South Park. Truly the bane of ‘adult’ animation. I put ‘adult’ in scare quotes because it qualifies as such only insofar as the subject matters involved are traditionally considered inappropriate for children (but they’ll probably enjoy them anyway). Other than maybe Fritz the Cat, no other creation has set the bar so low for the genre, where approximately half of the humour consists of reminding us that bodily functions exist, along with gore, cursing, narcotics, alcohol, and all those other stuffs we grown-ups like. Ayup, we sure do like ’em. Yup, yup.

Although the show does sometimes involve subjects that would be more interesting to grown-ups than to kids, the way that the writers integrate these subjects is both shallow and unrewarding, like when Stan Marsh’s parents (very briefly) divorce only for the writers to hit the reset button at the end. You can find an episode where the kids indirectly infect their parents with herpes as petty revenge for the parents’ plan to infect their kids with chicken pox, but good luck trying to find an episode that explores the various challenges with which somebody with AIDS has to deal.

I had the idea of writing my own impressions of the third season after choosing to suffer through the second, because I have to admit, there is a part of me that has a morbid fascination with this series. Maybe it is because I have fond memories of watching it with my sometime overly permissive father, or because it was one of my earliest exposures to Judaism (I still remember Kyle summarizing his faith as ‘We don’t believe in Jesus’, and I don’t know why I always remembered that), or maybe it is because of Wendy Testaburger, the only character for whom I have any sympathies. I should loathe this series more than I already do, but I don’t.

If you have other things that you would rather be doing than reading the rantings of somebody griping about an ancient season of an overrated cartoon, then I certainly wouldn’t blame you, but I promise that I’ll try to handle these summaries succinctly. So, let’s see how well this season has held up.

Rainforest Shmainforest: Mr. Garrison’s classroom being apathetically irresponsive to their cheery special guest is one of the sporadic moments when the show makes me smile, partly because it reminds me of real situations, and partly because it unintentionally summarizes my own relationship with this series. Somehow, Craig quietly flipping off the school counsellor made me smile too, even though it’s a very simple joke. Oh, and if you noticed that I skipped over a lot, it’s because I found it boring and nobody wants to spend hours reading me commenting on how boring most of the jokes are (though I do want to try it a few times because some of these jokes are tedious to the point of suffering).

‘We’re here live in San José, Costa Rica, where hundreds of rich Americans have gathered for the Save the Rain Forest summit. Everyone is here so they can feel good about themselves, and act like they aren’t the ones responsible for the rainforest’s peril.’ I did not laugh at this joke, but it is nice to see a hint of criticism of the white upper classes. Unfortunately, seeing as how they’re partly responsible for this series, I am sure that they could take one of these at their own expense.

One of the few parts of this episode that I do remember, along with the failed comedian, is the tribe nearly sacrificing the choir director to some giant indigene, in a scene inspired by King Kong. At the time it was almost shocking for me seeing her angrily cursing the rainforest, but now what bothers me more about this episode is its hateful representation of hunter-gatherers. This truly is a show made for casual white supremacists.

Boring jokes and racial stereotypes aside, this is a lousy story mostly because it glosses over the valuable benefits that rainforests do have. I did a search for the uncited statistics at the episode’s end, and I learned that ‘over 25% of the active ingredients in today’s cancer-fighting drugs come from organisms found only in the Rainforest’ — to say nothing of how rainforests deter climate change. Just because an environment is hazardous for humans does not mean that we need to get rid of it, otherwise there’d be far fewer mines in the world, and I am guessing that there’re no episodes about those.

One last observation: as far as I can tell, there are no professional rebuttals to this episode, which is actually kind of disturbing.

Spontaneous Combustion: I like how the writers conveniently forgot about the mad scientist Mephesto, who would have been perfect for this episode… oh wait, they do include him, but only to make a joke about a seven-assed turtle. lol randommmmmmmmmmmmmmm—oh, and as petty revenge for failing to receive the award that Randy Marsh got, Mephesto blamed Randy Marsh for global warming (which is totally not real, btw).

This is a boring episode. Admittedly, I did smile when Stan Marsh misattributed a Wrath of Khan quote to J.C., smiled when Whoopi Goldberg took a few potshots at Republicans (even if they were deliberately low-effort), and I smiled very gently seeing the Mayor read a softcorn magazine, but overall this is such a generic episode. The writers try to subvert your expectations by inserting rude awakenings, but that only works if you feel emotionally invested in what’s going on (see Brazil for a good example), and don’t even get me started on the bowel humor…

The Succubus: Mr. Derp made me chuckle, not because I enjoyed his gags, but because it’s funny seeing a boring comedy try to make fun of lousy comedians, like Washington saying that it needs to enforce human rights in every country but the United States.

