The Big Picture: Out of the Park

brainslurper

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Aug 18, 2009
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Primus1985 said:
Im kinda torn on the subject of South Park personally. I whole hearty agree with bob that people shouldnt try to take South Park as a philosophy,(which begs the question of how moronic americans are that they take advise from that) however as far as the show goes...Meh


I used to like it, hell I'd eagerly await new episodes for awhile, but lately within the past few years its been very hit and miss. The Cartoon Wars and Imaginationland eps where my favorites in the series, but those gems are the few diamonds. I feel that within the past 3-4 years Matt and Trey have gone a bit far with some of the jokes and jabs not necessarily things that even need to be joked about.


Really alot of South Park is a little on the extreme side, I know thats part of the gag but even Family Guy doesnt go so far.

Ive grown out of SP and I dont think I'll really watch it again.
What episode of south park do you feel has gone too far?
 

TheSchaef

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Feb 1, 2008
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I am disappoint; I thought Bob's lapse into his Baaahhhhhston accent was a subtle play at changing the continuity of his own production and "expecting" the viewers to carry on just as though nothing had happened. You know, like your standard Geoff Johns ret-con. Turns out I was overthinking it.

Speaking of overthinking, it could just be me, but the irony of the Starship Troopers comparison is that, while the original Heinlein novel was a pretty rah-rah-military affair, I interpreted the tone of the recent film adaptation as being more satirical in nature, telling a lot of the same story, but with a tongue in one's cheek as the realization dawns that war is cyclical, we're not so different from the bugs, and as per the newsreels, we have always been at war with Eastasia.

The one thing that always irked me as being the lynchpin of some gen-Xer's philosophy is the movie Fight Club. Yes, it was a good film, and yes, it brought Brad Pitt out of the long-haired pretty-boy phase of his career into the short-spiky-cut shades-wearing badass phase, and yes, it was a good treatise on nihilism, though not to the extent of the book. But there was a better movie about a lot of the same concepts of nihilism and free thought and subversion of establishment that came out in the same year... I think it was called The Matrix or something.

But the quality of the film notwithstanding, it drives me nuts when people get all like "Fight Club totally redefined my life" and so forth. It's a MOVIE. You guys remember that part where Ed Norton was trying to "awaken" the brainwashed masses in the Durden compound, shouting at them "YOU ARE ALL INDIVIDUALS" and they respond in their bland monotone "we are aaallll indiviiiiiduals"... they think they've been set free from an oppressive establishment, when in fact they just fell into another collective with the illusion of freedom because they are TOLD they are free and don't have the will or self-awareness to establish that for themselves. When your entire perspective on life, the universe, and everything is based on a MOVIE that was designed to EXTRACT MONEY from you so that the studio can PROFIT from your entertainment and so-called enlightenment, guess what? THAT'S YOU. YOU ARE THEM. WAKE UP, FIGHT CLUB DOUCHEBAG! /rant over

Also, Bob... WHERE ARE SAMURAI PIZZA CATS?!? WE DEMAND SATISFACTION!
 

Irony's Acolyte

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Mar 9, 2010
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I have to agree. I've never looked to South Park for a coherent ideology. It's always been a light-heartened show that uses satire to take down all sorts of things a peg or two. The fact that it pokes fun at beliefs all across the board (as opposed to other shows) means I have no problem with it having a sacred cow roast because I know it's just having some fun and showing the ridiculousness of certain things (some being more ridiculous than others).

Also, was not expecting that accent change.
 

gphjr14

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Aug 20, 2010
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SP has always been hit or miss with me. They often bring up important topics but they often neglect to show the big picture (no pun intended) and over simplify complex issues and for the young audience that watches it can be harmful, because they use half formulated arguments from a cartoon as a reference for their opinion. Instead of I don't know an actual book or something.
 

KarlMonster

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Mar 10, 2009
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Alas, the point seems to have been missed.

Or maybe it wasn't, but I think so. It seems to me that there's a strangely large group of 'trumpeters', or 'parrot'-ers, who will latch onto not only South Park-isms, but any particularly useful sound byte that supports their ideas. Or what someone has told them their ideas are.

