Review: South Park ‘Go Fund Yourself’

 

Overview (Spoilers Below:)

Here we are at Season 18 of South Park. The show is officially an adult now, but let’s hope it doesn’t lose too much of its signature immaturity.

In the premiere, the boys, looking to start a Kickstarter for a start-up company, plowed through a lot of obscene names like Boner Forest, Angry Clit Spasm, and Lubricated Titty Burgers – failing to come up with one that wasn’t taken. Finally they landed upon a name: Washington Redskins (after initially settling on Furry Balls Plopped Menacingly on the Table, Inc.) It recently became available due to “some court thingy.”

The money began rolling in even though the group doesn’t do anything and Cartman verbally abused the persons pledging donations. One day, Dan Snyder (President and Owner of the Washington Redskins football team) stopped into the company offices to ask for a cease and desist of use of the name, which was promptly rejected. As the episode progressed, the start-up gained popularity (even with ISIS) and the football team became more upset over the new company’s use of their name, and the associated profits.

While the start-up Redskins added a pair of titties and balls to their logo and continued to gain success, Kyle and Stan left the company, only to eventually return after Kickstarter went out of business. The boys then turned their Washington Redskins company into the new crowdfunding site, and continued to make more money for doing absolutely nothing. However, after popular opinion swayed toward sympathy for the downtrodden football Redskins, a mob of people confronted the boys and asked them not to use the name of the once-great team out of respect for their history

In Case You Missed It:

1) The boys’ Four-Point Company Plan was: 1) Start Up, 2) Cash In, 3) Sell Out, 4) Bro Down.

2) “Digging in our heels and pissing on public opinion is what the Washington Redskins are all about.”

3) Roger Goodell’s answers to Dan Snyder’s questions were actual recordings of his vague press conference statements.

4) Jerry Jones’ eyes ARE too far apart.

5) “There’s nothing sweet about a people who were decimated; a once-proud nation that finally lost hope and left their leader to be massacred by cowboys in a defiant last stand.” Well said, even if they were talking about the Cowboys football team.

A solid start to the season, South Park once again displayed their uncanny ability to grab stories from news headlines and work them into plotlines in a quick and witty way. The episode showed all of the sides of the Washington Redskins name debate, while holding up their allegory for most of the episode. As always, Trey Parker & Matt Stone made more sense than most people who have weighed in on this or any issue.

However, I will say this episode wasn’t especially funny. The overall storyline metaphor was definitely humorous, and the dialogue had its usually vulgarity, but it lacked the frequent laughs that the show often induces.

Still, we got to see some of the features of South Park that have helped make it work in the past, like the Cartman/Kyle rivalry, the boys getting an impossible amount of national recognition for something, and the walking of that fine line between maturity and immaturity.

As long as the humor picks up a bit, and the stories keep being as relevant and poignant as the premiere was, this could turn out to be another impressive and entertaining season for one of the longest-running animated programs.