Freak Strike

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“Freak Strike”
South Park episode
Whateva, I do what I want!
Episode no.	Season 6 Episode 82
Written by	Matt Stone Trey Parker
Directed by	Trey Parker
Production no.	601
Original airdate	March 20, 2002
Season 6 episodes
South Park - Season 6 March 6, 2002 – December 11, 2002
Jared Has Aides Asspen Freak Strike Fun with Veal The New Terrance and Phillip Movie Trailer Professor Chaos Simpsons Already Did It Red Hot Catholic Love Free Hat Bebe's Boobs Destroy Society Child Abduction Is Not Funny A Ladder to Heaven The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers The Death Camp of Tolerance The Biggest Douche in the Universe My Future Self n' Me Red Sleigh Down

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List of South Park episodes

Freak Strike is the 82nd episode of the Comedy Central series South Park. It originally aired on March 3, 2002.^[1]

This episode features a completely new opening sequence replacing the “4th Grade” one. It features the boys being made out of construction paper while clips are shown. With Kenny being “dead,” Timmy replaces him and sings his name repeatedly. The new theme is a more country-like version. Butters holds “The Butters Show” sign over the “South Park” sign at the end.

[edit] Plot

Seeing an episode of Maury where a girl born with no midsection wins a gift certificate, Kyle, Stan, Cartman and Butters decide to try to get on the show with a faked deformity to win themselves a prize. The group decide that Butters should be the one to go on the show, with balls on his chin, which Cartman called "Chinballalitis". He reluctantly agrees, and two geeks in town make fake balls to put on Butters.

Butters then flies, alone, to New York to appear on the show. In the green room, he meets other variously deformed people, who welcome Butters to their "union" (which ensures that US TV talk shows interview their members regularly). Man with Foot on Head tells him that they hate it when people fake a deformity — for example "Lobster Boy", who simply turned out to be a lobster. When they found out about this, they boiled him alive. Butters nervously agrees that he hates fakers too.

On the show, Maury introduces Butters as "Napoleon Bonaparte from South Park." Butters tells Maury that the kids at school make fun of him, and wins a trip to the largest miniature golf course in the world. Stan, Kyle and Cartman are watching the show at home, and Cartman is angry that Butters got "their" prize. He calls Maury, and tries to get himself on the show. The operator tells him they aren't currently interviewing people with deformities, but are trying to find "out of control kids" for a future episode. Cartman convinces his mom to take him on that show and lie that he's out of control (which, ironically, he is).

Butters is grounded by his parents, who say he embarrassed them on national TV and gave his grandmother a mild stroke. Then, the freaks come to Butters' house looking for him — they want him to strike with them, so that they can take back the lime-light that was stolen from them. Fear of being discovered as a faker leads him to reluctantly agree, and he goes on strike with the group (which includes South Park's Nurse Gollum from the episode "Conjoined Fetus Lady" the Thompsons from the episode "How to Eat with Your Butt" and Kevin, Dr. Mephisto’s odd assistant).

Cartman and his mom go on Maury. Seeing a teenage girl named Vanity swear, physically beat her mother and boast about her "out of control" way of life, Cartman dresses up as a slutty girl, to try and "beat" her and win the prize. For everything she says, he makes up an even more outrageous story. During this sequence, he says "Whateva! I do what I want!" While the two boast and try to out-do each other, a four month old baby girl named Chantel who likes to take her clothing off comes onstage. While it is clear her habit is not "out of control", as Chantel is just a baby and unaware of what she's doing, she is frowned upon by her mother (and the audience) who believe she is out of control.

At this moment the deformed-people's union hijacks the TV studio's video screen, and broadcast a plea to the audience. They say that they are the "real" freaks, and they should not lose their means of employment to people who are only freaks because they are stupid. The union members, featuring Butters, sing a song about looking for the "True Freak Label" on talk shows, and most of the audience agrees and leave the studio. Cartman is irate that Butters, again, ruined his chance to win a prize. He runs outside and rips the fake balls off of Butters' chin. But the union chase Cartman, who "ripped poor Napoleon's balls right off his chin!", so Butters thinks things might not turn out so badly for him. But at this moment his parents arrive in a taxi, and he knows he's in trouble again.

[edit] References to popular culture

The largest influence for this episode was the movie Freaks.
The Geeks who make Butters' fake balls are a parody of The Lone Gunmen originally of The X-Files. They also appeared in the episode "4th Grade".
The scene where a man tells Maury that “the ratings have just started to plummet” is a play on the original Star Trek series, where crew members often viewed computer displays in such a way. The man also bears an uncanny resemblance to Leonard Nimoy.
When Cartman appears on Maury and is arguing with the other out-of-control child about who’s badder, he states he "ran for Congress, won, and then had sex with an intern, killed her, and hid her body." This is a reference to the Gary Condit scandal.
When Cartman is trying to convince his mother to go on the Maury Povich show with him, he says "I have such a pretty mother, such a wonderful mother..." These quotes and this tone were often used by Rhoda, the sadistic little girl in The Bad Seed to win favor from her mother.
The "True Freak Label" video sabotage that the freaks make Butters star in is a shot-by-shot parody of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union commercial from the 70s, which showed the workers singing a song known as "Look for the Union Label." According to the episode commentary, Parker and Stone were reminded of the commercial when viewing a bootlegged version of the Star Wars Holiday Special, which retained the commercial.
Vanity's line "You ain't bad! You ain't nothing!" comes from the full-length music video of Michael Jackson's "Bad."