resemble that of Dr. Doom without the metal armor, and the physique of Sagat. Cartman's ninja name is Bulrog, which is derived from Vega who is known as Balrog in Japan. As further proof, his shorts have the same color scheme as Vega's matador pants, and Vega is often called "The Spanish Ninja" because of his fighting style. In addition, Kenny wears a hat similar to Raiden and his face design is identical to Ken from the Street Fighter series.
- There are also direct references to the Street Fighter Alpha series. In addition to Stan's likeness of Ryu, Kyle has the same fighting stance as Guy from Final Fight. Jimmy is modeled after Sodom, and while Butters's Professor Chaos costume is meant to look like M. Bison's, his actual body and stance is modeled after Sagat. Also, Clyde is modeled after the character Adon, and Cartman is modeled after E. Honda and has the bracelets of Chun-Li.
- In the original airing of this episode, an unidentified individual talked about anime (and mentioned his favorite director) in the closed captions during the commercial break.
- With the exception of Kenny's attack on Butters, the boys don't actually fight with the very dangerous weapons they've purchased. They're content to pretend to fire energy bursts from them, mimicking the Hadoken from the Street Fighter series.
- This episode marks the start of Cartman using Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ to support his anti-semitism. He uses it again in a few more episodes, most notably in "Up the Down Steroid" and when it all comes to a climax in "The Passion of the Jew."
- This episode aired almost a month after Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" at Super Bowl XXXVIII. At the end of the episode, the townspeople are enraged that their children saw Cartman naked, rather than being angry at the vulgar gore of Butters with a shuriken lodged in his eye; Parker and Stone's obvious intention was to satirize the American public's ludicrous shyness towards nudity and sexuality rather than gratuitous violence.
- For one of the promo pictures for this episode, Butters is shown in his Professor Chaos costume (including his mask) and he is screaming with the shuriken in his eye. When the episode aired he didn't have his mask on when he was screaming.
- This episode is represented on the cover of the South Park Season 8 DVD set.
See also
- Chinpokomon, a parody of the Pokémon fad.
External links
- [Wikiquote for this episode]
- [Secrets of "Good Times with Weapons"]
- [Download the "Let's Fighting Love Song"]
- [Full Episode on YouTube]
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