Cancelled (South Park)

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“Cancelled”
South Park episode
A giant taco that poops ice cream
Episode no.	Season 7 Episode 100
Written by	Trey Parker Matt Stone
Directed by	Trey Parker
Production no.	704
Original airdate	March 19, 2003
Season 7 episodes
South Park - Season 7 March 19, 2003 – December 17, 2003
I'm a Little Bit Country Krazy Kripples Toilet Paper Cancelled Fat Butt and Pancake Head Lil' Crime Stoppers Red Man's Greed South Park Is Gay! Christian Rock Hard Grey Dawn Casa Bonita All About Mormons Butt Out Raisins It's Christmas in Canada

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List of South Park episodes

"Cancelled" is the 97th episode of the Comedy Central series South Park to be released. It originally aired on March 19, 2003.

In terms of production, this is the 100th episode, though "I'm a Little Bit Country" was actually aired as such. The episode is a satire of the 100 episodes concept, a commonly accepted idea that a show needs to have produced at least 100 episodes in order to be financially successful in syndication. Its production as the 100th episode was also alluded to in a joke in the episode.

1 Plot
2 References to popular culture
- 2.1 References to other South Park episodes
3 The “Joozians”
4 Censorship
5 South Park continuity

[edit] Plot

This episode begins almost identically to the first episode, "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe", with Cartman arriving and talking about a dream where he was abducted by aliens. Unlike the previous episode, however, Ike Broflovski says more profane statements like "Suck my balls" and "Don't kick the goddamn baby!" When the children realize they're stuck in a "repeat," they and Chef decide to do something about the anal probe Cartman has; they first see a proctologist, then a scientist. Cartman then refuses to activate the satellite unless Kyle is the one who sticks his finger into his ass. Cartman torments Kyle by continually farting, and finally Kyle gets fed up and plugs him. The scientist, called Jeff, discovers that he can reverse the polarity of the message that the alien ship is transmitting by saying one random thing (candy bars) and working his way through Word Association (Candy bars usually come in a wrapper, like wrapping a Christmas present; Christmas comes when it's cold, as in Alaska — that's polar bears, and from there the scientist reaches the word "polarity"). Then a group of Visitors show up, and the children and Chef flee in Dukes Of Hazzard form. However, the children are ultimately abducted.

The kids wake up on the ship, and meet Najix, an alien who looks like Stan's dad, explaining to them that he chose an appearance that would be most pleasing to them. The disappointed children say it's like the movie Contact which "sucked." He shows his true form, a terrifying monster, so the children have him go through a series of transformations, mostly of celebrities, until Cartman suggests "a giant taco that craps ice cream". Najix then explains he and the other aliens make a reality show called Earth, all of Earth's species, such as Asians, bears, ducks, Jews, deer and Hispanics, are taken from seventeen different planets for the purposes of the show, and everyone around the world is unknowningly being filmed and watched, which the scientist discovers at the same time on Earth by translating the binary code that resulted from reversing the polarity of the message (he realised it was binary through more Word Association stemming from "butt sex"); he proceeds to tell everyone, which leads the alien network heads to cancel the show and prepare to destroy the Earth. The scientist concludes that the show is cancelled thanks to associating the term "chaos theory" up to "cancelled", then uses his Word Association skills with the word "jackets" to come up with a plan to send the ship a computer virus to disable their computers, but Chef responds, "That doesn't make any Goddamned sense!"

The boys go to Planet Fognl to meet the alien heads, who are "Joozians", a species that control all media in the Universe. The aliens don't listen to the boys, but insist on taking them to lunch, a "hekma" (topless) bar, then get a prostitute's hotel room. The two Joozians then, very drunk and high on "blach", begin sucking on each others' "jagons" and sticking their fingers in each others "thrushers", actions depicted as being highly erotic and, as it seems, inappropriate. Kenny takes a picture of it, and the boys then blackmail the aliens with it. The Joozians agree to erase everyone's memory of the truth about Earth, then send the oblivious boys back to their own planet. Kenny still has the picture, and though no one can remember what it is, Chef tells Kenny to keep it, as he feels sure that it's something very important. The episode ends with another advertisement for Earth.

