TSST
Encyclopedia : T : TS : TSS : TSST
"Tsst" is episode 1007 (#146) of Comedy Central's animated comedy tv series, South Park which aired on May 3, 2006.
Plot
When Cartman's mom, Liane, realizes she can't control her son anymore, she attempts to get help from an expert. At first, she tries to enlist the aid of the nanny from the reality tv program Nanny 911, but to no avail; Cartman makes the hired nanny realize, with her own methods, that the reason she became a nanny is because she was unattractive and undesirable to men, which is why she never had children of her own; this causes her to become angry and give up on Cartman. Her second attempt is with Jo Frost from Super Nanny, who ends up in an asylum eating her own excrement and crying "From Hell, It's from Hell!" Ultimately Ms. Cartman recruits Cesar Millan, the so-called Dog Whisperer, from the show of the same name. He takes on his biggest challenge to date when he is signed on to discipline Eric Cartman.Millan evaluates Cartman as dominant, aggressive, and obese. He teaches Liane to show Cartman she is the boss. Millan teaches Liane that dogs nip each other in the neck to show dominance, and it works well with the children. He, and later Liane, uses two fingers to nip at Cartman's neck to show that they are dominant, although it doesn't hurt him at all. This, at first, angers and annoys Cartman and makes him run away. Cartman tries to seek help from his classmates, but none of them are sympathetic to his problem. He ends up living on the street for four hours before he decides to return home. While Cartman is gone, Liane has taken up her favorite hobby of Japanese sumi-e paintings. When he returns, Liane keeps on disciplining Cartman in the way Millan teaches her just before Cartman calls child protective services on her, and Cartman eventually reaches a relaxed and submissive state in which he behaves much like a dog (Cartman walks around with his head down, peers aimlessly at all directions and takes a treat off Liane's hand). Cartman brushes his teeth when his mother commands him to, seemingly against his own will. He also loses ten pounds, and his academic performance improves.
However, Cartman thinks his mom is being so dominant that he refers to her as Hitler and plans to kill her. When he fails to persuade the other kids to enlist in his plan of murder, he decides to carry out the plan himself, despite his recognition that he will be the most likely suspect. Cartman sneaks into Liane's bedroom and tries to kill her with a knife, he has a struggle in his mind between his newly-good and his normal, "demonic" sides that is a parody of the film Altered States; finally, he passes out and drops the knife.
In the morning, Liane finds the knife, but also sees that Cartman made his own healthy breakfast, and is studying before school, which surprises her, as Cartman never did those things before. At the same time, Millan comes to have a final check. Liane thanks him for converting her son into a good child and being her new friend, and tells him she has tickets for the two of them to see Madame Butterfly together. Cesar informs Liane that he only sees her as a client, and now that his work is done, he must leave. Losing her only dominant male figure, Liane resumes spoiling Cartman, and while they hug, as horror movie style choral music plays, Cartman smiles, as in the last scene of the film The Omen. He has returned to his original, evil nature.
Trivia
- The scene where Cartman goes into the hallway and begins banging himself against the wall while changing is a parody of the Ken Russell film "Altered States".
- The title "Tsst" is a word imitating the sound that Cesar and later Liane make when they pinch Cartman on the neck with their fingers to establish dominance.
- The scene in which Cartman says that he handcuffed a kid's ankle to the flagpole, claimed to have poisoned his milk, and that he needed to saw off his leg to get to the antidote is a reference to the movies Saw and Saw II.
- The scene for the Nanny 911 opening includes a clip from the episode "The Passion of the Jew".
- A picture of Jo Frost with Damien can be seen in the Supernanny opening.
- Also in the Supernanny opening, a family can be seen having dinner, and a picture of Randy and Sharon Marsh can be seen on a chest.
- There has been at least one other instance where Liane has been known to be dominant to Cartman. In the episode Cartman Gets an Anal Probe, Liane recommends that Cartman go play with his friends, he says no, to which she sternly responds "Don't be difficult, Eric!". Cartman, shocked, obliges.
