SOUTH PARK: BIGGER, LONGER & UNCUT (w/ Marcus Scott)

Summary

Broadway Breakdown: “SOUTH PARK: BIGGER, LONGER & UNCUT” (w/ Marcus Scott)

Host: Matt Koplik
Guest: Marcus Scott
Date: October 3, 2024

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Episode Overview

Matt Koplik launches Broadway Breakdown’s new “Grab Bag” series, examining the boundary-pushing, taboo-shattering 1999 animated musical film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut with returning guest, playwright and TV writer Marcus Scott. The conversation explores the film’s subversive musical craft, social commentary, legacy, and its surprising place in the canon of great American musicals.

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Main Themes & Purpose

• Celebrate South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut as a brilliant, underappreciated work of musical theater.
• Analyze the film’s satirical commentary on censorship, freedom of speech, and American culture of the late 1990s.
• Place the movie within Broadway and musical history, discussing its writing, music, and social impact.
• Relate the film—and South Park as a whole—to personal experiences as 90s/00s kids raised amid its cultural explosion.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Personal Discovery & Cultural Context

• Both Matt and Marcus recount growing up with South Park as forbidden, intoxicating pop culture (00:07–14:00).

  • Marcus: “If you were a kid growing up in the 90s, early 2000s, South Park was the coolest thing ever… you were in vogue.”
  • Both describe sneaking episodes and cluelessly relating jokes to adults who understood more than they did.

• The movie arrived at a time of media panic—violent video games, Columbine, Eminem, Jerry Springer—with America obsessed by juvenile “edginess” (02:10–05:13, 79:47–89:02).

2. The Film’s Structure: A Legitimate Musical

• Both hosts argue the film is a bona fide, expertly-constructed musical—mirroring Golden Age conventions.

  • “In the first 10 minutes, we’ve already had two numbers, plus Stan’s song motif… you’re introduced to every major character except Satan and Saddam Hussein. It’s incredible how quickly this is happening.” (05:13–06:04)
  • Marcus connects it to traditional structure: “Book scenes are short, three to five pages max… you want to get to a song quickly. This does it. Every five minutes you are getting a new song.” (06:04)

• Parallels to Beauty and the Beast (“Mountain Town”), Disney’s “I Want” songs (“Up There”), and Les Miserables (“La Resistance Lives On”).

• Mark Shaiman’s and Trey Parker’s musical knowledge blends with pop culture and Broadway references throughout the film.

  • “What Jonathan Larson did with Rent—marrying pop with musical theater canon—Trey and Matt do here.” (41:04–42:39)

3. Social Satire: Censorship & Responsibility

• The movie’s plot allegorizes censorship, parental panic, child autonomy, moral relativism, and the absurdity of scapegoating (19:51–22:54):

  • Marcus: “It’s mostly freedom of speech, and—what Wendy keeps shouting about—censorship.”
  • The real villain is not Terrence and Philip, but the adults’ refusal to take responsibility for their children.

• South Park as the quintessential satire of “adults blaming everything but themselves,” referenced straight through scenes like Blame Canada and the parents’ refusal to accept blame (109:53–111:30).

• Parallels to real-world events such as the moral panic following Columbine (79:47–81:36).

4. Song Analysis & Notable Musical Innovations

• “Mountain Town” – Exposition-packed opening number, introducing the town, families, and recurring motifs.
• “Uncle F*er”** – Meta-commentary on moral panics over “bad influence” (47:14).
• “It’s Easy, Mkay” – Satirizes “language policing” as a meaningless fix; “Nothing’s been changed… the phrase is still there.” (73:22–74:37)
• “Blame Canada” – Oscar-nominated; ultimate march of scapegoating; “before someone thinks of blaming us.” (109:51–111:18)
• “What Would Brian Boitano Do?” – Lampoons the concept of uncritical idol worship, blending skating legend with fairytale superheroics. (117:32–119:39)
• “Up There” – Satan's Disney-style “I want” ballad; features the profound lyric:
  “Without evil there can be no good, so it must be good to be evil sometime.” (104:20)
• “La Resistance Lives On” – Expert Les Miz-style act one finale mashup, expertly woven by Mark Shaiman (122:35–124:21).
• “I Can Change” – Saddam’s gaslighting jazz villain song; praised as a “gaslighting anthem” and “Disney villain” standard. (128:31–134:21)
• “I’m Super” – Big Gay Al’s extravaganza; addresses 1990s gay representation and queerness with both satire and affection. (136:25–141:35)

Notable Quotes:

• “If up there is the I want song, It’s Easy, Mkay is the core of the show—its heartbeat.” – Marcus (76:00)
• “Do ask, do tell.” – Matt on “I’m Super” (139:15)
• “This film came out in ’99—same year as Columbine… after Columbine, people were blaming horror movies, blaming video games—everything except the problem.” – Marcus (79:47–80:19)

5. Toxic Relationships & Satirical Depth

• Satan & Saddam’s romance lampoons abusive, codependent relationships—Satan’s “bottom energy,” Saddam’s gaslighting (99:59–101:53).
• The film packs myriad layers: child innocence vs. adult themes, Madonna-whore dichotomies, pop culture excess, nationalistic war fever, and Hollywood egomania (20:53–21:36, 123:08).
• “South Park might be the best example of how kids really are… nasty, clever, and always gaming adults.” – Matt (22:54)

6. Cultural Legacy, Reception, and Should it Go to Broadway?

• Both hosts repeatedly argue the film’s structure and score place it among the very best Broadway musicals of the 1990s:
  • “Sondheim said this was better than anything he wrote in the 90s. I would agree.” (33:21)
• South Park’s ongoing cultural relevance discussed: “It’s more relevant now than The Simpsons is. The show always keeps its finger on the pulse.” – Marcus (159:45)
• Explores why South Park: The Movie works best as a film, not a stage musical: “The material could work… but the movie’s format adds to the charm. It’d be lumbering and literal on stage.” – Matt (152:38–153:12)
• Mark Shaiman got the gig for Hairspray because of his work on South Park. (170:13–170:34)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• On the film’s musical pacing:
  “In the first 10 minutes, we’d already had two numbers… pretty much every major character except for Satan and Saddam Hussein. This is incredible, how quickly this is happening.” – Matt (05:54)
• On bad parenting vs. scapegoating:
  “They never… stop to tell their kids why the cursing is upsetting, why they shouldn’t do it, what they’re actually saying. They just send them to Mackey and it fails.” – Matt (79:47)
• On “Up There”:
  “That lyric—‘Without evil there can be no good, so it must be good to be evil sometimes’—should be an Oscar-winning song.” – Matt (104:20)
• On the film’s “gaslighter’s anthem”:
  “It’s literally him… white lie after white lie after white lie, telling all the ways he’ll change—never apologizes. It’s a gaslighter’s anthem.” – Marcus (129:57)
• On the musical’s satirical density:
  “You can literally go—every minute they’re tackling a new thing, and it’s all cohesive. So many properties are still trying to catch up.” – Marcus (04:00)
• On comparing South Park to Sondheim’s 90s work:
  “Sondheim said this was better than anything he wrote in the 90s. I would agree.” – Matt (33:21)
• On the use of musicals for storytelling:
  “What this does so well—it takes the patter song and it uses the mechanism to accentuate the undercurrent of the show… firmly, it’s the heartbeat.” – Marcus on “It’s Easy, Mkay” (76:02)
• On South Park’s approach vs. other shows:
  “Once you reach a certain level of success, you are the system. And I think Parker and Stone had to grapple with that.” – Matt (26:16)
• On representation (Big Gay Al):
  “Everything is super when you don’t you think I look cute in this hat… Do ask, do tell.” – Matt (139:15)
• On awards and craft:
  “They have a counterculture humor but not a counterculture mentality about craft… You need to know the fundamentals, and they do.” – Matt (156:34)

