Review: South Park “Holiday Special”

We’re starting to get deep into this season of South Park with episode 3, “Holiday Special.” And it’s a very special episode indeed.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

On this episode in the absurd saga of the sleepy town of South Park, Randy Marsh has found another cause to throw his antics behind. This time, it’s the destruction of Columbus Day, and the kids of South Park elementary are up in arms that one of their precious days off is going to be ruined because of Stan’s dad. This spurs Stan, Eric, Kyle, and Kenny to sabotage Randy’s plan, lest they have to suffer having to go to school for one more day in October.

This leads the boys to discover a shockingly silly truth about Randy: a series of photos of Randy in a Christopher Columbus costume revealing that he used to be crazy about Columbus. After stumbling across a DNA analysis service, “DNA and me” on a conveniently placed commercial, Randy hatches an idea to clear his name in the public eye for his anti-Columbus crusade.  The plan? Hire a native American man so that he can make out with him and fill his saliva with Native American DNA, which will get on the cotton swab for his DNA analysis and fudge the result so that everyone will believe Randy is Native American. I couldn’t make this up if I tried, and it only gets stranger.

The boys take drastic measures to threaten the hapless man in charge of the school calendar to restore Columbus Day, but they’re met with the brick wall of their opinions being seen as “Fake News.” Meanwhile, the Native American man Randy made out with has fallen in love with him, which actually works out when Randy has to retake his DNA test and goes for another make out session to get his saliva again.

By the end of it, things get wrapped up neatly with Randy’s test results showing he isn’t Native American, but that he is 2.8% neanderthal, which, of course, becomes Randy’s next cause when he punches school calendar in the face, right before he ends the episode by replacing “Columbus Day” with “Indigenous People’s Day.”

Our Take:

Even by South Park standards, this episode is pretty bizarre, and I’m not sure that’s such a good thing. The jokes that this episode is predicated upon don’t seem to line up with Randy’s character; there’s just a consistent absurdism that doesn’t seem to follow any rhyme or reason to the established characters. There aren’t so many “jokes” as there are “weird stuff that Randy does”, which gives the episode a strange feeling. Essentially, I thought it was kooky and interesting, but I didn’t find myself laughing so much.

What jokes it does have are pretty funny, and Randy not knowing the meaning of the word “indigenous” when he’s so hyped up on trashing Christopher Columbus is a good running gag. I love a good Randy Marsh episode, he’s been a favorite character of mine for years, but sometimes Randy is a bit too big for his britches. That, unfortunately, makes this episode fall short for me.