The Best Episodes of South Park Completely Changed the Show’s Animation

Every now and then South Park departs from its cutout-like animation style. It doesn’t always work as well as it should, e.g. in “Korn’s Groovy Pirate Ghost Mystery,” “A Scause for Applause,” or “Handicar,” but when a stylistic departure hits it really hits. It’s something the show has been doing here and there for a long time, and most notably it worked very well for Trey Parker and Matt Stone not once but twice in Season 10. Here, we’re going to be analyzing why an animation switch worked so well for five episodes. Six, if you count a two-parter as two episodes.

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However, it should be noted we’re not looking at the instances where an episode has put a real person’s face on a typical South Park residents’ animated body, e.g. Mel Gibson in “The Passion of the Jew.” That is something that has continued to great effect even in its hit newest season. But it’s not what we’re unpacking here. Instead, we’re specifically examining why it has worked when the show has gone from one animation style to another.

Recreating The Simpsons and Family Guy in “Simpsons Already Did It” and “Cartoon Wars”

Season 6 was the year where the show tried to go forward without Kenny. Parker and Stone enlisted a few techniques to make it work and, no disrespect to the parka-clad kiddo, but it does indeed work. One of the things they did was have Kenny’s soul enter Cartman’s body and, thanks to Chef’s parents, have it extracted. Another thing they did was kill off Ms. Choksondik.

The scene occurred in “Simpsons Already Did It,” but that’s not the only thing that made this episode so important. This was the first time the show adopted the animation style of another popular show. However, unlike in the Family Guy skewering episode, this one is all about showing reverence for The Simpsons.

“Simpsons Already Did It” is great because it reflects the real-life South Park writing process. There were several times early in the series’ run where ideas were floated in the writers’ room only for someone to chime in with “Simpsons already did it.” Art reflects life.

The next time the show adopted another series’ animation style was four years later, in the aforementioned Family Guy-focused episodes, “Cartoon Wars Part I” and “Cartoon Wars Part II.” These episodes are even more important than “Simpsons Already Did It” because they inspired a significant amount of controversy and behind-the-scenes turmoil.

This was not because it so savagely takes down Family Guy. In fact, Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane called the episode “funny and accurate.” Even for those who can’t stand Family Guy, that’s a respectable reaction. No, the controversy stemmed from the fact the episode focuses on the Islamic prophet Muhammad.

Like with Season 5’s “Super Best Friends” (which, like “Cartoon Wars,” is not available for streaming), Parker and Stone intended to show Muhammad at the end of the second part. The whole discussion posited by the episodes more or less hinged on this moment. But, after disagreements with Comedy Central, it was ultimately decided by the network to censor the image. These negotiations took so long that they were the reason the episode was split into a two-parter.

Fortunately, the two episodes still work extremely well. It could even be argued that the question that ends the first episode (which amounts to whether or not Comedy Central will back down and not show Muhammad) is made even more poignant because they did in fact back down.

But while the commentary about censorship is the meat of the episodes, all of the Family Guy stuff is what makes them so funny. It’s a spot-on take-down, and the take-down wouldn’t have been effective had the world of South Park not temporarily moved fully into the Family Guy realm.

Becoming Japanese Warriors in “Good Times with Weapons”

“Good Times with Weapons” is an episode that makes fantastic use of Butters—arguably the show’s best character. Specifically, by having him get a ninja star to the eye and then have the boys try to dress him up as a dog, with Butters whimpering in pain, and take him to a vet so they don’t get caught with their newly purchased weapons. Then, once they get distracted, Butters drags himself to the hospital only for the doctor to reject him because he’s “a people doctor.” Poor little guy can’t catch a break.

What’s even better about the ninja star scene is how it immediately cuts back to the traditional animation style as soon as Professor Chaos’ helmet is knocked off. We first see the boys transition to Japanese anime animation style as soon as they start playing with their weapons. We’re entering into their imaginations. As soon as they recognize that the villain they’ve been fighting is Butters and he does indeed have a sharp object in his eye, that’s when we (and they) cut out of that imagined anime world a re-enter reality. It’s a very well-done moment.

“Good Times with Weapons” is the type of episode that works best either as the premiere or the finale. It’s just such a big swing. And, in this case, it was the premiere of Season 8, which many fans agree is the show’s most consistent and consistently hilarious year. In 2015, Parker and Stone listed “Good Times with Weapons” as their second-favorite episode they have ever made.

Saving the World…of Warcraft in “Make Love, Not Warcraft”

Just as Parker and Stone listed “Good Times with Weapons” as their second-favorite episode, they listed “Make Love, Not Warcraft” as their third-favorite. And that’s somewhat ironic as, during production, the episode stuck fear in the heart of Parker. Up to the day before it aired, he did not think it was going to work. He told the producers, “I’ve lost it. I don’t know how to do this anymore” and even begged the executive producer to tell Comedy Central that South Park wouldn’t air that week after all.

Even with the addition of machinima (the World of Warcraft animation style), “Make Love, Not Warcraft” didn’t take all that much more time to craft than the average episode. It did take about a month to plan the episode and collect data, but the machinima scenes only took five days to craft. The team tackled the non-machinima scenes simultaneously. All due credit to Blizzard Entertainment for being on board to assist Parker, Stone, and crew in making the episode. It can’t be easy to trust that a satirical show will be respectful of your cash cow.

And in that is one factor that helps make the episode so special. It’s actually fairly loving. Plenty of people had already ripped on World of Warcraft and the people who spend so much time playing it and similar MMORPGs. Those are fair targets for a show like South Park to aim its lens towards. And, sure, the episode does poke fun at the gradually deteriorating physical appearances of those who sit in front of a computer all day, but it really only utilizes Warcraft to tell a compelling story of frustration and vengeance.

But, at the end of the day, “Make Love, Not Warcraft” is one of the series’ funniest episodes for two reasons. One is a particular scene, and one is a bit of trivia. As to the former, the shot of Cartman’s mom bringing down a bedpan to catch her son’s explosive diarrhea (half of which ends up on her) only to walk away with a smile and the comment that “that’s a big boy, isn’t he?” will never not be funny. Two, the game that Butters plays, Hello Kitty Island Adventure, ended up becoming a real game.

Calling It Heavy Metal in “Major Boobage”

Sometimes South Park features real-life Colorado landmarks, other times it goes to a whole other cinematic universe; in the case of “Major Boobage,” the world of the cult classic film Heavy Metal.

Heavy Metal was such an odd film for South Park to emulate. By 2008 it wasn’t exactly a part of the mainstream cultural conversation. But it works like a charm.

Seeing Kenny enter a world to the tune of “Heavy Metal (Takin’ a Ride)” by Don Felder and “Heavy Metal” by Sammy Hagar (both of which were used in the actual film, as was “Radar Rider,” featured in the scene where Kenny and Gerald Broflovski charge at each other riding big-breasted ostriches) is perfect. He’s just so happy.

And, for those unfamiliar with Heavy Metal, the episode’s depiction of everything being focused on massive breasts is pretty spot-on. It’s a very sexual (and violent, which the episode also touches on in a few quick shots) film. There are so many great moments in this episode, most of which take place in the Heavy Metal world, making the eight-week production (eight times the norm) well worth it.