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• Opening and Setup of Grab Bag Series: 00:07–01:49
• How South Park Became a Musical: 01:49–05:13
• Breakdown of Film’s Pacing and Musical Numbers: 05:13–07:29
• First Experience, Growing Up Watching South Park: 08:14–14:32
• Origins of the Film & Parker/Stone’s Trajectory: 13:21–19:51
• Themes: Censorship, Parental Control, Morality: 19:51–22:14
• Why the Film Resonates & Maintains Cultural Capital: 21:36–22:54
• Comparisons to Contemporary Musicals & Sondheim: 33:08–35:25
• Discussion of Specific Songs and Score: 41:04–55:36, 73:22–78:23, 128:31–134:21, et al.
• Oscars, Blame Canada at the Academy Awards by Robin Williams: 113:28–114:23
• Debate: Should This Be a Stage Show?: 152:38–153:19
• Why It’s a Canonical Work for Musical Theatre Study: 161:50–164:08
• Closing Reflections on Craft and Influence: 164:48–172:11

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Episode Tone

• Fast, passionate, deeply referential—combining theatre geekery with South Park’s raucous, politically incorrect wit. Expect many four-letter words, candid revelations, big laughs, and a genuine appreciation for audacious craft.

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Summary Takeaways

• South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut is not just a crass, headline-grabbing cartoon, but a sharp, densely-constructed, structurally rigorous musical—worthy of study alongside Broadway classics.
• Beyond inventive parody, it remains an astute (and still resonant) critique of American censorship, scapegoating, media panic, and the eternal child-adult battleground.
• Its score is loaded with sly Broadway and pop references, its satirical aims are ambitious, and its legacy continues—from Mark Shaiman’s Hairspray to the structure of The Book of Mormon.
• The film stands as a testament to the value of craft, structure, and loving irreverence—a must-watch for anyone interested in musical theatre, satire, or American pop culture history.

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Transcript

[Matt Koplik]

What would Brian Boy Tano do if he was here right now? He'd make a plan and he'd follow through. That's what Brian Boitano do. When Brian boy Tano was in the Olympics skating for the gold he did two style cows and a triple lutz while wearing a blindfold. When Brian Boitano was in the Alps fighting grizzly bears he used his magical fire breath and saved the maiden's fair. So what would Brian Boitano do? He were here today. Hello all you theater lovers both out and proud and on the DL. And welcome back to Broadway Breakdown, a podcast discussing the history legacy of American theater's most exclusive address, Broadway. I am your host, Matt Koplik, the least famous and most opinionated of all the Broadway podcast hosts. And welcome to the first episode of Grab Bag, a series dedicated to you all. You all submitted the plays, the musicals, the movie musicals that you wanted us to cover. I picked them out of Sally bowl and the. These were what we came up with. My guest today is a renowned friend of the pod. You know him. I think you all love him. I love him. Please welcome back Marcus Scott. Hi, Marcus.

[Marcus Scott]

Hi. How are you doing?

[Matt Koplik]

I was trying to figure a way to break you. So when you said hello, it was.

[Marcus Scott]

Like, I hope somebody loves me. Am I loved?

[Matt Koplik]

And is. Are any of us truly loved?

[Marcus Scott]

Marcus, I can spiral into an existential crisis.

[Matt Koplik]

You know who loves us? Jesus. Who is a soldier in the movie we're about to talk about today?

[Marcus Scott]

Yes.

[Matt Koplik]

Which I didn't notice until this most recent rewatch, and I have watched this movie 10,000 times. Marcus, what are we talking about today?

[Marcus Scott]

We are going to be watching. We're talking about South Park. Bigger, longer end on cut. One of the greatest movie musicals of all time.

[Matt Koplik]

1000%. I sign off on that immediately. Marcus, how did this. So how did. How did this movie and how did south park in general enter your chat?

[Marcus Scott]

Well, this was the. The attitude era of, like, wwe. Like, it was just really edgy during that time to kind of, like, watch a lot of provocative humor. This is the post. This is around the era of, like, scary Movie, you know. You know, the Simpsons were now were no longer cool or they were kind of into obscurity. And then comes this thing, this. This, you know, very kind of crudely animated TV series called south park. And it became this phenomenon. And you were like, if you were a kid growing up in, like, the 90s, early 2000s, South park was like, the coolest thing ever. It was so. It was. It was you know, you were in, you were in Vogue. And so obviously I was in, I was still in elementary school and, and not still. It's not still. I was in elementary school period. And, and, you know, I shouldn't have been watching it, but it came into my life. You know, it was on Comedy Central and we had, we had just gotten cable and like, and it was, you know, the thing to do, the thing to watch. And so this came to me. I first watched this when it hit vhs. I didn't see this in movie theaters, so I had no idea what it was. And to me, because of my growing up, I didn't really associate this with a musical. I just thought they had really good songs. You know, it was just an extension of South Park. I didn't know. You know, once again, I grew up thinking that musicals were like Oliver, Annie, you know, I didn't know some musicals.

[Matt Koplik]

Should be so lucky as to be Oliver or Annie.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah. You know, and so south park kind of, you know, much, much later when I became a teenager and when I really started getting into theater, it kind of broke my mind into like, oh, this is like what theater can be. But it's actually, when you look at it, especially looking at it, revisiting it recently, it's kind of like a really great sermon of like the last, like 100 years up to that point, a musical theater. It's really, it was really ahead of its time. And like, it's a, it's a actually piece of like, like late 90s, early aughts, like nostalgia. It would never get made now. But in terms of what it's doing musically, what it's doing story wise, it's so ahead of its time. And I think so many musicals, so many properties are still trying to catch up. Because this thing just thematically, it covers like about 20 different things and it does it within 80 minutes.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, it's incredibly concise in its storytelling. I, I was making a note of the, not time jumps, but the. I, I, I was marking time as I was watching it. Of, okay, like, we're this many minutes in what's happened in the plot. How many numbers have we had? And it's, it was crazy to me. In the first 10 minutes, we'd already had two numbers. I don't know if you would call Stan's song about Wendy a full musical number or so much as it's like his motif. So we have, yeah, we have two musical numbers and that motif. The four boys have already seen Terrence and Philip, Asses on Fire. Gotten all of their friends to see it. They're all indoctrinated.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

We've been introduced to pretty much every major character except for Satan and Saddam Hussein. And I was like, this is just incredible, like, how quickly this is all happening.

[Marcus Scott]

No, it flies by. I mean, by literally, I, I, when I watched it, like, literally minute 15, they're going into. Okay, yeah, like, and I was like, it just, just, it's, you know, like, it's in terms of like the book writing and like, and how it marries with the music. The rule of musicals, for the most part, for those of you at home, it's usually a book. Scenes are relatively short. They're three to five pages max. Usually you want to get to a song quickly. This does it. Every five minutes you are getting a new song.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. I would say if there's ever a moment, there's one section where there's definitely a longer sequence that is definitely in the third act towards the end. But that is always how it kind of is with the best movie musicals is your first 50% of the movie has to be jam packed with songs to remind people and keep them getting used to the fact that people break out into song. So that way when you get to your third act and you probably won't have a song or a dream ballet or whatever, it's okay. Everyone's, everyone remembers it. And you've earned the right to have a 6 to 10 minute sequence of no singing. And then you, of course, end on a musical number. It's. We'll get to when we talk about the west side Story remake in a later episode. But that is actually one of my issues with the remake is that they spend far too much time with the scenes.

[Marcus Scott]

I mean, maybe, but, you know, then again, there's 1776 where, you know, you have song, song, song, song, song. Then you have 45 minutes of just straight dialogue.

