South Park Review

South Park is an adult cartoon series that seems to be withstanding the tests of time. Now on their 19th season, the show always relates to the current events and news. South Park is about four elementary school boys, Cartman, Kenny, Stan, and Kyle, who do outrageous things in their town. The episode I watched aired on October 14th, 2015, titled "You're not Yelping". The episode follows Cartman, Randy (Stan's dad), Gerald (Kyle's dad), as well as many others in the town who use Yelp. In this episode the little town of South Park has grown and with the new found growth, comes new business. With the new business comes people who are reviewing the businesses on Yelp. Each "Yelper" in the episode goes to the businesses and says they are a "food critic" and ask for the best seat, free dessert, etc. The business owners are intimidated by the "Yelpers" at first, only to eventually band together and start a "No Yelpers" campaign in the town; hanging up signs saying things like "We don't care if you are a food blogger". Once the "Yelpers" lose power, they begin to take down businesses in a more literal sense by destroying buildings. The show quickly takes a dark turn and associates the "Yelpers" with terrorist groups like ISIS, even showing ISIS clips at one point in the episode. Eventually the major of the town gives each "Yelper" a gold badge to make them feel special, and businesses let them back into their establishments. With a convenient gold badge to make the "Yelpers" stand out, cooks begin to wipe boogers, defecate, and do other unspeakable things in the "Yelpers" food, all the while making them feel special. This creates a balance where the "Yelpers" still feel important and the businesses are able to get revenge.

The ads that were played during the episode were as follows:
-Ritani.com                                                     -Rock the Kasbah
-CheapOair.com                                             -Tostitos
-Wicked City                                                  -Joe's Crab Shack
-Joe's Crab Shack                                           -Sketchers
-Scion                                                             -Starbucks
-Kentucky Fried Chicken                               -WWE
-Moonbeam City                                            -Xfinity
-Avvo                                                             -Madison-reed.com
-Steve Jobs (the movie)
-Anti-Smoking campaign
-Rock the Kasbah
-Apple Watch
-Hulu
-MoneyMutual.com
-Xout
-Moonbeam City
-QuickenLoans
-Realtor.com
-Our Brand is Priceless
-Kia Optima
-MetroPCS
-South Park
-NBA
-Burger King
-Gamefly

The style of South Park is clearly satirical. In fact, its satirical approach on the episode poking fun on Yelp has put the creators of South Park and Comedy Central in the middle of a 10 million dollar lawsuit. Yelp issued a statement and quickly after, South Park released a statement showing just how sarcastic they can be. I found their response at NBC's website and it read “We’ve taken a hard look at the information presented to us, and after reviewing it, we have given Yelp and their lawsuit only one star. Their lawyers delivered us legal documents in a very unprofessional manner; not bothering to smile or even a quick handshake. The writing on the envelope was barely legible and in two different colors. It is our personal opinion that Yelp could do a much better job by not suing us for ten million dollars.” Kind of have to love their sense of humor. 

South Park is similar to the popular show The Simpsons. Although South Park is a lot more edgy and seems to say whatever they please. After all, here is the warning they display at the beginning of their show:

South Park is one of the few shows that doesn't try to avoid stereotypes, but chooses to embrace them. They have the stereotypical: Jewish family, single mom, Asian restaurant owner, African American family, etc. Essentially, the creators of the show chose to include every stereotype that comes to mind. 

The commercials during the show were clearly directed to men, ages 18 to about 30. Income level of middle class, perhaps even lower middle class with the multiple websites for taking out loans. I don't think I need to get too in depth as to why it is for men 18-30. Fast food, Junk food, Car commercials, I mean they even had a WWE commercial. Showing these commercials on Comedy Central, more specifically, on South Park works well because the adult humor in the show attracts older audiences. But the childish vulgarity generally turns off the female viewer. 

South Park has many strengths. It is a cartoon that has plenty of childish jokes and dark humor for those who enjoy that. Aside from its comical exterior, it also appeals to those who are up on current events. Most episodes are poking fun at current events. For example, one episode bashes on the healthcare.gov website that consistently crashed, as well as pop star Miley Cyrus. The genius of making fun of current events is that most people are already discussing it among each other, making it easy to throw a "Did you see what South Park said about it last night?" into the conversation. 

The weakness of South Park is that it isn't very appealing to wide audiences. For example, if I tell my mom about something clever the show did she is usually interested. But if she sits down to watch it with me it, it takes about 10 minutes for her to say "This show is stupid" and leave. I think older generations dismiss cartoons as "kid shows" whereas my generation takes them for what they are and warm up to them easier.  South Park tends to appeal to a very specific audience and seems to have no interest in broadening it. 

IGN reviewed this episode with a rating of 3 stars out of 5. Although I am somewhat biased to South Park, I would say this is a fair rating. Personally I would give it another star or at least a 3 and a half. But I would agree that this episode didn't make me laugh out loud as much as usual. Making it an average episode. As IGN said, some of the jokes that continued throughout the episode were beat into the ground. 

According to Den of Geek this episode only earned 2.5 stars out of 5. Although where IGN actually picked apart the episode and explained its rating, Den of Geek's review seemed to be a insulted Yelp reviewer who was going to "stick it to the man" by writing a poor review of the show. The review even ended with "But what the hell do I know, I’m just some asshole giving things star ratings on the internet." At least you understand that you are just some unqualified reviewer giving out stars on the internet. 

Personally, I am a pretty big fan of this show. I don't tune in to catch the newest episode every week, but when I see re-runs on, I always watch them. Another great thing about South Park is that you can watch it for free on Comedy Central's website. South Park does a very good job on Social Media posting clips, pictures, updates, and links to watch their show for free.

South Park is a great show for those mature enough to wade through the vulgar and profanity ridden jokes. It doesn't take long to appreciate the deeper political satyr that the show has hidden under the surface.