Raisins (South Park)

"Raisins" is episode 110 of the Comedy Central series South Park. It originally aired on December 10, 2003.^[1]

Plot

The boys are playing football when Bebe tells Stan that his girlfriend Wendy has decided to break up with him.^[2] The other boys tell Bebe that Stan does not care, which upsets her. Stan walks away, upset, with the rain coming down along a road. He stands at a bridge, staring into a stream, sees a reflection of Wendy coming towards him, but finds no one there. He then cries in the rain under a street light at night, and looking at a picture of her holding a daisy with the words "I love you forever. Wendy".

Stan tries to get Wendy to be his girlfriend again, asking Kyle and Jimmy to talk to her for him. Jimmy's speech impediment worsens the situation when Stan suggests calling her a "continuing source of inspiration for him [Stan]". Instead, Jimmy stutters on the word "continuing", only managing to repeat the first syllable (pronounced "cunt")^[3] which Wendy mishears as an insult. Stan starts to withdraw from life, and all he thinks about is the breakup.^[4] In an effort to stop Stan from thinking about Wendy, the boys take him to the restaurant Raisins—a play on Hooters^[5]—where all of the employees are young preteen girls, no older than the boys themselves, who enjoy wearing heavy make-up. The waitresses are named after luxury car manufacturers, such as Porsche, Mercedes and Ferrari. Being taken to Raisins does not help Stan with his problems and, if anything, only makes things worse. Meanwhile, Butters falls in love with one of the waitresses^[1] (named Lexus), and obsesses over her throughout the episode, failing to see the insincerity of her interest in him.

Stan realizes he can not get his friends to get them back together; he needs to get Wendy's friends to do it. So he asks Bebe to talk to Wendy, but she tells him to do something romantic to show Wendy how he feels. Stan then asks Bebe to explain it further, and she tells him to "Stand outside her window, and play Peter Gabriel". Stan does so, only to find Wendy at the window with Token.

Stan's miserable mood is intensified by this discovery, especially as this also inflicts damage on his friendship with Token. Kyle selfishly says that, if Stan is so depressed, then he might as well hang out with the Goth kids. Stan takes the advice literally and does become friends with the Goth kids, who are obsessed with non-conformity, while ironically forcing Stan to conform to their ways, such as listening to industrial music like Skinny Puppy, dressing in black and drinking coffee. Kyle tries to persuade Stan to return to his normal life, but is unsuccessful after he informs Stan that Wendy is still with Token.

Butters runs out of money because he has spent it all at Raisins. Butters' parents, delighted that their son did not turn out gay, decide to come with Butters to meet his "girlfriend". However, they realize that Lexus does not really like Butters when they arrive at Raisins, and tell him that the Raisins girls know that they can make men do whatever they want by flirting, and thus do this for a living. Butters does not believe his parents and tells them off. He then offers to move in with Lexus, but she bluntly explains to Butters that she is not his girlfriend, and proceeds with her job delivering curly fries.

Butters goes outside and cries in the rain over his "breakup" in the same spot as Stan.^[2] Seeing Butters cry, the Goth kids invite him to join their clique. Butters replies that the sadness he is feeling is a "beautiful sadness" because it means he felt something really good before and this makes him feel alive, and on that note declines their offer, saying that he rather be a "crying little pussy" instead of a "faggy goth kid". This means that he and Stan can't go through life thinking everyone they meet would let them down. Stan agrees with Butters that he liked liking life more than hating it, saying one of Cartman's famous lines, "Screw you guys, I'm going home."^[6] He then leaves the Goth kids, who tell him to "go ahead and go back to his sunshine fairytale!"

On the next day, Stan is back to normal and asks to join in with the other boys' football game, along with Butters, who has recovered from his own misery. When Token and Wendy walk by, Stan calmly calls Wendy a bitch and gives Token the finger. Kyle is thankful for Stan's recovery from the incident.

Production

In the commentary mini on the Season 7 DVD set, Trey Parker and Matt Stone talk about how they came up with the idea for the episode. They had the Hooters parody idea, but they had to figure out what would cause them to bring someone there.^[2]

Also, they shed light on the Goth kids, they talk about writing the scene in the locker room with Kyle telling Stan he should hang with the Goth kids, and after that they decided that they wanted to actually see that.^[2]

Finally, they struggled with the scene where Jimmy is attempting to deliver Stan's message, but stutters on the word "continuing", repeating "cont..." which gets misheard as an insult. They discuss how they were not sure how they were allowed to do that, and they had to decide on what word they could use to make it sound right. (Syndication versions on other stations shortened the scene due to censorship.)^[2] Due to the commentary using the word "cunt" frequently, the BBFC gave the commentary for the episode an 18 certificate. However, the episode itself has a 15 certificate.^[7]

Notes

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Raisins (South Park)

• Raisins Full episode at South Park Studios
• Raisins Episode guide at South Park Studios