[Matt Koplik]

1000% 1776 for me, two stage musicals and the movie, the movie version of 1776, I include in this just because it's so faithful to the stage show. So both are true. But like, 1776 for me is two stage musicals. What Moulin Rouge is two movie musicals in the sense that they do everything wrong. And yet it works. And don't ask me why. Like, I, yeah, yeah, I'm like that. Do not look at those as, oh, I'll aspire to be that. I'm like, no, no, they did everything you're not supposed to do and somehow it works. And I guarantee you the next person who Tries is going to fall on their face.

[Marcus Scott]

Yes, absolutely.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. So with South Park, I'll. I'll tell everyone how it entered my chat. Thank you. We actually have very similar narratives with this movie in this TV show, Marcus. Because we're about the same age, right? Give or take the year. Yeah, yeah. So I knew of south park at a young age. I was seven, I think, when the first season came out on Comedy Central. And even at 7, I had seen drawings of Cartman and Stan and, like, all of them just sort of all over the place. They were in shop. They were. You know, there was a clothing store for teens and young adults, and you would see Cartman on a T shirt. And so I. I mentally was able to file all of those away. And we had Comedy Central my. At my house, but it was always on later than my bedtime. But every now and then, there would be a rerun when I had a babysitter over, and sometimes a little an episode would slip through here and there. I didn't start watching actually in earnest until I was about, I want to say, 8. My sister and I were genuinely watching the second season as it was coming out, and my parents had only sort of heard about it. My parents weren't really big on censorship, or at least my dad wasn't. My mom was a little more controlling about it, but they weren't incredibly strict. We're talking about the same people who took me to Salemis when I was five. It was more sort of. They wanted my. I think I'll get to this in a second, because this is very much a major theme of the movie. But what happened was my sister and I were relaying an episode of the show to my mom in the car, and it was very clear I had absolutely no idea what the episode was actually doing. It's the episode where the kids all get chickenpox and they find out that their parents intentionally gave them chickenpox so they could get it early and before it's too late, because that's something that a lot of parents used to do. When you're an adult and you get chickenpox, it's a lot harder on your system, as when you're a kid, you get over it very quickly. The kids find out their parents intentionally gave them chickenpox. The kids look it up and find out that chickenpox is a form of herpes. So. So to retaliate, they infect their parents with herpes, with oral herpes and genital herpes from a sex worker. They find. I did not Understand that part. I thought that they had just given their own parents chickenpox from a woman.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

And my sister and I are talking about this to my mom, and my sister absolutely knows what the episode is doing. I do not. My mom hears all this, says to our babysitter, Jennifer, she was like, they are never to watch that show again. And to my mom's credit, like, I was 8, rattling off my dumbass child's mouth about something I knew nothing about. And she. She could have said, here's what happened. Here's what. What that episode was doing. But I was eight. I wasn't gonna. It wasn't gonna sink in. Better to just put it out of mind, out of sight and talk about it later, which is eventually what happened. But, like, at 8, she's like, I'm not telling my son what genital herpes is. He doesn't. He won't get it.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

But so the movie comes out, and the movie is really huge with kids older than me because I'm nine. So all the kids that I want to impress love the movie, and I want to, you know, be considered impressive. So I think what happened was when I was, like, 11, I finally got to watch the movie at a friend's place for a sleepover. He had an older brother. They had it on vhs. And from that, we were able to, like, slowly start watching south park again in the house. Like, my sister and I would sneak an episode here or there. She eventually gave up on it. She didn't care about it. She didn't think it was all that funny anymore. I kept watching it, and by the time I was in eighth grade, I finally had to announce my parents. I've been watching south park for the last two years. I'm not giving it up, and you can't stop me. And then we're like, okay, well, if you have questions, you ask us. And I've been a convert ever since. I haven't watched it honestly in earnest since 2017.

[Marcus Scott]

Oh, man, we missed a couple of good ones. They have. Their pandemic episodes are Chef's Kiss.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. Well, so that's the thing is, I eventually got back into it, but, like, all over the place. My. Trey Parker, Matt Stone, the creators of south park, they very much have been open about. They think that the first three seasons of south park are kind of bad. They're. They're a little embarrassed by it. They're able to look at it now and go, this is the genesis of what we were able to do with the show. But they don't really think that the show gets good until season five, which I understand, because season five is the Scott Tennerman Must Die episode, which is truly what spawns the Cartman we know today.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah, well, I mean, they were like. I mean, they were like. Like mid twenties when they started the show.

[Matt Koplik]

They were really. They were young.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah. And so, I mean, you know, they were young writers. And, you know, like, it's. There's a rule, you know, generally with writers where, like, you know, you might be however many years old, but, like, whenever you started writing, that's really, like, the age you are as a writer.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Marcus Scott]

You know, so if they started writing at, like, I don't know, 16, 17, 18, you know, they were like toddlers, you know, really writing, you know, and lucky toddlers, because they have a career.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, so if you look at their trajectory, which, of course, I did in preparation for this episode, they met in school. They met at Boulder in a film class, and they created a cartoon together. And. And they also created the. What would eventually launch their careers, which is they made a fake trailer for a musical of Alfred Packer, which is what eventually became the Cannibal, the musical. And the fake trailer was such a sensation around campus, they crowdfunded to make a full movie. They reached out to all of their family, all of their friends to make. To get $150,000 to make this movie, which they submitted to a whole bunch of festivals and pretty much every festival. But Rain Dance was like, sorry, wrong number. And. And from there, they were able to sell the movie rights. They. Which got a distribution deal with a company called. God, what is it called? I want to say Home Row, something like that. Troma Trauma Entertainment.

[Marcus Scott]

Oh, yeah. Here in New York.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes, exactly. And from there, they were able to make connections to la. And they. It was one of those things where they talk about the struggles they had when they moved out to la, and they did. They had about two years of sleeping on couches, sleeping, dirty laundry. But they were. They made industry connections with this with, like, the first movie they made. And yes, it did make them a lot of money, but it got them in touch with everyone at Fox. It got them in touch with Scott Rudin. It got them in touch with a whole bunch of other people. And they spent two years unsuccessfully pitching pilots and making connections that way. And then, I mean, you know, the famous story of how south park ended up kind of coming to beat. Right. All right, well, let me. I'll tell it for the uncultured facts on the. On the Podcast. South park started off as a five minute short that Trey and Parker made called the Spirit of Christmas, AKA Jesus versus Frosty.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

And one of the. I think one of the executives at Fox who. Yeah, Fox exec Brian Graydon really loved that short and said, hey, can you make another one? And I will use that as like a, like a Christmas card this year. So they made another one kind of following a similar structure, and it was Jesus versus Santa. And a lot of the things that we come to know from south park are in it. The, oh, my God, they killed Kenny. A major joke in the movie, which we'll talk about. What would Brian Boitano do?

[Marcus Scott]

Yes.

[Matt Koplik]

Is in this short. And it became a Hollywood phenomenon. They were. Everybody was copying and sending it out to people. Apparently George Clooney copied like a hundred videos of it and sent it out to people. It got posted online and went viral there. And from that they were able to make a deal with Comedy Central to make a certain number of episodes and possibly a movie deal. So they are. They were already making this movie, South Park, Bigger, longer and uncut, while they were in production for the first season of south park, not because it was so huge, but because they're like, if this goes, it's not going to last long. We might as well just get all of our ideas out.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah, exactly.

