South Park: It's Just Not Funny to Me

I don't think I'll ever understand the appeal of these characters.

As a child, my parents never really restricted the television shows that I couldn’t watch. However, after a couple minutes of viewing at my cousin’s house, my mother banned me from watching one thing: South Park. It never bothered me as a child, nor as a teenager. The animation didn’t interest me, and from what I’d seen, the voices were about as annoying as a fly buzzing in my ear. So before writing this review, I’d never seen a full episode. Now, I’ve seen two, and I don’t think I’ll ever need to waste another 22 minutes of my life on that show again.
I might have taken the wrong approach in choosing what episodes to watch. Starting with the pilot and season one didn’t interest me, especially when I remembered reading an article with Matt Stone and Trey Parker. The creators stated that they would take back the entire first three seasons of the show if they could. So armed with no knowledge of the plot or characters, I threw myself into the deep end with Season 10, episode 8, “Make Love, Not Warcraft”.
The premise isn’t that difficult. The main characters in the series are addicted to playing World of Warcraft and they all get killed by a super powerful creature that is unstoppable. So they spend the episode getting progressively physically fatter while their game counterparts level up. Although I don’t play any video games, I know a bit about WoW. It should have been an amusing episode. It really, really wasn’t.
Because of the notoriety of the series, I expected something mildly offensive, but ultimately something that would at least make me chuckle. I honestly found nothing funny about the episode whatsoever. Between the stereotypical WoW player with zits and potato chips down the front of his shirt and a serious gross diarrhea gag, I just found nothing entertaining. Not to mention the grating character voices. (Because seriously, I don’t know if I can get over how much of a headache these two episodes gave me.)
Despite a disappointing start, I soldiered on. Although Stone and Parker had ordered their personal favorite episodes in the above interview, I sort of went through the list until something seemed appealing. That something was season 9, episode 6, “The Death of Eric Cartman”. This episode, while more offensive to religion and racial stereotypes, actually made me chuckle twice. Chuckle. Not even a full blown laugh. The story is basically that everyone ignores Cartman to the point where he believes he’s dead. The only person who can see him in the class’ most optimistic, yet anxious, member, Butters. It’s an interesting concept, one that’s I’ve seen a few times before, but never with this much depth. Butters and Cartman travel to see a psychic, atone for Cartman’s errors, and manage to save a hostage situation in just over 20 minutes.
Although I knew the show had been on for years, I never fully understood the magnitude of its cultural importance. It’s been airing since 1997, and has aired over 200 episodes. Truly a staggering number, given the show’s roller coaster ratings and criticism from just about every group and organization there is. It’s the type of dumb, offensive, disgusting comedy that I never found myself enjoying when I was the target age group, let alone now. I don’t know what sort of comedy I like the best. I just know it’s something far away from whatever South Park throws against the wall.