The South Park boys enjoyed a new video game last night, a new Tiger Woods game in which players can make Woods’ wife beat him with a golf club. (Cartman, thumbing the controls wildly, used his “Pre-Nup Power-Up Option”; instead of losing points, Woods “loses endorsements.”) Warning here, naughty language:
This episode, titled “Sexual Healing,” was a set-up for a South Park carpet-bombing of all celebrity sex-related scandals and sex-addiction therapy, with David Letterman, Charlie Sheen, Bill Clinton, and David Duchovny among those cartooned by creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker.
But the 14th season premiere wasn’t really slamming Woods and other famous names — it was doing its usual trick of satirizing a media that gets all huffy and self-righteous about bad behavior. South Park also lampooned the mini-industry of sex-addiction therapy, having Kyle and Butters undergo school-mandated therapy for finding a picture of a naked woman interesting.
Animated scientists from the Center for Disease Control decided there must be a fantastic explanation for “why rich, successful men are trying to have sex with lots of women?” Clearly, the show’s answer to this is: Well, duh…
In the South Park way, things soon spiraled into silliness, with President Obama agreeing with scientists that sex addiction is caused by “alien wizards.” The message here: We don’t have to “condone” celebrity shenanigans, but we also shouldn’t force celebs to make these pious acts of public contrition, go into rehab, and emerge proclaiming (as they did last night), “Look, the sex addiction is leaving my body!”
All in all, a clever idea — especially the Tiger Woods video game, and one of the best Kenny death scenes ever — but a half-hour rather short on laugh-out-loud funniness.
Agree? Disagree?
And what did you think of the show that premiered after it, Ugly Americans? Me, I thought the art owed a lot to Gary Panter and the RAW Magazine generation of comix artists, and was fitfully amusing.
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Agreed. The only funny bits were the video game and Butters’ obsession. Hopefully it can find a better balance between humor and criticism in future episodes.
Who watches this anymore? At least it’s better than Family Guy.
DON”T YOU SAY THAT!!! ALOT OF PEOPLE WATCH SOUTH PARK SO DON’T YOU SAY THAT!!!
I do & it is still the funniest thing on TV most times! Satire at its best!
“Family Guy” blows “South Park” out of the water. Altough this was pretty funny
I thought it was hilarious the CDC guy kept calling Butters Bummers
You didn’t give this episode enough credit the part with the monkeys butters going out of his mind over the bush. The episode had me laughing out loud the whole way through. I think its your review that falls flat, do you actually get paid for this?
I loved it. The monkey cash sex study was the best. The show also displayed subtle gags that made me spit take. You should watch it a second time and remember that there is no such thing as naughty language. What are we in the 50′s?
No, we actually live in JesusLand where swearing will send you to hell.
But violence and torture are the way to heaven!
I want them to bring Jesus back on the show with his Jesus Christ TV star talk show. Randy Marsh should have his own spin-off show. I love South Park.
Just remember what the MPAA says: horrific, deplorable violence is okay, as long as people don’t say any naughty words!
cartman is racist
Yeah the video game parts and the stuff with Butters were the highlights of the episode that got kind of silly at the end. The opening was great. And I also laughed at Kenny’s ‘Batman’ scene too.
Kenny’s death was hysterical
Best Kenny death yet!
That was hilarious.
clever, but going the way of the simpsons i feel. The second-half of last season was a real disappointment (for me anyway), and i was hoping to laugh my ass off at this. Oh well, all good things and all that….
I thought it was funny how the sex addiction therapist kept calling Butter “Bummers”.
And Kenny’s Batman scene was good, too.
Loved the episode. Loved the fact that they kept calling him Bummers instead of Butters. Overall a good start to the new season. The Show afterwards was pretty good. I would have much rather seen a new episode of Tosh.0
I thought it was hilarious. South Park goes beyond cheap laugh out loud gags (*cough* Family Guy *cough*) and often delivers thought provoking satire. I just love how they spin these already hyped/played out stories in new and interesting ways.
While it wasn’t among their best episodes, I thought it was pretty great. The stuff at the end with President Obama went on a bit too long but the video game and Kenny dying from auto-erotic asphyxiation were hilarious.
My take was that the video game was what everyone has been playing since Thanksgiving. Every time you’d see Elin attacking, you thought it was real, then the camera would pan back to Cartman and Kyle and you’d see again that it wasn’t. And of course, when it was all over they didn’t want to play anymore. I think I’m stating the obvious but that’s what terds in punchbowls do. Wish I could say the same for some sports writers. Why aren’t they developing video games anyway? Oh that’s right, they ARE!
Butters is priceless, but the monkey turning out to be Letterman was a royal hoot.
Did we all watch the same episode? This was one of their best episodes. The satire, oh the satire. The way the men would look at their wives to see if they were buying the alien wizard stuff – classic south park. It was supposed to be over-the-top silly. Just like the excuse of being a sex addict is over-the-top silly. Well done boys, well done.
No it really wasn’t one of the best episodes. By any means. And for people like me who’ve been awaiting this season’s opener, it was as anti-climatic as they come.
Yo hoebag dis was one of the best episodes of all time and it wasnt anticlimactic at all! I’ll punch you right in da teefurs if u disagree cuz then youre just a dumba$$
Well, you can’t trust a nihilist’s sense of humor
omg i loved last night’s show! i love south park and have watched it since season 1 and i still cant beleive they get away with some of the stuff they do but i love it!!! thank you south park for giving me something to laugh about every week!!!
Absolutely one of their best. As a dedicated golfer, yes Tiger was the reason I took up the game, it spoke what I have been thinking since the media made Tigers life more public. I only wish they had pointed out the real reason , Corporate Sponsorship that knew all along ( they don’t invest millions in your without knowing everything ) about Tiger and needing to shield the image and the brand of ‘Tiger’ they have carefully created but that doesn’t reflect reality. They don’t want anyone to wake up & think about all the things they have to hide like Nike’s slave labor etc.
The video game was a brilliant idea. I think some coders are hard at work as I write this, can’t wait.
I laughed quite hard. I never watch golf, and I’m just bored with all the Tiger Woods coverage that is clogging up my ESPN hour! This show rightly poked fun of him. It was awesome.
It wasn’t meant to poke fun at Tiger. It was about the media’s obsession with his situation and others in general.
Awesome episode though.
Come on people… Not Laugh Out Loud Funny???? Kenny in the Batman Outfit??? The Men always looking over at their wives when it came to “Why would a Man cheat on a women?”…The Turd in the Punch Bowl Alien Wizard??? Butters and the Bush???? People this is the funniest thing on tv right now… And on top of being funny its also the smartiest thing on tv right now.