[Matt Koplik]

They're like, best case scenario, the first season we get, we're on a cable network. They're not advertising us. We're on it late at night. We're going to get like 2, 300,000 viewers a week. And they've given us a certain number of episodes for three seasons. We'll ride that out till 1999. We have a movie deal. We'll make the movie. And then as they're making the movie, that is when the first season comes out and just like explodes. So with that, they have the leverage to then do what they want with the movie. And because they also. And because they. But they still think this is now they're thinking, okay, it's successful, but it's not going to be successful for long. So they're using the cache of their success while also being like, we don't care. Really. We know we're not going to be here for 20 years. We're going to be here till the, till Y2K and then we're going back to Colorado. And the thing about the movie that's fascinating, and we'll talk about this as we talk about the movie is as they're fighting with the studio executives because the studio executives want it to be PG13. And they're fighting with the MPAA Every time they're told, this is now an NC17 rating. It's not an R rating because of XYZ. They would go back, they would make a dirtier joke, send it into the mpaa, and they'd be like, yeah, that's totally fine. Great. And. But now we have issues with these jokes. And the whole movie now focuses around the MPAA because of not just their issues with this, but because of another movie they made called Orgasmo, which got an NC17 rating, which I did see.

[Marcus Scott]

And it has probably one of the most disturbing things I've ever seen. I should. I was way too young to have seen it.

[Matt Koplik]

Speaking my language, baby.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah, no, there's a. I think there's a scene where, like, there's, like. You actually see, like, a rectum smoking a cigarette. It is like the good Lord.

[Matt Koplik]

Is this John Waters or something? Is this.

[Marcus Scott]

No, this is like. This is like their. This is. Well, this is before basketball, which was made a year later. But, yeah, no, it was very like, the actual. Because it's about the pornography industry.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Marcus Scott]

And so they wanted to, you know, be true to form. And. Yeah, there's got to be. It's got some gags in it that I was like, wow. That they showed that. Really.

[Matt Koplik]

They. They. They did the thing. They went there. But the. I mean, listen, you hear that? And you're like, okay, I understand why the PAA gave it an NC70 rating. But what Parker and Stone always say is, like, we actually, at the time. Because this was before south park, you know, exploded. They're like. We were trying to work with them. We were like, give us notes. What do you want us to cut? What do you want us to alter so we can make this an R rating?

[Marcus Scott]

And.

[Matt Koplik]

And they wouldn't work with them. They wouldn't give them feedback. They were like, nope, this. This is your rating. So they've always hated the MPAA and. And their double standards towards what's considered appropriate because. And this is. As we travel into the movie, they said it's Their biggest thing is curse words and sexuality, violence, gore. They're like, no problem. But these two things is what makes it inappropriate. I'm like, that is idiotic. And you need to check yourself. So with that in mind, Marcus, what is south park bigger, longer and uncut about for the uncultured folks?

[Marcus Scott]

Well, it's about a lot of things. It's about mainly the censorship and about freedom of speech. Those are the two big things. But we look at the rise of kind of like fascism. We look at, like, adult, you know, like, the child autonomy and the. The adults kind of lording over them. We're looking at a lot of different themes here. It's mostly freedom of speech, and that.

[Matt Koplik]

Is what Wendy keeps shouting about, freedom of speech and censorship. There's also. They also discuss. They cover toxic relationships. This actually might be one of the best examples of a toxic romance in film.

[Marcus Scott]

I was. I literally was going to point that out later in the conversation. But yes, the covers. Why I wrote like, a list here. What. What did I put here? I put down moral relativism, which is a theme looking at, like, what is right and what is wrong.

[Matt Koplik]

Absolutely.

[Marcus Scott]

Nature of that. We look at parental control versus the child, children's autonomy, the absurdity of political alliances, escapism through entertainment. We also, you know, as we will talk about later, death in the afterlife, authority and rebellion. Yeah, this there is. We're looking at. Oh, also, I think with, like, the biggest theme that. That's in this as well, other than, like, individualism versus collectivism, is the juxtaposition of childhood innocence and adult themes, which is literally what they've been doing for the last 25 years.

[Matt Koplik]

Park.

[Marcus Scott]

It's. Yeah, it's just a. It's a perfect encapsulation of, like, the ethos of south park and what we're seeing even to today. And it's something. It's the reason why they've maintained the fan base that they have while some of their. Their influences, like Family Guy or some of their progenitors like the Simpsons, even though they're still around, they're still airing, they're not as. They haven't maintained the social capital, if you will, 1,000, that South park has.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. They haven't maintained as much cultural relevancy. I think part of it is also, if anyone watches Six Days to Air, the documentary about how they make episodes of south park due to the technology that they use, because the animation for south park is crude. It started off literally as construction paper. But because it's not a heavily nuanced animation style, the computer program they use allows pretty immediate illustrations to happen. So they can make an episode in honestly, three days if they wanted to. So they've done a lot of episodes that are touching on very current stuff or something like South Family Guy or Simpsons. Takes like, up to six months to make an episode.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

And South Park, I think what they. Part of reason why they get away with so much is a. It is a cartoon and it's. A lot of it is focused on the four kids on Kyle, Stan, Cartman, and Kenny, who are all very different and thus have different perspectives on whatever's happening. But also because they're kids, they. The whatever situation they're in is always hilarious because they're nine, eventually ten. Um, and for I, some of my favorite episodes of later seasons are when they deal with kids stuff with the seriousness of adults. And as you were saying earlier, I think south park might be for me the best example of how kids really are because, like, yes, there's an innocence to kids and just the sense that there's so much they don't know. And they like to play make believe, but also they can curse when you're not looking. They are gonna play you like a fiddle and, and try to use your belief that they're innocent to. To their advantage. And they're nasty to each other all the time. It's. Yeah, it's trying to think of. So. Okay, well, like one of my favorite episodes of south park ever is, I think it's season 11, maybe season nine, when the boys find out that the girls in their class have made a list of the boys of who's from cutest to ugliest.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah, I remember that one.

[Matt Koplik]

And the boys go through this giant scheme to get the list on like a super intense operation like life and death. They get the list, they look at who's ranked, and all hell breaks loose. There becomes a hierarchy among the boys. Kyle is voted the ugliest. He goes through an existential crisis. He becomes an outcast. He starts learning. He is grappling with the turmoil of do I use the fact that I'm not going to get by on my looks to better myself and become a smarter, cooler, tougher person and achieve things in this world, or do I retaliate because that's easier. And he learns from the ghost of Abraham Lincoln who's like, kyle, don't use your anxiety and your anger to burn down the school. Use this and become a more interesting person. You'll be an amazing adult one day. And Kyle's like, I can't wait that long. I want to be interesting now. And Lincoln's like, well then you're just an. Like, I don't know what to tell you. But so. And then on top of all that, you find out that the whole list is actually this giant conspiracy. There's. It's a major cover up because the girls. The girls tampered with the list to put Certain boys at the top who could get them things like shoes and whatnot and. But it's done with so much seriousness. I'm like, yeah, when I was 10, if we found out there was a list like that, it would have been life or death. I would have run home screaming.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

Butters finds out he's number 11 at 11 out of 17 and starts printing t shirts to be like, I'm 11. Like, it's. It's so good, and it's so different from the show. Well, it's different and it's the same in terms of what the show used to be, because when it started, it actually would make a lot of interesting points. They relied a lot more on the shock value. It was a little more antagonistic that way, but in the same way that Simpsons and Family Guy also were antagonistic in their own way. Once you reach a certain level of success, you're no longer bucking the system. You are the system.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

And I think. I think Parker and Stone had to grapple with that honestly after the 2016 election. And they're like, oh, we had a very specific take on this whole election cycle that's blown up in our faces. And we, like, we actually need to recognize that we have a lot of money, a lot of influence, a lot of power, and we can still have our brand of humor, but we can't be like, guys, we're the underdog. It's like, no, you're billionaires, and you have, like, the most successful cartoon of all time.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah. And I feel that, like, you know, there was a bit of a lull that kind of fell off a little bit during the Obama administration. And then there was something about, like. Well, I think just Trump in general broke us. But, like. But what you saw with them is that there was a. It was such a turn that they became probably, like, one of the greatest, like, you know, forms of entertainment to kind of, like, reflect culture back at us.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Marcus Scott]

And did it in a way that only can. And. Yeah, you need to watch the. The. The pandemic episodes. They're all.