- The last nanny seen on Nanny 911 is a Skeksis, a species of evil creatures seen in the Jim Henson movie The Dark Crystal.
- As part of Nanny 911, the nanny's duty on the first day was to observe the relationship between the children and the parents. In this episodes case, Stella did not and all ready laid down the rules on Eric and Liane on the first day.
- The Cartmans' television and VCR is a "Fony", a parody of "Sony", which was previously seen in The Return of Chef. This too is a throwback to an early episode of The Simpsons, recalling when Homer visited an outlet mall. He also has an Xbox 360. Later the other boys are seen playing an Xbox 360. Matt Stone and Trey Parker own an Xbox 360 themselves. [link] Matt & Trey are reportedly also very excited for Nintendo's next console, the Wii. [link]
- The Xbox 360 Cartman has is a core system, due to the lack of a hard drive and no chrome finish on the disc drive.
- The Monopoly properties Park Place and B&O Railroad are renamed Park Avenue and J&R Railroad, respectively. JR is an actual railroad company in Japan.
- In this episode, Cartman complains that his mom is Hitler, and describes his healthy dinner as being like food in Auschwitz. Cartman has practiced anti-Semitic, Nazi-like beliefs in multiple episodes. He is shown admiring Hitler in "Pink Eye", and a clip from "The Passion of the Jew" where Cartman actually dressed up as a Nazi and soapboxed his beliefs is shown during this episode.
- Although Cartman does not read it out loud, the last step of his plan to kill his mother is "Frame Token".
- The first part of the transformation Cartman goes through, where ghost-like images of Cartman's face appear and repeat lines from earlier in the episode, is a reference to the movie Contact. This marks the third time South Park has mocked the movie Contact (Tom's Rhinoplasty & Cancelled being the other two.)
- The second part of the transformation (when Cartman's body shifts from different forms and he is banging against the walls in a hallway) is a parody of the movie Altered States. It is also reminiscent of the last part of the music video to A-Ha's Take on Me, in which the motorcycle man is banging against the walls in a small hallway, shifting from the regular person to the drawing version, also in a quote from Altered States. One of the forms is also similar to the Thing of the Fantastic Four, as well as Clayface in the final scene of the Batman TAS episode, Feat of Clay, when he is forced to constantly change shape.
- The end of the episode, with the choral music and Cartman smiling at the camera after being promised that he can have anything he wants, is lifted directly from the closing shot of The Omen, although it also reminiscent of A Clockwork Orange.
- In the scene where the first nanny becomes extremely angry, Cartman says "Yes! Let the anger come! Strike me down while you can!" This is a reference to , when Emperor Palpatine tries to turn Luke Skywalker to the dark side by inciting anger in him.
- When Cartman goes to Stan's house, Stan, Kyle, Kenny, and Butters are playing the Xbox 360 with wired controllers. This is only possible with an unauthorized USB hub, since the Xbox 360 can connect only 3 wired controllers.
- When Cartman is agitating the first nanny and she runs out of the house, Cartman grabs a controller from the Xbox 360, and then the nanny goes next to him. When she moves, you can see a second controller, which was supposedly the one Cartman took.
- In the scene where Cartman is handpainting, you can see that he has drunk 5 energy drinks named "Red Balls", a parody of Red Bull. ("Red Balls" is also the name of a crack-based energy drink in a Chappelle's Show sketch.)
- After the time out chair scene, Eric is seen plugging in his Xbox 360 while singing Don't Stop Believin' by the American rock band, Journey .
- Despite what was said in the episode, Nanny Stella is in fact married with two step-children.
- When Cartman went to his mother's room to kill her it was different than in "Best Friends Forever".
- In this episode, Cartman uses the nannies' (Nanny Stella most noticably) weaknesses to get what he wants and to crack them down. This also happens in episode Scott Tenorman Must Die where he uses Scott's parents as his weakness to tramuatize Scott.
External links
| Preceded by: Manbearpig | South Park episodes | Followed by: TBA |
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.