14 Years Ago Today, South Park Parodied Monty Python In An Episode That Was So Offensive It Was Banned In Mexico

Season 15 was a mixed bag year for South Park. There were a few classics, like “HumancentiPad,” “City Sushi,” and “You’re Getting Old,” but there were even more that were fully divisive, e.g. “Funnybot,” “Royal Pudding,” and “Crack Baby Athletic Association.” Falling into the latter category over the former was “The Last of the Meheecans,” which does have one thing going for it. Specifically, its A plot revolves around Butters, which is typically something that buoys the impact of an episode. But there are also two things that make it important. Well, two things if you happen to be a Monty Python.

On one hand, the episode has never been shown in a certain area of the world. As for the Monty Python-focused important detail, it comes down to a scene in Monty Python’s The Life of Brian. Let’s unpack both of those details of import now.

What Is “The Last of the Meheecans” About?

“The Last of the Meheecans” is one of several of the series’ illegal immigration-focused episodes, without another great example being “Goobacks” from seven years prior. In this episode, all of the boys are playing a Cops and Robbers-type immigration game, “Texans vs. Mexicans,” where half of them inhabit the role of Mexicans attempting to enter the U.S. and half of them playing pseudo-U.S. Border Patrol agents stopping them from doing so. Those playing the Mexicans have a certain amount of time to cross a makeshift wall. If they fail to do so, the boys playing the Border Patrol win.

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However, the game hasn’t concluded because one player has gone missing. That would be Butters, of course, who has gotten lost somewhere out there. Little do the boys know that, as he was making his way back, Butters was hit by a car and the couple in that car, thinking he’s an actual Mexican, have essentially turned him into their pro bono housekeeper.

Butters’ new parental units (aka two people who want their carpets vacuumed and their yard raked) have taken to calling him Mantequilla, which is Spanish for “butter.” And, once he escapes, this name ends up being the catalyst for him falling bass-ackwards into a new role as a messiah figure.

Why Was “The Last of the Meheecans” Banned in Mexico?

“The Last of the Meheecans” (which is, as one might imagine, a title that serves as a play on The Last of the Mohicans) is primarily Butters’ episode. Apologies, it’s primarily Mantequilla’s episode.

However, where there’s an A plot there must also be a B plot, and that ends up going to Cartman. And it’s in the B plot that the episode found itself never once airing in Mexico or Latin America. This was primarily due to a scene in which Cartman, who has joined the actual Border Patrol, sees a group of Mexican men and women heading towards the border, at which point he turns the valve on a water truck and proceeds to throw a taser into the puddle surrounding the group, apparently electrocuting them to death.

How Does “The Last of the Meheecans” Reference Monty Python’s Life of Brian?

“The Last of the Meheecans” parodies one specific scene of Monty Python’s The Life of Brian. In “Meheecans,” Butters groggily wakes up in a sparsely decorated room and moves towards a pair of curtains. He pulls them aside to see a mass of townspeople eagerly awaiting him to show his face. This visual is a reference to The Life of Brian when the title character does the same.

But there’s also something a bit more subtle. In the South Park episode, Butters seems befuddled as to why all of these people are waiting on him. He then learns that by raising his hands he can elicit an even stronger vocal reaction from his newfound followers. The first part of that is what rings true to Life of Brian. In that film’s balcony scene, Brian speaks to the crowd about how they don’t need to follow him or anyone else for that matter. They are individuals (which, humorously, they all chant in unison). Neither Butters nor Brian fully understands why they’ve become something of a messiah figure.

There are a few other film references in the episode, as well. For instance, when Randy Marsh exits his home to see a lawn full of leaves, he screams “No!” in a way strongly reminiscent of Darth Vader’s cry of the same in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. Furthermore, the whole plotline about Mexican workers fleeing the US for Mexico en masse is deemed by some to be a reference to the poorly reviewed 2004 satire A Day Without A Mexican.