Here Comes the Neighborhood
Encyclopedia : H : HE : HER : Here Comes the Neighborhood
"Here Comes the Neighborhood" is episode 512 of the Comedy Central series South Park. It originally aired on November 28, 2001.
Plot synopsis
Token Black, the token minority child of South Park (Token is African American), also happens to be the richest kid in South Park, and becomes upset when he can find no other kids in the school he can relate to. He therefore arranges for dozens of rich people (who also happen to be African-American) such as Will and Jada Pinkett Smith, Oprah, P. Diddy, etc. to move into town, which leads to Mr. Garrison complaining about "rich people" or "richers", which in turn leads to ire among the other, less affluent members of the community. However, Token discovers that the rich kids are as different from him as he is from the poorer kids in town, and he feels so much like an outcast that he goes to live with lions in the South Park Zoo.
The situation between the rich and poor residents of town continues to escalate, with the poor majority pushing various laws against the rich (that they cannot eat in certain restaurants, drink in certain bars and have to sit at the front of all the buses). However, at one point the African American "richers" invite Chef, the only recurring black character other than Token, to join their marches, assuming because he is black, he is rich and, when Chef explaines that he wasn't rich, they offered him $100 to join anyway.
Token eventually decides he doesn't want to live with lions anymore, and leaves; however, he discovers that the poor kids in town who initially made fun of his money didn't really dislike him, but only picked on him because they all pick on each other on a regular basis. They wind up deciding to stop picking on him for his money though, and instead mock him for how sensitive he was to their initial teasing. Meanwhile, the poor people in town (led by Mr. Garrison) dress up as "ghosts" to scare away the rich people (their ghost costumes resemble Ku Klux Klan outfits), and burn a lower-case 't' (as in "time to leave"). The rich flee town discovering that it was "hainted" (haunted), and Mr. Garrison plots to sell all their houses to become rich. When others point out that would make him become what he himself hated, he replies, "Well, yeah, but at least I got rid of all those damn ni---", and is cut off by the credits before he can finish his final word.
Trivia
- The title of the episode is a reference to the expression "There goes the neighborhood", which is sometimes used when unwanted people move into a neighborhood, presumably lowering property values and the quality of the neighborhood. This phrase is said by Jimbo about half way through the episode.
- This episode is a parody of Birth of a Nation.
- At the Beginning of the episode, Cartman is disappointed on the grade Ms. Choksondik gave him and he whispers "I'll make you eat your parents!", which is a reference of the episode, "Scott Tenorman Must Die."
- This episode is also meant to parody both the Civil Rights Movement, and the stereotypes of minorities on and off TV. While African Americans tend to be less affluent than whites on the whole, Token is the richest character in South Park, and he and his parents are the only black characters other than Chef. The show also presents many other examples of rich black people.
- Mr. Garrison jokes about rich people needing large garages for their aircraft carriers. In the episode before ("The Entity"), we can see Bill Gates arriving in South Park with an aircraft carrier.
- When Token is living with the lions, he discovers they can talk, and meets their leader, whose name is a parody of Aslan the Lion from The Chronicles of Narnia, Aslon. However, Aslan's voice comes from King Moonracer, the talking lion from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
- Kenny's corpse appears in the episode, but his actual death is not depicted.
- There is a scene where Bill Cosby is forced to sit in the front of the bus, clearly referring to racial segregation.
- The "Million Millionaire March" clearly refers to the Million Man March.
- Twice in the episode,Mr. Garrison refers to the new rich folk as "Cash Chuckers",an obvious play on the racist slang "Spear Chucker" used for african americans.
| Preceded by: The Entity | South Park episodes | Followed by: Kenny Dies |
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.