This episode has a really tedious joke where Chef’s dad recounts his wacky encounters with a lochness monster and how it always wants $3.50 — which the dad consistently pronounces as ‘tree fiddy’, because AAVE is very amusing to us honkies.

At the end, Cartman decides that even though his eyes healed, he wants to have Kenny’s eyes… because… I have no fucking clue. Did I overlook something? Is it supposed to be funny because lolrandom? Or because he hates Kenny? I rewatched the ending twice and I still don’t get it.

Jakovasaurs: Has anybody ever noticed that Cartman’s misbehavior makes no sense? His mother treats him well to the point of spoiling him yet he repeatedly misbehaves anyway. He is presumably neither joking nor exaggerating when he says that he hates his friends, yet they hang out with each other anyway. People mock him dozens of times yet he never seems to get used to it. Nothing about this kid makes sense to me. I was also mildly baffled that there was no closure for Cartman in this particular episode, but that’s neither here nor there.

The only time that I smiled was when they took Jr. Deputy Cartman to see an animal, which turned out to just be Kenny with branches on his head. The rest of this episode was about reminding us that Jar Jar Binks is annoying and unfunny, but again, it only comes across as pathetic when your own show isn’t funny either. You know what is funny, though? Trying to pander to your audience, and failing!

Hey, did I ever tell you that some of these jokes haven’t aged well after two decades?

Tweek vs. Craig: Kenny happily attending home economics class is actually pretty cute. I know that the joke was ‘haha, men who care about home economics are gay’, but I’m not in the mood to be picky. I was so bored that I smiled slightly when Cartman alleged that Tweek called Craig coprophagous. Normally I know better than to find amusement in something like that.

‘Boxing is a man’s sport.’ This is another rare instance when the series is only unintentionally funny.

There is a really tedious subplot where the shop class instructor can’t get over the loss of his wife. I smiled slightly when he saw visions of his loved ones in Kenny’s hood, but since I don’t typically enjoy lolrandom, I think that you’ll trust me when I say that I must have been desperate for mirth. Overall, this is a boring episode. The ending was predictable, too, but maybe that goes without saying.

Sexual Harassment Panda: Ah, so this is the origin of the phrase ‘that makes me a sad panda.’

I did a search for ‘how many sexual harassment lawsuits succeed’ and this page indicates that

one study cited in the report found that 90% of individuals who say they have experienced harassment never take formal action against the harassment, such as filing a charge or a complaint. […] in FY 2021, 28.6% of sexual harassment resolutions were resolved favorably to the worker.

Yes, even in the era of #MeToo, only about a quarter of sexual harassment cases resolve in favour of the employée, and most of the time charges are simply never filed at all. The reluctance should be easy to understand: many of us are simply too ashamed to talk about sexual harassment that we received and do not expect others to take our allegations seriously, so it is common for us to simply quit instead. While there has been a modest increase in lawsuits lately, we still have a long way to go before we get anywhere close to the lawsuit dystopia as depicted in this episode.

I want to touch on something else, since this time the writers are transgressing on my territory:

You see, Kyle, we live in a liberal, democratic society. And Democrats make sexual harassment laws. These laws tell us what we can and can’t say in the workplace. And what we can and can’t do in the workplace.

Isn’t that fascism?

No, because we don’t call it fascism.

No, it isn’t fascism mostly because fascism was much more complex than that, but also because fascism was heavily biased in favor of employers over workers. Yes, technically fascism did regulate speech and action in the workplace, but this is an oversimplification that misses the point. No less important: the fascists committed sexual harassment—to put it mildly—against a great many people, such as Eritreans, Spanish Republicans, and Jewesses.

It really disappoints me seeing a Jewish adult display such a shallow understanding of Fascism, considering that they were among its greatest victims, but we gentiles are usually no better in our grasp of the topic.

Overall, an unneeded episode, mostly because I really doubt that it has ever been normal for frivolous lawsuits to succeed, and I can think of so many worse things than giving tax dollars to somebody who became a victim of sexual harassment.

Cat Orgy: The closest that I came to smiling was when a fat stray cat unsuccessfully attempted to copulate with Cartman’s cat, muffling her. That is the best thing that I can say about this truly grating episode. I can be generous and add that it was almost pleasant seeing Cartman collaborate and make peace with Stan’s sister, but that is very low praise. What a waste of time.

Two Guys Naked in a Hot Tub: This episode has a surprisingly healthy message: it tells heterosexuals not to be concerned with whether or not they did something homoerotic with each other. It may be less necessary now, but it was certainly a good idea for the 1990s. I also have to give this some credit for showing little kids behaving realistically (for once). With all of that being said, I was still pretty bored watching this.

Jewbilee: I am going to be honest: it is nice to have one episode centered on Judaism, and while it probably wasn’t a joke, I smiled slightly when Kyle said ‘Jesus Christ’ as an expletive. That said, the ‘ironic’ antisemitism in this story is too predictable, and I already make jokes about how Judaism is just a reskin of Christianity (which it definitely isn’t). Maybe if it had been fresher or more stylish I would have smirked, but as it is I can only feel either ashamed or disinterested.