[edit] References to popular culture

The sound of the power shutting down when Jeff tries to reverse the polarity is the sound of opening and closing doors from the game Doom.
The alien construction (and tearing down) of Earth is a reference to Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
The opening of the decrypted alien reality-TV show resembles the initial opening of Star Trek: The Next Generation, that was only used during the first and second season.
The episode makes reference to Klingons from Star Trek when it mentions the TV show Get Me Out of Here, I'm a Klingnanian.
The alien chase scene in the first act parodies the archetypal chase scene in The Dukes of Hazzard, including the freeze-frame narration that would occur before fading to commercial. A caricature of Boss Hogg can be seen on a billboard during the chase scene, with the words “Eat Big Pig's BBQ.” The alien giving chase also impersonates the cackling laugh of Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane.
The children wake up aboard the alien ship, sealed into cubicles with a slimy substance. This is a reference to Fire in the Sky and the Alien movies. However, Cartman initially believes that he is stuck inside Helen Hunt’s ass.
The aliens’ car is a 1997 – 2005 Buick Century, complete with a mock Buick emblem.
The Saddam Hussein form the shapeshifting alien takes on and the song he sings is a parody of the classic 1955 Warner Bros. cartoon One Froggy Evening.
The other forms that Najix takes on aside from the ones described above are Santa Claus (which only Cartman is excited to see), Michael Jordan (in his Chicago Bulls uniform), Don King, Mr. Roarke and Tattoo of Fantasy Island (Cartman finds it impressive that a single shapeshifting alien can turn into two separate things at once), George Burns, J.J. Evans of Good Times (complete with "Dy-no-mite!" catchphrase), Saddam Hussein, Missy Elliott and finally, Frank Sinatra.
The scientist, named Jeff, trying to help the boys and Chef looks like a South Park version of Jeff Goldblum. In a reference to Independence Day, when puzzling out alien technology and action, Jeff Goldblum’s character follows unlikely chains of thought to come to conclusions that, curiously, turn out to be exactly correct.
Another Independence Day reference is Chef’s yelling at the visitors, much like Will Smith’s character does after the aliens in Independence Day crash their ship.
Independence Day is also referenced in the plot point about uploading a virus to the alien ships, which is pointed out to be ridiculous by Chef.
The clip where people are running scared across a bridge is from the Danish monster horror movie Reptilicus.
The plot where aliens are using earth as a reality TV show and decide to destroy it in the season finale was previously done in Robert Rankin’s Armageddon.
The scientist says that he can “reverse the polarity,” a reference to Doctor Who’s Third Doctor’s catchphrase.
The scene where the Joozians suck on the phallic extensions on their shoulders is a reference to the Mugwumps of the movie “Naked Lunch” by David Cronenberg, which is based upon the novel of the same name by William S. Burroughs.
Jeff claims during one of his Word Association bouts that sixty is the number of episodes they made of Punky Brewster before it was canceled (actually there were 88).
The television program is based on the slotscene of the The Truman Show^{[citation needed]}

[edit] References to other South Park episodes

The idea of the episode is from the episode "Free Hat", in which Trey Parker and Matt Stone poke fun at the idea of remaking the first episode, to see how much things have changed in terms of the animation of the show.
During Fognl’s television preview for Earth one can hear Trey Parker saying “derp”, a word popularized on the set of BASEketball, in the episodes “The Succubus” and “The Biggest Douche in the Universe.”
The planet Marklar from “Starvin’ Marvin in Space” is mentioned by the Joozians as a source of subjects for their next show, along with the Horsehead Nebula, which is mentioned in “The Biggest Douche in the Universe” because one of the “biggest douche nominees” is from there. There is also a reference to the Gelgameks who were seen in “Red Hot Catholic Love.”
When the boys first realize they are in space, Stan comments, "This is only the second time we've ever been in outer space." This references the episode "Starvin' Marvin in Space", where the boys went to outer space along with Starvin' Marvin. Cartman follows this up with, "This is like my fifth time," referring to his two abductions in "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe" and possibly the one recounted at the beginning of this episode.
The first scene is reprised in virtually identical fashion as “Cartman Gets an Anal Probe” until the boys realize they’re stuck in a “repeat.” There is at least one change, however. In the original episode, when Ike is about to be kicked by Kyle, he says, "Don’t kick the baby." In Cancelled, he says, "Don’t kick the goddamn baby!." Also, instead of babbling, Ike says, “Suck my balls.” Also, the way Kyle hits Cartman with Ike is changed, in "Anal Probe", Kyle spins 360 degrees to hit Cartman. In "Cancelled", he hits him by turning only 90 degrees. Also, in "Cancelled", the boys share a laugh right before Cartman gets hit by Kyle when Cartman calls Ike a long stream of insults, while in "Anal Probe" they laugh after Kenny explains what a dildo is. Cartman then remarks "yeah, that's what Kyle's little brother is all right!", which causes Kyle to hit him.
Among the several inconsistencies between the episodes "Cancelled" and "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe", in "Cancelled," Kyle remarks that Cartman didn't get much sleep last night. In the first episode, it is Stan that says this. Also, right before Stan realizes that the events are repeating themselves, he says the line, "Visitors are real. They—" However, Stan never said the word "they" in the original scene. If the line after the original was to be believed, Stan would have said in this episode, "They abduct people and mutilate cows." This line was said by Kyle in the original episode.

[edit] The “Joozians”

The “Joozians” who run the universe’s media are parodies of Jews and the charge that Jews secretly run the media; they are shown with a stereotypically Jewish appearance (such as their very large noses), and also use words that sound like Hebrew and when Kyle (who is Jewish) samples some of their food and likes it the aliens claim that he seems to have “Joozian ancestry” to which Cartman replies, “Tell us about it.” Their symbol is a seven-pointed star reminiscent of the Star of David.
The “Joozians” state that a show should never go past 100 episodes, because it then starts to contain "ridiculous plot lines and settings." This is followed by a pause. This is a joke because this is the 100th episode aired, and features a generally absurd plot.

[edit] Censorship

The syndicated version of this episode cuts the part where the Joozians get inebriated and suck on the phallic extensions on their shoulders (“jagons”) during the hotel scene because of the obvious resemblance to fellatio. Also, one of the Joozian’s lines, “I can’t believe I sucked on your jagon,” was cut.
On Comedy Central, Ike says, “Don't kick the Goddamn baby!” On syndication, he only says, “Don’t kick the damn baby.”

[edit] South Park continuity

In the Season 11 episode "Imaginationland", a giant taco that craps ice cream can be seen. This is the same form that Najix takes on in "Cancelled" upon Cartman's request. As Cartman thought this up, it becomes an imaginary character.