Chef Goes Nanners
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| South Park episode | |
| "Chef Goes Nanners" | |
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| Episode no. | 55 |
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| Airdate | July 5, 2000 |
| South Park - Season 4 April 5, 2000 – December 20, 2000 |
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| ← Season 3 | Season 5 → |
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| List of all South Park episodes | |
"Chef Goes Nanners" is episode 408 of the Comedy Central series South Park. It originally aired on July 5, 2000.
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[edit] Plot synopsis
The episode begins with Jimbo and Chef in the Mayor's office, arguing over the South Park town flag. Jimbo wants to keep the flag that's been around since the time of their forefathers, while Chef insists it's racist. The Mayor requests that Chef point out what is racist about it as her assistants hold up the flag. Unfurled, the flag in question depicts four white figures hanging a black one on a gallows. The obvious racial characteristics incite Chef's indignation.
In school, the class is assigned to debate the "Change the Flag" issue. Before deciding the teams, the children have a day to do some research. Stan, Kenny and Kyle visit Jimbo and he tells them that the issue of the flag is not about racism but history. Meanwhile, Wendy, Bebe, Clyde and Butters stand alongside Chef outside the supermarket. Chef is gathering support for his cause but the majority of people do not feel strongly about the issue either way. Back at class, Stan and Kyle lead the team of the people who want to keep it the same, and Wendy and Cartman lead the side who want to change it.
During lunch, Kyle and Stan ask Chef for help. Upon hearing that they think the flag should be not changed, Chef, or Abdul Mohammed Jabar Rauf Kareem Ali, which is the name he gave himself after converting to Islam - gets agitated and verbally abusive to the boys. Stan and Kyle are still clueless as to why Chef is upset about the flag.
Wendy leads her team in the library when Cartman suddenly interrupts the process with his own strategy. He gets the team to do dig info on Stan and Kyle, and thereby win the debate using Ad Hominem attacks on their opponents' credibility.
The argument back at city hall gets a bit snafued when a group of the Ku Klux Klan marches up, loudly voicing their support for the current flag, citing it as a symbol of "white power." This makes Jimbo, Ned, and a number of the other flag supporters uneasy, not wanting to be on the same side of any issue as the Klan. In order to remedy this issue, Jimbo and Ned disguise themselves as members of the Klan, sneak into one of their meetings, and suggest that they switch sides and support the flag being changed. The leader is confounded on why they would do so, but Jimbo explains that in order to get the flag to change, they have to be on the side they oppose, thus forcing people on that side to switch since they would not want to be on the same side as the Klan. The leader embraces the idea, and the Klan switches sides. However, upon leaving the meeting, Jimbo and Ned are spotted by Chef, who drives off before they can explain themselves.
Later on, the mayor invites Chef to see the newly designed flag which she believes will be less offensive. In the redesigned flag the black man on the gallows is smiling. Chef leaves the room out of resentment. The mayor cops out, and decides not to make the decision herself, announcing that the outcome of the flag will be determined by the kids' debate. This puts a lot of pressure on Wendy, who, in study sessions, begins to manifest an attraction to Cartman. One night, Wendy has a nightmare about her and Cartman falling in love with each other. She wakes up terrified & screams. Bebe advises her to just kiss Cartman to get it out of her system.
During the debate, Wendy is distracted because she fell in love with Cartman, which builds up a lot of tension. In the end, the debate gets interrupted by Wendy kissing Cartman in front of the whole town to break the built-up tension; this leaves Stan with the same shocked expression on his face for the remainder of the scene while Cartman taunts him from across the room. Meanwhile, Chef and the rest of the adults find out Stan and the members of his team never even saw it as racist, thinking the issue was about one of the figures being killed. They never noticed the race of the flag's figures in the first place, merely seeing five people on the flag.
In the end, ethnic diversity is added to the flag, with people of all races hanging the black man, including a black man among the mob, and all are happy and holding hands. Also, Chef delivers the moral of this story: that his inclination to anti-racism almost made him a racist and perceiving things according to race leads only to further racism. At the last scene, Wendy says she is glad that everything is over with and things can go back to normal. Cartman (obviously distraught and surprised) agrees and laughs nervously. Wendy chases after Stan, leaving Cartman completely alone, who then sighs and walks away sadly.
[edit] Kenny's Death
Kenny explodes after eating a bowl of Kyle's dad's antacids (thinking they were mints) and drinking a glass of water. Following a brief pause, everybody in the room bursts out laughing and clapping, and Stan says, "That was a good one." This is the first (and only) time that anyone has ever laughed at Kenny's death, and one of many times that Stan and Kyle don't say "Oh, my God! They killed Kenny!"/"You bastards!"
[edit] Trivia
- The brief flute passage that begins Wendy's dream sequence is lifted from Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune by Claude Debussy.
- Wendy has a poster of Russell Crowe in her bathroom.
- The horse Cartman rides on in Wendy's dream is similar to the one Jimbo rode on in The Mexican Staring Frog of Southern Sri Lanka.
- This episode parodies the controversies over many Southern states, including the state flag of Georgia, the flying of the Confederate Flag atop the South Carolina State House, and the state flag of Mississippi. The Georgia legislature changed their flag (and changed it again in 2003), South Carolina removed the Confederate flag from the state house, and Mississippi citizens voted to leave their flag as is.
- An alien can be seen in the forest during the scene when Chef confronts Jimbo and Ned after the KKK meeting.
- The scene in which Chef sets the meditating monk on fire is a reference of Thích Quảng Đức, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, who burned himself to death in Saigon in 1963 to protest oppression of the governments position against the buddhist religion.
- The final day of production was going to fall on the 4th of July, and the production staff wanted to see fireworks so bad that they "threw" some nonsensical thing together for the ending. However, according to the commentary, Trey Parker and Matt Stone agree that it wasn't as weird as they thought it had turned out. But they have admitted that it is probably their most "bummer" ending, although it did add some good weight to the episode.
- One KKK member lifts up his robe to reveal a pair of bird feet, similar to that of Big Bird.
- The woman that is sitting next to Chef in the school looks like the fiance from The Succubus.
- Mr. Mackey never says "m'kay" in any of his dialogue in this episode.
- Also, the woman that resembles Chef's fiancè in The Succubus appears farther up the row in one scene showing the crowd and shortly after in the front row again by Chef.
[edit] See also
| Preceded by "Cherokee Hair Tampons" |
South Park episodes | Followed by "Something You Can Do With Your Finger" |