One of the jokes involves an elder looking at an East Asian child in the audience, and dismissing him by giving him something to do. Maybe the writers already knew of it, but ethnocentrism and unintentional racism are real problems within white Jewish communities, and the showrunners botched this opportunity to comment on that.

I feel weird saying this since I was rarely amused, but so far this is the episode in which I had the most emotional investment—which isn’t saying much, but it is worth noting all the same. My weakness for Judaism and the script’s lack of bowel humour made it a very tolerable experience, and Kenny sacrificing himself to save others, rather than dying for a cheap laugh, was also a much welcomed change of pace.

By the way, check out how the Chinese translators rewrote this episode for their translation!

Korn’s Groovy Pirate Ghost Mystery: Another episode that I remember watching with my dad. I found it odd that they buried Kyle’s grandmother in a gentile cemetery, but the rest of the episode is very boring, filled with jokes that go on for way too long. I almost smirked when the Korn band members turned into foodstuff, but that was the closest that I got to laughing. One nice touch: it was mildly clever how Kenny dressed as ED-209, seeing as how the real ED-209 brutalized somebody named Kinny in RoboCop, but this is a very minor compliment.

Chinpokomon: ‘You see, son, fads come and go, and this Chinpokomon is obviously nothing more than a fad.’ I had to pause here; I love the unintentional irony in this statement. Data indicate that South Park has actually been experiencing a modest decline in ratings for a long time now, and it is only going to become more and more dated as adult audiences’ tastes become more sophisticated. Pokémon, in contrast, is still here and isn’t going anywhere. In fact, the recent releases Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet sold 26.38 million copies by December 2024. Maybe Pokémon is more niche than it was in the ’90s, but it hasn’t vanished from production like many other fads have.

I don’t have much else to say about this one. You might have expected me to say more given that Japanese Imperialism is a theme here, but the way that they portrayed it here is mostly uninteresting to me, save for the (unintentional?) irony in Yankees being unhappy with Japanese bases on their soil. There is a really tedious joke where two Japanese men manipulate the Yankees by complimenting their penile size and contrasting it with their allegedly inferior size, and it’s grating how often they repeat it and how long it takes for them to tell the joke.

Hooked on Monkey Fonics: ‘What means “kiss”?’ That summarises how incoherent this story is. These kids are so smart that they win spelling bees and understand little-taught history, but they don’t know what kissing is? Not even from their parents? Yeah, right. The showrunners want to tell their audience that homeschooled kids are socially awkward by default, but I’d be surprised if they interacted with them before.

The harassment that I suffered at public school is a major reason why my parents took me out of it. The script acknowledges this phenomenon in public schooling, but the way that the showrunners deal with this is very anticlimactic; their only advice seems to be that you have to act like a prick, too. Why should everybody have to do that?

I’d like to digress for a moment: I made an account for the Penny Arcade forum back in 2007, one of the biggest mistakes that I ever made online, and basically I couldn’t even blink my eyes without some fuck raging at me. I once wrote, ‘I never considered socializing to be an important part of school’, and sure enough, somebody spewed an ableist slur at me. My statement should have been a warning sign that maybe something went wrong in my childhood… but no, he immediately concluded that the fault lied with me, which is such hideously lazy thinking that I can’t even begin to describe it.

Starvin’ Marvin in Space: One minute in and I already despise this episode. The depiction of ‘Africa’ (nowhere specific, just ‘Africa’… oh, excuse me, it’s supposed to be Ethiopia) as ridiculously primitive, the inhabitants as being unfamiliar with Christianity, and being so clueless about modernity that they don’t even know how to handle a book properly almost makes my blood boil. You can argue that the writers were trying to make fun of white Westerners’ ignorant conception of the continent, but when your ‘satire’ is so lazy that it is practically identical to the very problem that it acknowledges, it is pretty easy for everybody to miss the point.

One thing that I enjoyed was seeing the natives stare in awe at the extraterrestrial craft, which reminded me of the Ariel Phenomenon. I get the feeling that the similarity was probably coincidental, but I’ll take what I can get.

‘But they’re just kids, we can’t torture them!’ A CIA officer stating this in private is arguably the most unrealistic feature in this story. (Yes, maybe even more unrealistic than the extraterrestrials.) I have to admit, though, that the CIA tormenting the boys by rubbing a balloon does amuse me slightly… then the episode quickly descends into ‘haha, fat people are gross’ jokes.

I don’t know if we were supposed to take it seriously, but the moral suggests that we should simply move people from an impoverished area to an opulent one to increase their standard of living, which only contradicts a moral in a later episode that satirised white Americans’ anger with immigrants (depicted as ‘people from the future’). Anyway, this is a boring episode.