Once the parroting starts, its pretty obvious that these guys have been eating up somebody else's idealogy with a spoon and a fork. Yet its impossible to take away a complete philosophy from curiously narrow opinions - regardless of how authoritative they are. So the obvious way to set about buttressing their positions is in the same way as they started; grabbing onto more sound bytes and fragments of popular culture. Logic and critical thinking didn't fall by the wayside, they were discarded before step one.
_____________
Hey Bob! You made a suggestion in a Junk Drawer spot, and I'd like to see you follow up on it. And if there's not enough material for 5 minutes, you could make it a two-for. You see, I would really like to see a retrospective review for Big Trouble in Little China. Maybe as a two-for with Escape from New York. See, I have this nutty idea that Carpenter was trying to put horror elements in EFNY, but Carpenter's idea of horror is just to have sorta creepy stuff in the background with audio stingers when they blandly emerge. It's all for nothing because Carpenter's monsters aren't particularly scary. So EFNY ended up being half an action flick in the ruins of an awful horror film. But BTiLC was always pretty darn cool.
 

Jake Martinez

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JPArbiter said:
Were people really making THAT MUCH of a deal out of his Bostonian accent? Seriously? I thought it was general knowlege this guy was from New England, and people from New England sound weird. heck his broadcast voice sounds Bostonian to me, maybe cause I am a midwesterner.
Same. He gives it a valliant effort but he doesn't quite nail the generic middle american broadcast accent 100%.

One thing that I find kind of amusing is that after a few years of living down here in Australia I can't fucking understand many regional American accents anymore, but I can make out what a drunken bogan is screaming at 3 o clock in the morning.

I guess you just get used to it...
 

Frankfurter4444

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Aug 11, 2009
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I was always under the impression that manbearpig was less about global warming and more about how annoying it was that Al Gore wanted people to pay attention to him since no one cared about anything he had to say. But yeah, I see your point.

South Park is a great show. I hope no one mistakes it as anything more than that.
 

Saarai-fan

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Nov 12, 2009
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Saw this episode once, and it's great.

However, the episode has recently been having problems loading. Tried watching them on other computers and it keeps taking forever to load, if not loading at all.

Hope it can get fixed soon. Where do I go to the Escapist to make a complaint?
 

JPArbiter

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Oct 14, 2010
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Jake Martinez said:
JPArbiter said:
Were people really making THAT MUCH of a deal out of his Bostonian accent? Seriously? I thought it was general knowlege this guy was from New England, and people from New England sound weird. heck his broadcast voice sounds Bostonian to me, maybe cause I am a midwesterner.
Same. He gives it a valliant effort but he doesn't quite nail the generic middle american broadcast accent 100%.

One thing that I find kind of amusing is that after a few years of living down here in Australia I can't fucking understand many regional American accents anymore, but I can make out what a drunken bogan is screaming at 3 o clock in the morning.

I guess you just get used to it...
having worked briefly in both voice acting and broadcast he actually performs admirably in toning down the Boston. not every broadcaster needs to sound like they are from Kansas City, just that wide swath of soil between Indianapolis and Denver.
 

Hannabella Doe

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May 7, 2011
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With the show South Park, I'm not a big fan, but I have an interesting history of the show. I was a toddler when the show was on, and with the colourfulness of the show, I wanted to see it, but my parents wouldn't let me watch it. Then later in my kid to tween years, I'd try to watch the show late at night on Comedy Network (the canadian equivalent of Comedy Central.) I often just watch bits of, so I wouldn't get caught. It wasn't until I was in my early teens that I was able to watch it, I rented the season 9 DVD, I own the movie on DVD, and I even got a kenny doll for christmas.I don't watch it as much anymore, because I don't watch a lot of TV and I can't watch it online for some reason. But I think the reason I enjoyed it was because it was something I wasn't suppose to watch, so with the taboo gone, it's not as interesting. I love this episode, and I was just explaining how much South Park means to me as the animated forbidden fruit.
 

SnakeoilSage

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Sep 20, 2011
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I don't turn to South Park for my political/ideological views. I watch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart for that.

When he turns to the camera and gives the same "are you buying this shit?" smile Dennis Miller once gave before he turned into "because I'm old enough to not care about anyone else" Republican, I feel an urge to smile back and say "no, I'm not buying that shit, either."

That's the extennt of my polticial outlook.