South Park: Season 15 Premiere – ‘HUMANCENTiPAD’

Let me start by saying that I think South Park is one of the smartest and funniest shows on television. It fearlessly attacks and satirizes everything and everyone. In a culture so disgustingly obsessed with being ‘politically correct’, South Park is a beacon of reason since they seem to try their hardest to buck that trend. So I was quite excited that the premiere of the 15th season had snuck up on me. It was a pleasant surprise to check my DVR after Justified and find a new episode. What was less pleasant was the episode itself…

The focus of the episode was around the Apple iPad. Cartman pretended to have one (of course) and obviously made fun of all the kids who didn’t have one. When he gets called out for his lies he turns to his mother for help. At this same time Apple shows up to abduct Kyle, which is a result of him clicking things before reading them. Apparently he agreed to an entire litany of things in the last update Apple sent him…which he did not read.

So Cartman convinces his Mom to forgo the waiting period before his birthday and take him to get an iPad right then. However, upon learning she cannot afford one, he proceeds to let everyone know she is ‘f–king him’. It’s metaphorical, but people then start to believe that she is actually molesting her son.

At this time Kyle is being prepped for surgery…Human Centipede style.

So while Cartman is telling everyone that his mom is f–king him (including Dr. Phil), Kyle is being made to eat a man’s poop. The Steve Jobs then explains why this is gonna be the next best thing. Apple users eat it up.

Overall though, I didn’t get it.

I liked how smug and gullible they made Apple users seem (since I use a PC), and Cartman dropping F-Bombs was funny the first few times, but I just didn’t laugh. Not the way South Park normally makes me laugh. It addressed how dependent some people are on their Apple products, and how useless some of their innovations are, but that people will run out to buy the stuff anyways.

The Human Centipede stuff just missed for me. And don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t grossed out by the episode, and it was actually a nice nod to Human Centipede which is a movie that I kind of, sort of enjoyed.