South Park Takes On San Francisco
A brilliant showcase of truth in humor.
Last year, it was big, bad Bill O’Reilly that hurt some feelings in the City of carefree liberalism. Now, South Park is dishing it out and some don’t like it.
S.F. Examiner reports: “A brown cloud hangs over San Francisco, but it’s not smog. It’s smug.”
Um. Actually. No. We won’t go there.
Fueled by the environmental correctness of The City’s hybrid-driving, progressive-leaning, holier-than-thou residents, the cloud grows into a “perfect storm†and wipes San Francisco  complete with its countless wine and cheese stores  off the map. In between, tie-dyed hippies wander Haight-Ashbury and children suck on tabs of acid like Jolly Ranchers.
Welcome to San Francisco as imagined by the third-grade minds of “South Park†creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. The City took center stage in the hit animated series this week in a scathing, off-color send up of San Francisco’s notoriously liberal populace. In the end, Cartman, the show’s chunky, foul-mouthed kid, is forced to rescue his friend Kyle from San Francisco during the height of the smug storm. He dons a toxic suit to keep The City’s extreme liberalness from contaminating him.
“You don’t know San Francisco, Butters,” Cartman says to another of the show’s characters. “It was the breeding ground for the hippie movement in the ’60s. Those hard-core liberals, lesbian activists and diehard modern hippies young and old. I swore I would never set foot in San Francisco. God help me.”
Sounds like Cartman knows the place well.
The episode, which [was] reaired [last] weekend, begins in South Park with elementary school kids that are the stars of the show. Kyle’s father has purchased a hybrid car, but decides to leave the town after he is ridiculed for his environmental activism. Kyle and his family move to San Francisco, where they learn that people are very impressed with themselves for their enlightened views on the environment and other politically correct causes, unlike rubes from the Midwest and elsewhere.
. . .Supervisor Tom Ammiano said it just comes with the territory of being San Francisco. “It’s kind of a national pastime to make fun of San Francisco. I think it’s jealousy to a large part,†said Ammiano. He then quickly added, “Oh, does that sound smug?â€Â
No. It sounds out-of-touch with reality. Bingo.
Welcome to San Francisco, indeed.
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See the South Park video.
April 4th, 2006 at 4:57 pm
Funny I just saw the episode excellent stuff.
April 4th, 2006 at 5:29 pm
South Park is forever making fun of hippies.
Cartman (in his sleep: Oh no, Hippies. They want to save the world, but all they do is smell bad. Hippies… Hippies all around.
Jealous of San Francisco? No way, I Like how it isn’t foggy 275 days out of the year here in LA.
April 4th, 2006 at 6:45 pm
“There is none so blind as he who will not see, nor as deaf as he who will not hear.” With thanks to the Bible (of all places!) for that little bit of wisdom.
April 4th, 2006 at 7:19 pm
Smug. Out-of-touch with reality. Liberal! Badges of honor, I call them, and wear them proudly.
San Franciscans were among the very few who protested the Iraq war, and nowhere else were the protests so large. We predicted that this war would not be over in 90 days, would drag on painfully for years, in fact. Smug that we’re right? Yeah, but it’s not like we’re dancing in the streets. No, we’re pissed off that we were right and no one in the White House or any branch of the government listened to us for one moment. They practically hanged Barbara Lee when she cast the only vote in Congress against giving the President a free hand to attack suspected terrorists, which he has manipulated into domestic spying, detention without review, and the increasing limits on our civil liberties.
You want to talk about smug? A picture is worth a thousand words.
And what do Republicans do, but turn to the 4th grade humor in South Park and claim that is somehow dead-on right about San Francisco? I’m sure you feel the same about the way they portray gays and lesbians, religion, and rampant violence. Did you see the episode where the boys’ teacher, Mr. Garrison, went through the entire episode in a dress (he’s openly homosexual on the show) and not one line of dialog even remotely said something about it? Hey, it’s all hilarious stuff!
Why do you think it was so funny when the results of a study showed that whiny children grow up to be conservatives, and smart, self-reliant children tended to grow up to be liberals. To bring it all home, guess which camp Cartman falls into…
Meanwhile, property values in San Francisco continue to go up, more and more people want to live here, and the quality of life is unparalleled. Tourism flourishes. A truly multicultural city thrives and continues to show it’s the city that knows how. Go ahead, make fun. We can laugh both at and near Tom Ammiano, but at the end of the day, we wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.
April 4th, 2006 at 11:24 pm
Dang! I wish I knew as much as Stop Bush! does. I just cain’t figger out why so dang many a them happy Californicators are movin’ up north a that there paradise.
Mebbe it’s jest the dumb ones what cain’t see how happy they is, so they dump their little castles down there an’ outbid anyone with a lick a sense fer whatever property the tree-huggers ain’t latched onto here. An’ mosta them’re happy as birds here an’ swear they wouldn’t go back.
I just don’t understand.
Shore wish we was as smart as them that stay there, and as free, too.
April 14th, 2006 at 1:36 am
SF is a joke…unparalled quality of life? PLEASE…just walk down to Union Square, the city’s “great shopping district” and watch the homeless and panhandlers beg you for a scrap of anything. And multicultural? PLEASE…multicultural is New York, LA, Chicago. SF is a cesspool and the people who are proud of living in it, well, that says enough about them.
August 19th, 2010 at 10:50 am
southpark is sometimes very violent and sarcastic.’:
October 5th, 2010 at 11:22 pm
southpark is great! the best cartoon that i have ever watched”–