Good Times with Weapons

"Good Times with Weapons" is episode 112 of South Park. The first episode of Season 8, it originally aired on March 17, 2004. The episode's animation routinely switches from the usual cutout-and-solid-color style to a highly stylized anime theme. Asian-style ambience plays in the background.

This was also one of ten episodes to be featured on South Park: The Hits DVD. In addition, it was voted the 2nd best episode of all time by fans in the United States, while being ranked the third best among fans in the United Kingdom. This episode was one of the first to be available in high definition, available on Xbox 360's Marketplace. A promotional HD DVD was also released exclusively for Best Buy. The show was rated TV-MA on Comedy Central but was rated TV-14 LV on syndication.

This was the first episode with April Stewart as the bulk of the female characters following Eliza Schneider's departure.^[1]

Plot

At the Park County Fair, the boys come across a vendor selling "authentic weapons from the Far East" and are interested in purchasing them. Although the vendor says parental permission is required if the hopeful buyer is under 18 years old, Cartman uses this information to pretend that he, Kenny, Kyle and Stan are orphaned brothers (a ruse the boys have apparently successfully used "like twelve times" in the past) and successfully tricks the vendor into giving them the weapons. Stan purchases a pair of Tonfa, Kyle gets nunchaku, Cartman buys a pair of sai, and Kenny purchases (according to Cartman) the only thing he can afford, a pair of shaken-style shuriken. After showing their weapons off to Craig, they go around town pretending to be ninjas, becoming anime-like characters with their own individual superpowers. The animation style takes on an overall Japanese look and switches to a cinemascope aspect ratio whenever this happens.

Butters sees them playing and wants to join but the boys refuse to let him. He goes home and becomes his supervillain alter ego, Professor Chaos, and sets off to get his revenge on the four ninjas. Not realizing who he actually is, the boys agree to engage in battle with their new enemy. Professor Chaos gains the upper hand by neutralizing Kyle and Stan and Cartman proves no help as he prefers to use his ninja power to embarrass Kyle. Kenny comes to their defense and throws one of his shuriken.

The shuriken hits Butters in his eye and becomes lodged in it, which immediately brings an end to the battle and brings the boys back to their senses. Suddenly they all realize that Butters needs medical attention, but taking him to the local hospital would result in their parents finding out about their purchases. They try to pull the shuriken out of Butters' eye themselves but when that only makes things worse, Stan and Cartman decide that the only way they can take Butters to a doctor is if they go to the local veterinarian and dress Butters up like a dog.

Butters after being dressed up as a dog.

On the way, the boys encounter Craig again and have to hide Butters in an abandoned oven so nobody sees him. Much to their chagrin, Craig has copied them and obtained weapons from the same vendor, enlisting Jimmy, Clyde, and Token as his fellow ninjas. The two ninja groups fight, but in the chaos Butters escapes. The four boys force Craig's group to help them search for Butters, threatening to tell on them if they do not.

A weakened Butters makes his way to the hospital but his disguise fools the attending doctor, who sends Butters to the local animal shelter. There the veterinarian determines that the only thing to do is to put Butters to sleep. Just before he does, Butters escapes again and heads for the fair. So he decides to put another dog to sleep.

The boys decide to dispose of the evidence and return to the fair to have the vendor refund their money, which he refuses to do. Craig and the others inform them that they have seen Butters wandering around on the other side of the fair towards an auction that all their parents are attending. Cartman decides to use his ninja power of invisibility to walk across the auction stage to get to Butters undetected and takes off his clothes. However, since nobody else knows what the boys have been up to, Cartman inadvertently ends up streaking across the stage and is unable to reach Butters, who collapses on the stage while everyone looks on stunned.

The final scene shows the townsfolk protesting at an emergency meeting about the outrage at the auction. The boys are under the impression that the outrage in question is Butters' wound (which has by this time been medically treated, much to Butters' relief), but it soon transpires that the real issue is Cartman's public nudity. Cartman explains that it was a "wardrobe malfunction," and the episode ends with the other three boys addressing the issue that adults are more offended by sex over violence, allowing them to keep their weapons. The episode ends with a freeze-frame of the boys in Anime style posing and embarking on an other adventure as they have more work to do.

Development

This episode features "Let's Fighting Love," a theme song that mixes Japanese and English lyrics. The song is performed by series creator Trey Parker.^[2]

Also, in spite of the episode's popularity among fans, Parker and Stone openly admitted in the Season 8 commentary track that they did not think it was a very good episode. Creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone jokingly referred to 2004 in their DVD commentary as "The Year From Hell." They were filming and premiering Team America: World Police while working on the season, which caused them a considerable amount of writer's block.

References

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Good Times with Weapons

• "Good Times with Weapons" Full episode at South Park Studios
• "Good Times with Weapons" Episode guide at South Park Studios