The Losing Edge
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"The Losing Edge" is episode 905 of the Comedy Central series South Park. It originally aired April 6, 2005.
The boys of South Park are involved in a Little League baseball team, despite the fact that they all hate the sport; they play because of the enthusiasm of their parents. When they win their final game they are initially elated, thinking the season is over, but then discover to their horror that they have to continue playing in the state championships. They decide to lose their next game, and thereby get out of the running for the championship, but the team they oppose has exactly the same idea. While trying desperately to lose, they manage again and again to beat the other team, whose efforts at throwing the game are more effective.
Meanwhile, Stan's father, Randy, is taking up the hobby of being a "trash talking dad," being generally obnoxious at every game so as to get into a fight with other, equally obnoxious fathers. While training to be the best fighter he can be, he becomes terrified when he meets the Denver team's "Bat Dad," who wears a purple Batman cowl and cape, about 300 pounds (136 kg) of fat and a bad attitude. He decides not to attend his son's game, as Stan and the others play the Denver game, which, if they win, will force them to waste the whole summer in the national circuit.
The team drafts Kyle's incredibly stereotypically Jewish cousin, Kyle Schwartz (distinguished in a previous episode as "Kyle One") to join their team, knowing he is just terrible at any sport. Even this fails to work as the other team improved and became "really good at sucking" - they can even "bat themselves out" hitting South Park catchers with precise shots right in the fielders' gloves. Just as it seems the South Park team is sure to win, Stan's dad shows up and begins harassing Bat Dad. The two get into an incredible fight, and the announcers and judges declare that if they continue to fight their teams will be disqualified. With the encouragement of his son and his team (though he doesn't really know why) and other illusionary people in his head (including Micky Goldmill from Rocky), Randy keeps fighting, and the South Park team is disqualified. Stan tells his father, "You're the best," as he is led away in handcuffs by the police in his underwear.
This episode contains few swear words, the ones present being mild, and no bleeped words. This is intentional as many replacement words are used to prevent actual swearing (Aw, spit! Son of a biscuit!). Many people think this pays homage to Bad News Bears though others say the script was just written that way to "screw" with the heads of devout fans.
Trivia
- Kenny can be seen without his parka throughout the episode, although the only times he says anything is when the rest of the kids say something, like "Yeah", "Right" and when the kids are cheering Randy on.
- Kenny's team number is unlucky 13.
- The baseball bat cousin Kyle uses is apparently Token's from "Here Comes the Neighborhood".
- The song Randy trains to is "You're the Best" by Joe Esposito, which is the tournament montage song used in The Karate Kid. Randy can be heard singing the chorus of "I'm [You're] the best, around" when he is fighting Bat Dad.
- The part where Randy tells his wife that he is afraid is very similar to the scene in Rocky III where Rocky tells Adrian his fear of facing Clubber.
- Bat Dad is a spoof of Batman, Thunderlips, and Apollo Creed (the latter two are characters from the Rocky movies). Bat Dad calls himself "the ultimate little league trash talking father," which is a parody of Thunderlips, who called himself "the ultimate male." Bat Dad then says "I want you Marsh! I want you!" Apollo Creed said the same thing to his opponents.
- In the Conifer game, Randy and the other dad scream at the "ref" instead of the umpire, however, in subsequent airings, it is corrected.
- One of the South Park parents calls Bat Dad "Tom Nelson", but later, his wife calls him "Chris."
- The pitcher on the Denver team (with the mustache) resembles Danny Almonte, the fourteen year old kid who pitched a "perfect game" in a little league game
- Randy's attempted training montage is a reference to the 1976 film, Rocky and its sequels.
- The sequence where they travel around to various towns in Colorado playing other teams makes some jokes that might be less obvious to those not familiar with Colorado. For instance, when they are in Greeley, you can see cows in the background. In real life, Greeley is a heavily agricultural town which has a reputation statewide for having a perpetually strong odor of cow manure due to the high cow density there. Also, when they are in Pueblo, all the Pueblo players and fans are Hispanic, and Randy trash talks in Spanish from a Spanish-English dictionary to the fan that he fights with. In real life, Pueblo is a heavily Hispanic populated town.
- The portrayal of Coors Field, both outside and inside, is remarkably realistic and accurate, except that the seats in Coors are actually mostly green instead of the red as shown.
- Randy wakes up early wearing a hooded sweatshirt and sweatpants. He cracks open some eggs and pours them into a glass as if to drink them like Rocky Balboba did, but then he pours them in a frying pan to make an omelette and drinks a beer instead. (John Candy did this once in a Rocky parody Second City Television sketch, but it's likely a coincidence.)
- Also an off-key version of "Rocky's Theme" can be heard playing at certain parts throughout the episode; though some disagree stating it is a mock version of the theme from the Karate Kid.
- As Randy wakes up the radio announcer can be heard saying "The Beatles from The White Album; Helter Skelter"
- The third time Randy gets arrested, one of the officers is shown without a mouth.
| Preceded by: Best Friends Forever | South Park episodes | Followed by: The Death of Eric Cartman |
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