The Red Badge of Gayness: Why does Stan care if Cartman is absent from an orientation?

I have to say, though, that Cartman’s plot to convert a Civil War reenactment into a battle where the South wins is almost ingenious. Seeing (drunken) Southern reenactors surprise the Northern ones by beating them is exciting to watch, and it is mildly amusing seeing Cartman praise his troops as fighting for their freedom. I even laughed seeing this army take over Topeka.

I never expected to say this, but I actually enjoyed this episode, and it is the only one that I would recommend. There are a few boring bits, such as the beginning, and the letters from Cartman overstay their welcome, but most of this is just good fun. Cartman’s ridiculously ambitious attempt to rewrite history with a bunch of inebriated reenactors makes for an entertaining adventure where you’ll wonder just how far they’ll go; it’s wacky in a charming way that doesn’t feel forced or desperate at all.

If you are curious enough to watch one episode from season 3, go with this one. It isn’t a masterpiece, and I would never tell anybody to see it as soon as possible, but by South Park’s standards it’s really good.

Mr. Hankey’s Christmas Classics: Aaaaaaand we’re back to shit, figuratively as well as literally. Admittedly, it doesn’t help that I rarely enjoy musicals anyway (Pink Floyd: The Wall is one exception), but this particular instance is notable because it almost feels as if the showrunners were consciously trying to be obnoxious. Many of South Park’s worst qualities are here, only in musical form: tedium, unimpressive edginess, and plenty of reminders, just in case you forgot, that bowel movements exist (and it sure would be funny if they had their own behavior, wouldn’t it). I cannot roll my eyes far enough.

Everything feels overly long. I actually said out loud ‘Yes, I get it’ as Mr. Mackey’s segment progressed. This is my least favorite episode of the season, and that’s saying something. It doesn’t get more tedious than this… or does it?

Are You There God? It’s Me, Jesus: I think that the showrunners might have invented a new treatment for insomnia.

World Wide Recorder Concert: Oh my G-d, what a bore. Mr. Garrison wishes that his father had—get ready for this knee-slapper—abused him as a child, but he didn’t, so he repeatedly and continuously tempts his father to abuse him! Don’t you love it, it’s just so fucking random. This continues into a bar scene and the joke goes on for-fucking-ever. It is so tedious that I honestly contemplated tuning out. The climax involves playing a certain note that somehow causes everybody in the world to defecate. Typical.

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Welp, I finally did it. I watched this entire season. So, here are my concluding thoughts:

You could argue that the ’90s era was better in that it was less hateful and less preachy than the later seasons would be. As best as I can remember, there were no potshots at transgender people, though it did approach that border by revealing Ms. Cartman to be a hermaphrodite (triggering emesis in several men), and transvestitism was a joke in a few instances. It could have been worse, but there were signs that the worst was going to come sooner or later.

This leads me to my next point: there is certainly some vileness in here. There is the casual racism (especially against East Asians), the generic misogyny, the heterosexism, jokes about fat people, jokes about disabled people, and all of it is done shamelessly. This is reason enough to ignore this series, but the humour fails, too.

This is a series that tries so hard to offend, but if you’ve already been around the block a few times, there is nothing offensive here, or at least, there is nothing shocking here. I have read about Axis war crimes and the Western Bloc’s atrocities numerous times, so I know what shocking content looks like. South Park is not shocking, and it is ‘offensive’ only insofar as you’ll most likely cringe, groan, facepalm, and roll your eyes throughout many of the ‘inappropriate’ jokes. If you are like me, then you are too old and too depressed to feel outraged at what’s on display here.

Admittedly, I can understand why somebody, even an educated adult, would find approximately half of the jokes funny, but I have seen most of these techniques already, so I usually feel nothing when I see them. I can and have watched entire episodes like I was staring at a grey sheet of wallpaper, but anybody who knows me can confirm that I still have a sense of humor.

The last issue is one that it shares with ‘adult’ cartoons in general, in that much of the content is not adult so much as it is simply inappropriate (something already present in many children’s cartoons), and that is a major reason why I honestly don’t blame everybody who mistook this for a children’s cartoon. I bet that you could censor and strip down certain episodes to make them more kid-friendly without sacrificing most or all of the script in the process—e.g. Tweek vs. Craig—because not all of these plots feel specific to adulthood. Such modifications would be more difficult for Close Enough and especially Fired on Mars, both of which are leagues ahead of South Park in nearly every single way.

To sum it all up: this season, much like the series in general, is a waste of time. Unless you are a huge fan of Mary Kay Bergman (alav hashalom), only one episode (The Red Badge of Gayness) out of seventeen is worth watching, and if you would still rather be doing anything else then I certainly would not hold that against you. Thank you to anybody who read this far.