Wednesday, July 30, 2008

South Park’s imagination runs wild


BY SARA HAVENS & MAT HERRON

South Park

Episodes 1110-1112: “Imaginationland: The Trilogy”
Comedy Central, Sundays, 10 p.m., aired July 27.
Synopsis: When the entire contents of the world’s imagination lay open before them, Stan and Kyle step right in. Imaginationland is attacked by terrorists and evil characters, and the final battle between good and evil takes place. Back in South Park, Cartman swears he’s seen a leprechaun. (www.southparkstudios.com)

Sara: I enjoyed this trilogy. It’s really one giant metaphor on how pathetic our society has become — “The terrorists are attacking our Imagination! We must nuke our Imagination!” Loved the dialogue about heaven and hell being imaginary. Justification for bombing: “Well, if hell is real, then we’d just be bombing hell, which is a good thing. But what if heaven is real?” And the fact that Jesus was a resident of Imaginationland, right alongside Wonder Woman and Freddy Krueger, was great.

Mat: Hell is real. I read it on a billboard in Indiana. So when terrorists plot their next attack, a leprechaun will be the one to tell us? Hey, it’s more reliable than Homeland Security.

Sara: I’ve been dying to see a leprechaun for some time now. Thought I’d have to resort to magic mushrooms … but it looks like all I’ll have to do is make a nasty bet with some dude. Balls!

Mat: Leave it to Butters to ask the elephant-in-the-room question before the kids climb into the Imagination Flying Machine: “Are you going to rape us?”

Sara: Can you imagine what it would have been like to go to Imaginationland on a field trip in grade school? To hang out with the likes of Optimus Prime, the Care Bears, Qbert and Jesus?! That would have been awesome. Instead, we were trotted out to a nature center and forced to eat soggy PB&J sandwiches while we dug through owl puke.

Mat: I went to the Louisville Science Center and learned about electricity and … uh, never mind. We didn’t have a dragon, though. How are you gonna climb on the back of a dragon and have it not breathe fire? Imaginationland must be experiencing cutbacks.

Sara: Maybe it was a friendly dragon — like that long white thing from “The Neverending Story.”

Mat: That was a flying dog, Shavens. Falkor!

Sara: Oh, OK. I don’t think Puff the Magic Dragon shot fire … did he? When Butters had to imagine Santa back to life, I thought for sure the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man was going to make an appearance.

Mat: The only character missing! Fat bastard would’ve been on the dark side, though. It’s not too far fetched that the government would consult M. Night Shyamalan, Michael Bay, Mel Gibson and Kurt Russell on a terrorist attack. I mean, Mel Gibson did whoop ass in “Lethal Weapon 2.” You know, before the fall.

Sara: Mel’s mugging was hilarious. I’ve seen Jason hide in closets before slashing someone to bits … but who knew he recently came out of one? And what about those evil forest animals who wanted to pee in Strawberry Shortcake’s eye socket? I was slightly disturbed, yet intrigued.

Mat: Just when you think Trey Parker and Matt Stone are beyond warped, they toss in the animals’ search for “AIDS in the woods,” and set political correctness back about 400 years.

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