[Matt Koplik]

I will watch the pandemic episodes because I've watched the two seasons post Pandemic.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

Like, we know when Carmen's living in the hot dog and all that stuff. Like, that's all fun, but they have a couple of really good ones. And the one where they're basically all adopting teenagers. It's.

[Marcus Scott]

Oh, yeah. No, but the PC. The PC Gym.

[Matt Koplik]

Oh, PC Principal.

[Marcus Scott]

The principal. Oh, my God.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. So we. We will. Okay. So we will get into the exact plot of South Park. Bigger, longer and uncut, and deconstruct it. But first we have to take a quick break. Really, I'd like to dinner with you. How do you mean? You're the top. Yeah, you're an arrow collar. You're the top. You're a coolage dollar. You're the nimble tread of the feet of. And we're back. Okay, so, Marcus, we've talked about themes a little bit, and we'll get into that even deeper in a second. But South Park. Bigger, longer to uncut. The plot. For anyone who hasn't watched this movie yet, what is the plot of this movie?

[Marcus Scott]

Okay, like, I'm trying to simplify because there's. It goes so much, but it really does. Well, it follows our boys, and their names are Stan, Kyle, Cartman, Kenny. And, you know, they're just having an average day in the neighborhood. Terrence and Philip, who are their idols. They're kind of like the Itchy and Scratchy show of the Simpson universe. But in south park, they released a.

[Matt Koplik]

Movie called Asses of Fire. You better say her name.

[Marcus Scott]

And it's the hottest, you know, movie. And they sneak into it. They. They give $10 to the town drunk.

[Matt Koplik]

Or addict, the local homeless man. Yeah. To get them into the movie.

[Marcus Scott]

To get them into the movie. And they watch it. And Asses of Fire. I mean, it says it in the title. It reads. You know what. What it says on the 10 is A. It's a filthy, violent, homophobic, transphobic. Like it is. It is the most wild movie ever. But it's full of obscenities. And there are children, and what do children do? They mind these obscenities. Well, those obscenities find them themselves back into the school that they go to, and soon everybody is listening to it, and it creates moral panic and moral outrage within the community. And soon that moral panic, you know, goes to the pta and then it becomes a national issue, and that national issue becomes a war between, you know, the United States and Canada. Yes, all over obscenity. And it is ridiculous, and we love it.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, so have you watched the video of Parker and Stone talking about writing scripts about. You never say something happens and then this happens. It's something happens, but then this happens, therefore this other thing happens. So I'm watching the south park movie with that in mind. I'm like, okay, the boys go see Asses of Fire, and they love it, but it's influencing their vocabulary and thus the vocabulary of their classmates. This therefore Their parents get riled up. Specifically Kyle's mom, Sheila Brofloski, who's the most morally righteous of all of them. And when they go back to see the movie again and Kenny accidentally dies by trying to light his ass on fire because he saw it done in the movie, the parents go, okay, now we have to arrest Terrence and Philip for, like, crimes against humanity. They arrest Terence and Philip. Therefore, Canada retaliates by bombing the Baldwin residents, which leads to America calling it an all out war. Meanwhile, Kenny, who is dead, is in the afterlife, meets Satan, Prince of darkness, and Saddam Hussein, who in the movie South Park Bigger, Longer Uncut, which came out in 1999, Saddam Hussein was still very much alive, but in the movie he is dead. But it's one of my favorite bits of exposition in the opening number where Cartman's watching the news. For some reason, Cartman's watching the news. And they go, it's been six weeks since Saddam Hussein was eaten by a pack of wild boars and the world is still happy to be rid of him. And it's just like, done. That's the only update we need. And as it turns out, Saddam Hussein and Satan are having a homosexual situationship. One might say, yes, Satan is very much in love with Saddam, and Saddam is clearly using Satan for sex and for eventual world domination. Because we learn, should Terence and Philip be killed if their blood touches the ground because they will have spilled the blood of the innocent, then that means Satan can come back to earth and rule the world.

[Marcus Scott]

You are so good at exposition. I'm just like, this is what happened.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, Marcus, Marcus Scott, I don't know if you know this. I have a podcast where I have to do this kind of a lot. And I, I always bring, I bring it to the guest first to see how they do, and then I take over if there's any major points. You didn't shit the bed. I've had people who've truly shat the bed on this. You covered a lot of ground. But, like, we have some other ground we got to cover too.

[Marcus Scott]

Well, yes, I was like, I'm more of a, like a. Well, this happened and we'll just talk about what happens later.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, no, we could absolutely do that. And I have had episodes where we start off like, okay, well, it starts off with this, and then we just start talking about it, and before you know it, we're just going beat by beat of the whole thing, which is fun.

[Marcus Scott]

I'm a beat by beat guy.

[Matt Koplik]

Listen, happy to go beat by Beat with you. This movie is a masterpiece. I will talk about every single second of it. Stephen Sondheim agreed with us. He said it was one of, if not the best musical of the 90s.

[Marcus Scott]

Yes.

[Matt Koplik]

In fact, that was a question. That was a question. On the Discord, they said Sondheim said this was better than anything he wrote in the 90s. Do you agree? And I would agree. I would. Because it's Assassins and Passion and.

[Marcus Scott]

Oh, it's better than Passion. But, like, is it better than Assassins? I don't know.

[Matt Koplik]

I think it's better than Assassins. Assassins is a show that is. I think, got better once they added something Just broke, which not everyone agrees with, but I think it's better with Something just broke.

[Marcus Scott]

I would. I would agree with you.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. Assassins is also a show where I. I find it to be very clever. It's often quite brilliant. But I never walk away from Assassins being like, oh, my God. I walk away and I go, okay, okay.

[Marcus Scott]

I would also argue, just, you know, before we go back to south park, is that the show that it relies on really strong direction, which is the opposite of shows like Gypsy or like. Or west side Story, where it's like, the writing is there. Like, it's almost impossible to mess those up. It has been done. It's almost impossible.

[Matt Koplik]

Absolutely. I was. So we will be doing an episode actually on Passion for this series and Little Shop of Horrors. And Little Shop of Horrors. I just re. Saw the revival in New York and I was like, oh, you have to work so hard to fuck over this show because it is as close to bulletproof as you can get. Something like Assassins is absolutely. It's. Assassins is like any other musical in terms of just. It's high risk, high reward, and if you have a director who. With a vision and a good cast, like the 2004 revival.

[Marcus Scott]

Fantastic.

[Matt Koplik]

Exact. Golden Pony Boy and. But if you have a Dum Dum and a miscast, like, yeah, it's one of those painful hour and 40 minutes of your life Passion I look forward to talking about again. I don't want to get into it too much, but I do think south park bigger, longer than Cut is better than Passion, and it's definitely better than the first iteration of Roadshow, AKA Wise Guys, AKA Bounce.

[Marcus Scott]

We don't mention that.

[Matt Koplik]

But, yeah, we don't talk about Bruno. That's why. That's my new go to phrase for that. We don't talk about Bruno.

