Keeping It Fresh

Tonight marks the season finale of the tenth season of South Park. Has it really been ten seasons? Damn that makes me feel old. I first started watching South Park when I was in grad school and it quickly became one of my favorite shows.

But after ten seasons you have to start to wonder when will enough be enough. Since it’s an animated show where you don’t see the actors age, it could conceivably go on for another ten seasons as long as nothing happens to the show’s creators, Matt Stone and Trey Parker. But after a while, even though the characters don’t age much (the boys have gone from the third to the fourth grade over the last 10 years), they can get stale.

Just look at The Simpsons. For years it was my favorite show. But as the 18th season was about to begin this year, I just decided that I was tired of the show and had been watching it just out of habit. Sure it was still one of the funniest shows on television, but I had had my fill of Homer and the gang. I had seen them in almost every conceivable scenario and every “new” episode just seemed to echo shows from the past. Since it didn’t appear that the creators had any plans of pulling the plug, I had to take matters into my own hands and launch my personal boycott of the show.

Fortunately South Park is still a ways from season 18 and this season has been a pretty good one. My favorite episode this year was “Make Love, Not Warcraft” in which the kids become obsessed with an on-line computer game. As a video game addict, I identified with the kids and got a good laugh out of all the jokes making fun of folk like me. I don’t play games on-line, but I know enough about it to see what a great job the show did of capturing the culture. Sure, it’s an old stereotype that video game players are fat and have no lives, but the show did more than just focus on that.

I also really identified with the two-part “Cartoon Wars” episode. In the episode, Cartman is obsessed with putting an end to the show The Family Guy, which planned to show an image of Muhammad. Cartman hates The Family Guy because he doesn’t like the show’s humor and all the other boys are surprised. The show resonated with me because my friend Vayacondios was shocked when I told him I didn’t like The Family Guy and told me he thought it was exactly my type of humor. I wouldn’t go so far as to try to take the show off the air, but this was one of those rare times I found myself siding with Cartman.

“Miss Teacher Bangs a Boy” was another hilarious episode this season in which a teacher has a torrid love affair with Kyle’s little brother Ike. I was wondering when the show would finally tackle the topic of female teachers having affairs with young boys and the show didn’t disappoint. “The Return of Chef!” was a bittersweet episode for me. It was a great episode but it also marked the departure of Chef after Isaac Hayes, the voice of Chef, asked to leave the show due to the airing of an episode on Scientology the previous season. Finally, I really enjoyed the “Tsst” episode, as detailed in an earlier posting this month.

Of course the season was far from perfect and there were some clunkers. The two biggest culprits for me were “Smug Alert!” and “ManBearPig.” Although in fairness to the show, my dislike for the episodes might have a little to do with my left-wing leanings. “ManBearPig” focused on ridiculing Al Gore and his warnings about global warming. I don’t mind if the show goes after Gore, I just think they could have been funnier about it. “Smug Alert!” dealt with hybrid car owners and their smug attitudes. Since I haven’t run across smug hybrid car owners, the humor rang hollow for me.

But all in all, it’s been another fantastic season. I look forward to tonight’s finale and as long as the show stays fresh, another season next year.