| "HUMANCENTiPAD" | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| South Park episode | |||
Kyle as part of the HumancentiPad |
|||
| Episode no. | Season 15 Episode 1 |
||
| Directed by | Trey Parker | ||
| Written by | Trey Parker | ||
| Production code | 1501 | ||
| Original air date | April 27, 2011 | ||
| Episode chronology | |||
|
|||
| South Park (season 15) List of South Park episodes |
|||
"HUMANCENTiPAD" is the first episode of the fifteenth season of the American animated television series South Park, and the 210th episode of the series overall. "HUMANCENTiPAD" originally aired in the United States on Comedy Central and in Canada on The Comedy Network on April 27, 2011, and Comedy Central UK on May 6, 2011. In the episode, Kyle is intimately involved in the development of a revolutionary new product that is about to be launched by Apple. Meanwhile, Cartman does not even have a regular iPad yet and blames his mother.
"HUMANCENTiPAD" was written and directed by series co-creator Trey Parker, and was rated TV-MA L in the United States. The episode's title, and main plot, refers to the 2010 film The Human Centipede (First Sequence). This episode parodies reports about tracking software built into Apple's iPads and iPhones, and also the tediously long end-user license agreements.[1][2]
The making of the episode was the subject of the TV special, Six Days to Air, which aired on Comedy Central on October 9, 2011.
Contents |
Several children at South Park Elementary have iPads, but Cartman does not, and he is challenged for pretending to have one. Kyle is chased through the town and kidnapped by Apple employees, who claim their actions are legal under the newest version of the iTunes terms and conditions, which Kyle, due to their length, agreed to without reading. He is thrown into a cell with a Japanese man and a Caucasian woman who also failed to read them. Meanwhile, Cartman embarrasses his mother, Liane, at Best Buy, loudly accusing her of "fucking" him after she offers to buy him the cheaper "Toshiba HandiBook" rather than the iPad. She refuses to buy him anything and takes him home.
At a gathering of Apple employees, Steve Jobs unveils the new product for which Kyle and the other two were kidnapped: the HUMANCENTiPAD (based on The Human Centipede), comprising the three kidnapped subjects on all fours and sewn together mouth to anus. The Japanese man is in front, with an iPhone attached to his forehead; Kyle is in the middle; and the woman is at the rear, with an iPad attached to her anus and powered by the trio's defecation. However, Jobs is disappointed when Kyle continues to sign agreements that are put in front of him without reading them first, and puts the "device" through tests in an attempt to make it read.
Back in South Park, Gerald goes with the boys to the Apple store to seek advice from "the Geniuses" on how to save Kyle. After performing two rituals, a "quickening" in which they interface through their mouths using light beams and a "toran ra" ritual in which they poke floating colored bubbles, the Geniuses conclude that they can make Kyle's agreement void if Gerald, a PC user, signs up with Apple and creates a family account.[3] When Gerald consents to join Apple, the head Genius proclaims the Vulcan phrase Kal-if-fee and an induction ceremony in tin foil hats is held in a setting resembling the planet Vulcan in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Amok Time".
Meanwhile, Cartman appears on Dr. Phil to publicly accuse Liane of "fucking" him. The audience takes his side despite Liane's protests; as a consolation gift, Cartman is given the first ever HUMANCENTiPAD as Jobs unveils it to the public. Cartman is elated to have a device that not only supports web browsing and email, but allows him to have someone defecate into Kyle's mouth. Shortly afterwards, Gerald and the Apple employees arrive to tell Jobs that Kyle must be released, since his agreement to the iTunes terms and conditions is no longer valid. Jobs allows Kyle and the two others to be taken away to be separated, and Cartman, enraged at having his dream taken away so quickly, shouts at God, angrily mocking him for "fucking" him. He is then struck by a bolt of lightning. The episode ends with a shot of Cartman battered and bruised in a hospital bed, crying, while his mother flips through a book indifferently.
In its original American broadcast on April 27, 2011, "HUMANCENTiPAD" was watched by 3.108 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research.[4]
Reviewing the episode for EW, Ken Tucker called the episode "scabrously funny" and summed up its message as "[k]nowledge really matters; many people are lazy and consequently become prey to exploitation."[1] Ramsey Iser of IGN rated the episode 7.5 out of 10. He said the episode was "a decent opening" for the season, but criticized it for overuse of Cartman's accusations against his mother, generic jokes about Apple's "Geniuses", and "poop jokes ... [that] didn't do much for the story or the comedy."[2]
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||