[Marcus Scott]

Agreed. You know? Yeah. You know this. I. I would agree with Stephen Sondheim's Assessment. But then again, Stephen Sondheim had excellent taste. You know, like, this is. This is. I. I was thinking about this, you know, when we were talking about me coming on a lot of modern, I would say, musicals after, like, 1988. Whenever. Like, whenever the big bombastic musicals really kind of fell into. Not fell into obscurity, but when that. That style. Yeah, I would say, really, the last musical that really does this, I would say, is like, Rent. Whereas, like, Rent focused on. Had so many themes. It's looking at homelessness, it's looking at class conflict, it's looking at HIV and aids. It's looking at all these things. Like, a lot of the best musicals. It's. It's not just one or two or three topics. And I feel like so many contemporary musicals focus on, like, three topics minimum. You know, it's. You know, you can name. I'm not going to name the shows, but, you know, you could say, okay, this is about social anxiety. This is about the Internet, and this is about suicide. That's like a show that just came up top of my head. But you can sound. You can summarize one or two shows that are focusing on those particular themes bigger and longer. And cut. You can literally go. Every minute they're tackling a new thing, and it's all cohesive. It tells a bigger story and it warrants. It rewards the audience with rampant rewatch ability because you continually find something else that they're looking at. And that's why it's remained timeless in the way it has not a lot of movie musicals, you know, we've. In the last. Within the last 15 years, you know, we've seen a lot of newbie musicals, and a lot of those have not had. The. Have not stayed around in the cultural memory 1,000%.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, yeah, I. I think so. I think what makes this movie work as well as it does with all the themes it touches on is because it ultimately boils down to one specific story and one specific arc, and then everything else is tied to it. They're like, they're not going, oh, we're going to tackle all this stuff. They're like, okay, these are. We got our four boys. What's some trouble they can get into? And, like, what is it? And ultimately, what is the point we want to make by the trouble they get into? So clearly, like, censorship and parental control and, like, moral relativism is, like, the main bubble, and then everything bubbles out from there. Something like. I'll just say it. Jagged Little Pill has, like, a laundry list of issues they want to cover, but no plot.

[Marcus Scott]

No. No plot. Yeah. Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

It's the epitome of and then this happens, and then this happens, and then this happens. Nothing is. No plot gets resolved. No characters really grow. Characters will pivot to be in the moral right by the end with no actual understanding of. Of what's happening. And it's just all. And it's far too much. I think Rent juggles a lot of balls and is really good at making you feel, but not. Not always making you think. But that's. I would also blame that on Jonathan Larson dying before they could fix the rest of the show.

[Marcus Scott]

Agreed. Agreed.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. But Jonathan Larson actually is very similar to Trey Parker in that they both genuinely love musical theater and have a deep encyclopedic knowledge of all the different genres. Because south park, the movie is. Is structured like a traditional Golden Age musical. It is with influences from Disney. The opening, we have the opening number, which is very much Belle from Beauty and the Beast. We have Satan's Song up there, which is a combo of Somewhere that's green and Part of your world. I was reading an interview with Mark Shaiman going through each song and we'll talk about it, but when they get to up there, he talks about, you know, it's the I want song, like, very somewhere, that screen. Or like that other song from Little Mermaid. Like, couldn't remember the name of it. I was like, girl. I'm like, girl, that's part of your world. She is. She is the canon. How dare you. But, yes, very hilarious. And. But also they incorporate not just Golden Age and Disney, but they also have British mega musicals in there because Trey loves, Loves, loves Les Miserables. So La Resistance lives on. Is very One day More, which is also. You can see in Book of Mormon. I talk about this all the time. One of the few times I genuinely gasped with delight because I was not expecting it and was so happy to see it happen. I was standing room for Book of Mormon, like, the month after they opened and didn't listen to cast or anything like that. And I really. And I did enjoy the show, but on a musical theater level that I got very excited for was they're doing man up at the end of act one, I'm like, okay, like, this is our act one finale. Josh Gad's doing a thing. It's fine. Like, the song is perfectly nice. And then when Nicky M. James came out to start singing A piece of Salt o Lake City, I jumped and went, they're doing One day More. Man. Mashup. Because I just. I knew where it was going. And I started, like. I almost started to cry because I was, like, not expecting it. And it was just Nicky and James going. Saw the lake and I was like, oh, my God. And that's how it. But I feel the same way with Viva La Resistance. We'll talk about that as well. So, okay, we. Let's open the movie. Let's open this movie real quick, too.

[Marcus Scott]

Just because you mentioned, like, the genres. We're also seeing Gilbert and Solomon.

[Matt Koplik]

Oh, yeah.

[Marcus Scott]

It's an easy mk. That's a patter song. We're also seeing, like, an homage to cabaret songs as well as what this does and why. I think, to go back to Harken, back to your point about Jonathan Larson. What? Jonathan Larson, why he's remembered. So finally, not just because he created Rant and Tick Tick Boom, but what he did was he found a way to marry what was currently happening in the zeitgeist, musically in pop culture. And blending that with the canon of musical theater. And I feel that, like, this is what they do as well. They took a lot of what was going on in. In music at the time. I mean, there's that. That song that Kenny has when he's going. Or he's. When he's pass. When he passes away and he goes to heaven. And you drop into, like, a Metallica number, which is, you know, around the same time, by the way, if you look. If you listen to that. There's a similar musical style that's happening in. In another animated movie, Beavis and Butthead to America, where flipping balls in the desert, you know, like, it's. So they. What they were doing is they're taking, like, what is literally happening in pop culture and reflecting it back, but. But having a vivid understanding of what's happening in musical theater. And that's why I thought this works. But, yes, let's transition to the show.

[Matt Koplik]

I love everything you said. Yes, that's absolutely true. The Metallica number. It's one of those songs where it's not, technically speaking, a musical number because no one's singing diegetically in it, but because we do every kind of song in this movie, I'm going to count it as one. It's like, it's just another. It's another way to do a musical number. It's all voiceover. Who cares? It's fine. So what? So what? Who cares? Top that. All right, we open. Birds are carrying a sign Bigger, longer and uncut. We're. We're in the snowy mountains. It's all sounding very Disney and I love it with big old horns. And Stan comes out to sing about his lovely mountain town. And we see all the townspeople, and over the course of this number, we are introduced to each boy and their home life. So we see, you know, Stan's mom. We. And also see, like, how each parent deals with their kid, which is a combination of idealism and neglect in a. In a certain way. Because all four mothers that we meet, they do not interrogate deeply what their kids are doing that day. They. They. They accept basically the first answer they're given because in their minds, like, my kid would never lie to me. Or like, if there were more to say, he would say it. So Stan says, oh, we're going to go see a foreign movie from Canada. He doesn't say it's. No, I think he says it's Terence and Philip. But, like, his mom doesn't know what that means. So she is unaware that Terence and Philip are very crude fart joke, you know, foul language, guys. Cartman's mom doesn't ask. Sheila asks. And Kyle just is overgoing ice skating. And her only request is, okay, then you bring your adopted brother. Kenny's mom yells at him because he won't go to church. And you. But, like, Stan's mom sings, like, how beautiful and innocent her. Her kid is. She makes a Jesus reference. She goes, he wear a smile where while he wore a thorny crown, I was like, Jesus Christ. And then. And then Kyle's mom, Sheila is. She does not anti the kids so much as she's anti the world. And she's like, the world is awful and it's gonna. It's absolutely going to disrupt my child. And Carmen's mom just is there. And Kenny's mom acknowledges that if he doesn't go to church and he dies, he's going to go to hell and answer to Satan.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah, like this. She kind of damns him.

[Matt Koplik]

Kind of. And. But also explains to us, like, hey, when it's foreshadowing. So when he dies and does go to hell, like, we know that that's what's happening because she said it was going to happen. Yeah, I just love. It's a great moment of the music shifts for a second to be very damning. And what's the ranking for overbearing?

