South Park Season 12 XII Episode 4 ‘Canada On Strike’

Episode 4 of this season resurrected Canada as a recurring character in the show. While I would have thought it was impossible to come up with a new way of lambasting our northern neighbors, last Wednesday I was proven wrong. The episode started out making fun of Canada in the same old fashion as always: calling them “lame” and making fun of their accents. This is too easy yet eternally effective. I got a kick out of the image of Ike standing before the assembled South Park Elementary, proudly announcing his Canadianness to the world. Ike always cracks me up, especially his stone-faced stoicism in response to Cartman’s hateful Canada-bashing. For some reason, with his big head and broken English, Ike always elicits sympathy from me. (I still can’t get over Ike all decked out in a suit and briefcase in the episode when he runs away to avoid getting his weewee snipped.)

Episode 4 was a little light on the hysterics, with relatively few knee-slappers. However what it lacked in slapstick it made up for in substance. Usually I am critical of South Park’s lack of subtlety when it comes to conveying a message. The show has evolved so that pretty much every episode has a moral of some kind; set up with clever metaphors and wonderful double entendre. A lot of thought and creativity goes into establishing the show’s meaning. Unfortunately this subtlety is always destroyed by some last minute, beat-the-audience-over-the-head approach where Kyle or Stan explains the entire meaning of the episode in plain words. I understand this kind of explanation is sometimes necessary, especially given the younger demographic of the shows audience. Take episode 3 of this season. At the very end of the whole cheesing fiasco, Kyle explicitly points out the compassion Cartman showed his kitties, drawing the comparison to the holocaust that was already made very clear.

In “Canada on Strike” the message was so subtle that I have to admit it did not dawn on me until a few days later, when I spoke to my buddy Abie about it (check out his sports blog on my links). While watching I couldn’t figure out why the World Canada Organization kept referring to itself as the WGA. I thought maybe it was something silly about Canada that I wasn’t aware of. Consequentially I failed to see the significance of the demand for more “internet money.” It is now painfully obvious to me that the episode was a comment on the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike that went on for a number of months, bringing the television industry to a temporary standstill. As television writers themselves, I was proud of the show’s writers who were willing to poke fun of themselves, thereby staying true to the unofficial South Park mission of making fun of EVERYBODY.

Lastly I would like to give a shout-out to Butter’s YouTube hit: “What What in the Butt.” SP did a perfect interpretation of a viral video sensation. I also appreciated the guest appearances of past YouTube micro-celebs such as “Leave Britney Alone” girl and the Dramatic Gopher, whose captivating one-eyed ogle was a perfect, if not expected, conclusion to the YouTube stars’ bloody shootout.

Overall, what this episode lacked in all-out funniness it made up for in deftly crafted subtlety. Good looks to the SP crew for stepping up their story writing. I would love to see more messages conveyed in this way, without belaboring the point to death. Looking forward to tonight’s episode. Happy Wednesday.