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah, yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

Like, bottom. And she goes, you can answer to Satan. And there's a beat and Kenny just goes, okay. And then walks away. And it ends with this wonderful build. As they get to the movie Theaters with the line, off to the movies we shall go, where we learn everything that we know. Because the movies teach us what our parents don't have time to say. And as they get to the box office, they say, thank God we live in this po Dunk White trash. Kick ass usa. This orchestra builds. Stan goes, can I have five tickets to Terrence and Philip Asses of Fire, please? And the box office says, no favorite buttons. And he says, it was such a smile on his face too.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah, he does. Like, he's literally a eating grand.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, he gives him the faces if he's saying yes and to the bit. But he just fully. No. What do you mean no? It's. And you. They. We learn that Terence and Philip has been rated R by the mpaa. Like we're getting, we're getting all the information we need. This is such good writing. It's both like expository and useful for later on in the, in the, in the movie. So good. They are told it's inappropriate. They pay the homeless guy. They get in and the movie begins. The kids are. Are awestruck by the verbiage. Exactly. And as the movie happens, and again, we already have our first number. And in less than 90 seconds we get our second number with Terrence and Philip in the MO. And as the number is progressing, called what else? Uncle Fucker. Sorry, Uncle Fucker. Uncle Fucker. And the kids are the only ones who stay in the theater. Everyone else is storming out because it's so crass. And it's. The things that Terrence and Philip say to each other is, it's bonkers. So do you know how Terrence and Philip came to be characters in the TV show?

[Marcus Scott]

No.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, let me tell you. So, as I'm sure you do know, when south park came out, it was derided by all these parenting groups in America. Oh, this is crass. This is foul. It's nothing but toilet humor and fart jokes and they're trying to get into our children's brains and make them dumber and make them evil and all. And there's a clip of some dude being like, I have a moral stance against south park because it is adult content, but it is in the format of chill of children's animation. It goes. And I think that that's trickery. And Parker and Stone have never said that the show was meant for kids. They're like, this is absolutely meant for like teenagers and older. If your 8 year old is watching south park, you're doing something wrong, like my parents. But like Your parents? Yeah, like, both of our parents. And look at us. We're both just absolute monsters today. But Terence and Philip were characters that they created in response to parents saying that that's all the show was. They're like, okay, we're gonna create characters on a TV show that the boys love. And all they do is just fart on each other and say the grossest stuff.

[Marcus Scott]

I love that.

[Matt Koplik]

Oh, it's so good. One of my favorite jokes they have in the movie is, it was just like, hey, Terence. Yeah, Shut up. What did the Spanish doctor say to the Iranian gynecologist? And it's. It's. Or what did the Spanish priest say to the Iranian gynecologist? And. And he just answers with a fart. And it's. It's so stupid. And they go, where do they come up with this stuff? Like, it's just so crazy.

[Marcus Scott]

One of the lines is like, well, me in the ass and call me a. It's like, why? Like, it's just so. And it's just laughing. It's just. It's so ridiculous.

[Matt Koplik]

Have I said that in conversation before? Absolutely. There are a couple. So I've. I say a couple of things that my mother has also started to say. She doesn't say that, but she does use Kennedy Davenport's my drag. Like, we. We went to go see Grounded at the Met a few nights ago, and we were talking. Yeah. And I was starting.

[Marcus Scott]

How.

[Matt Koplik]

What.

[Marcus Scott]

How was it?

[Matt Koplik]

We walked out at intermission. But, oh, I know it's a shame. I love tesori. But we. I was. I was talking to her about something. Like, she asked me a question. I was making a point. And as I was doing that, that's when the chandelier started to. And so I had to stop talking. My mom went, well, fuck your drag. I was like, but. So I have often said in conversations, well, fuck my ass and call me a bitch. I've also said a term that I use a lot from Wendy Testerberger, which is when she talks about Gregory, and we'll talk about Gregory. She goes, no, man, fuck Gregory. Fuck him right in the ear. I say fuck that in the ear so often. I think, what. The full term I use is that right in the ear. But it's. I don't know. I don't know where they come up with it. They. They often complain that Family Guy feels like Mad Libs. I'm like, sometimes your stuff feels like mad lips.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah. It's like they pull it from a hat. But it's poetry. It's great.

[Matt Koplik]

It's. Yeah, well, my ass. And call me a. And apologies anyone for crude humor that you hear for the rest of the episode. We're often just reciting the movie or.

[Marcus Scott]

You just knew you were signing up for it. Sounds.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, you saw the title and you knew immediately. You knew immediately. Another one that, like that Terence and Philip say is you donkey raping shit eater. Which Kyle's brother Ike, who is like a year old and adopted from Canada repeats in the movie theater. Yeah, he goes donkey raping shady that love it. Oh, and also the one that Carmen loves is you shit faced Master.

[Marcus Scott]

Yes.

[Matt Koplik]

Which gets turned into a T shirt that a girl in their school wears. A little blonde girl with pig with pigtails is wearing a pink T shirt that reveals Master.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah, that's what it is.

[Matt Koplik]

That's Master. I. I saw that shirt and I was like, my car. That's. If I, If I ever audition again, that's what I'm going to do is I'm going to have my headshot and resume, go into the room, give it to them, and then also reveal my cards. Like not cop. Like my card Cog. Master. Oh, wow.

[Marcus Scott]

You're just telling yourself today.

[Matt Koplik]

I mean, if anything, I'm just leading with confidence. Whether it's true or not has nothing to do with anything. Marcus. It got. It got you interested, did it not? That'll get me a callback, will it not?

[Marcus Scott]

A callback, yes. Interested? Doubtful.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, you don't have to be interested in me as a dating prospect that it gets you interested in me as an entity.

[Marcus Scott]

You're like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

You're like, who is this person? And. And, and why has he mastered the cock?

[Marcus Scott]

It's like you. You want to prove the rumor. Yeah, yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, yes, if, Listen, if Andy Mantis is going to say that, say it about me, I might as well put it on a card and send it out there. I'm kidding. I was. That was me pulling a Broadway Mad Lib. I was like, I don't know, what's a name of someone who I would. Who could badmouth anyone?

[Marcus Scott]

I was just like, I want to know the backstory.

[Matt Koplik]

He was the first name I could think of.

[Marcus Scott]

I was like, I believed it.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, well, I'm a great actor. I was like, who could I have imaginary beef with? I don't know. It's like Andy Mantis, I feel like, would say yes and to that, to me, I feel like he would say yes to the bit.

[Marcus Scott]

He's a cool guy.

[Matt Koplik]

That's what I hear I don't know him, but everyone I know is like, yeah, no, he's fun. I was like, yeah. So if. If he and I were in a room together, I'm like, okay, I want us to have an imaginary feud. He's like, yeah, phenomenal. I'll pretend I call every. That I call you a master to everyone. And you can pretend that I call that you've called me a. I'm like, great. Here we go. There we. There it is. It begins today.

[Marcus Scott]

Oh, my.

[Matt Koplik]

The boys walk out of the movie theater. Marcus, wait. Oh, wait. Actually, fun fact about Uncle. So there is a. Otherwise known as a tap break in this movie. In the song.

[Marcus Scott]

Yes. Yes. All flatulence. Yep. And in, you know, a great key. A nice key.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. It all fits into the key of the. Of the song. And it. First of all, the song builds level.

[Marcus Scott]

It's like, yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

Which is so Mark Shaman, who helped with the music on this movie. The. The songs are all pretty much written by Trey Parker. Mark Shaiman helped him on a few of them. This is a song that he genuinely helped with because the song was basically written and Shaman was like, I feel like it's too short. And he goes, how about a fart tap break? And Trey Parker was like, if you can make that happen, let's do it. And Mark Chaiman tells the story of. He had just gotten nominated for the Oscar for Patch Adams that year as they're working on this movie, and he's at the nominee luncheon, and another composer's like, so, what are you working on right now? And he's like, how do I tell this woman that I spent my morning calling up Paramount for all of their sound effects of farts? And that when I left the luncheon that day, I would be continuing doing that later and figuring out which ones had specific pitches and lengths.

[Marcus Scott]

Hilarious. But you know what. What's. What's so funny is that he would be returning a year later to the Oscars for another song that we'll be talking about later.

[Matt Koplik]

Absolutely.

[Marcus Scott]

It's not the song I would have nominated for the Oscar.

[Matt Koplik]

It's not the song anyone on the Discord Channel would. Would have nominated either. I'm not mad about the nomination. It's a great song. I think every song in this movie is perfect. But there was one song that people wanted to get nominated that Fun fact couldn't be because it was already. It was pre. Written from the TV show, which is Kyle's Mom's a Bitch.

[Marcus Scott]

Oh, yeah. But I mean, well, that that definitely should have. But I'm thinking, like, Brian Bartano, like.

[Matt Koplik]

Honestly, pick any song. I nominate any of them.

[Marcus Scott]

There's like, there's like five songs from this in particular. I'm like, no, no. That should win best song.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. What would Brian Boitonald do? I would. I could nominate. I would absolutely nominate. Up there. I would nominate La Resistance Lives On. I would nominate mk. I think MK is amazing. Like, it's just the lyric writing is so good.

[Marcus Scott]

I would also nominate Saddam Hussein's number. Later.

[Matt Koplik]

I can change.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah, she's good.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, so Up There has maybe, I think, one of the most profound lyrics of all time. And I won't say it just yet. I want to wait till we get to the song. But. So they. They walk out of the theater singing along and say. And Cartman calling the box office guy. Does he say, fuck you, you donkey raping shit eaters? Him? I think he says that. Yeah. And they go down the street singing. They go to the ice skating rink with all the kids who are all skating innocently. You can catch Butters and who, by.

[Marcus Scott]

The way, does Axel, I think in the movie just casually, probably.

[Matt Koplik]

Probably. Parker and Stone really do love ice skating. And the boys announced they went to see the Terrence and Philip movie, and they're. They're all shouting expletives from the movie. You're all a bunch of uncle fuckers. And they're like, oh, my God, we got to see this movie. Stan sees Wendy Testerberger. There's that girl that I like. Doo doo doo doo doo. It's like it's not a real song. It is his motif. And I think he sings it three times.

[Marcus Scott]

He sings it three or four times, and it get longer every time.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, they. But they always get interrupted too. Like, it's because he has that one. It's when they're in the lunch line and. And he gets interrupted because carbon's like, you're holding up the lunch line. There's one on the. On the playground when Gregory's and Wendy are soapboxing for Terence and Philip and. And for freedom of. Freedom of free speech and whatnot.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah. And I think there's one more right before he's. Right before. Right after he sees the clitoris. We'll get to that later. Like, saying it out loud is actually ridiculous.

[Matt Koplik]

It sure is, baby. But it also leads to one of my favorite jokes, which is actually this, so. Oh. Oh, yeah. The. The lunch line one. When he. When he. When he sings it. It's one of My favorite lines, because that's where we're introduced to the idea of the clitoris for these boys. But I don't want to get to that just yet because it's such a good punchline from Cartman. But we see Wendy, she shows up to stand who. This is back in the time when every time Stan saw Wendy, he would throw up because he just liked her so much his stomach would do somersaults.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

For those of you who ship them, just know that they do eventually get together and he stops throwing up around her. They then break up and then they get back together and then they have. As far as I know, they have stayed together since breaking up that one time.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah, no, they've been, you know, they're. They're basically destined to get married. Like. Yeah, it's according to Penguin, the situation.

[Matt Koplik]

Very much so. And I will say Wendy, Wendy has always been political. She gets more so and more eloquent as the. As the show evolves, as, you know, the.

[Marcus Scott]

The Lisa Simpson of the series, 1000%.

[Matt Koplik]

But one of my favorite episodes of the show is the breast cancer episode when Wendy's doing breast cancer awareness and Cartman is being awful and she threatens to kick his ass. And. And everyone wants to see it. Carmen keeps on trying to back out, and it just ends with him not being able to back out anymore. And he's like, fine, I'll beat Wendy up. It's fine. I'll do it. I can do it. And he doesn't get so much as a punch in. She immediately goes in on him, gets everything out on him. To quote Butters, back him up, Wendy. It's so good. There's this great shot when she gives Carmen one final slug. He's got big old black eyes. Half of his teeth are out. His face is all bloody and everything is frozen. And you see Carmen's face. You see Wendy punching him. You see all the crowds of kids, a close up of Butters holding his hands up to his face with his head sort of at a tilt, just like lovingly looking at the fight. It is so amazing. Oh, God, I love that show. But with Wendy showing up on the ice skating lake, we then meet Gregory.

[Marcus Scott]

Yes.

[Matt Koplik]

How would you describe Gregory?

[Marcus Scott]

A very pretentious private school, educated English or. He's European.

[Matt Koplik]

I don't. I don't even. I'm not even sure if he's European. I think he's like kind of mid Atlantic, like a Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant type maybe.

[Marcus Scott]

He just has like a really transatlantic. He just has a Sound.

[Matt Koplik]

Oh, did I say mid Atlantic? Yeah, Transatlantic. Transatlantic.

[Marcus Scott]

He just has, yeah, this, like this waiver in his. In his voice. And. And he. It's just, you know, he had, you know, he's a 4.0 average. He.

[Matt Koplik]

He doesn't even say 4.0. He says, I have a 4o G. I have a 4.0grade point average. I was like, you won't even say point, you douche. I went to yonder. What a 4.0grade average. Like we've been. We've been skating all morning and talking of memories past, try and catch me one day.

[Marcus Scott]

He's so. He's. Yeah, he's. He's a douche, but, you know, he's got the trademarks that every girl at a particular age likes. He's good looking, he's blonde, he's athletic, and he's very much a political. You know that. He's very political. He's very vocal. And. And he's, you know, he's Kyle's foil.

[Matt Koplik]

Stan Spoil. Yeah.

[Marcus Scott]

Yes.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. That's the thing is, it's. He is. There's nothing. There's nothing necessarily wrong about Gregory in theory. He is act. He's politically active and he's. And he fights for all the right things and he is smart and he is classy. It's just that he's a douche. Like, someone can be on the right side of history, someone can be politically active and just be the worst. And that is absolutely Gregory. He does have thick blonde hair, though.

[Marcus Scott]

Yes. The kind of. You know, it's very. He reminds me of an actor. I'm trying to remember the name, but Escaping me.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, you know that his singing voice is done by Howard McGillan, right?

[Marcus Scott]

No. Oh, my God. I had no idea.

[Matt Koplik]

Howard McGillan doesn't do the speaking voice, just the singing. But it's. And when you hear it, you're like, oh, I can kind of hear the vibrato of Howard McGillan right now. But he's like, God has smiled upon you this day. You're like, oh, that's. That's McGillan, baby.

[Marcus Scott]

I thought McGillan did Satan. Did he do Satan as well?

[Matt Koplik]

No, Trey Parker did Satan, except I'm.

[Marcus Scott]

Talking about the singing voice, not the, you know.

[Matt Koplik]

So Trey did the singing voice for Satan, except for his big high note, which is. Is it Malcolm McDowell or Michael McDowell?

[Marcus Scott]

Michael McDonald.

[Matt Koplik]

Michael McDonald, you know?

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah. With a. What is it the guy with the foggy kind of.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, I. I only know him from. From 30 Rock. Whenever. They always bring him up and and people do imitations of him. So I don't know. I actually don't know what he really sounds like. But I know Jenna's interpretation of him.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah, he's got that. I keep forgetting he's that guy.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, it's. Jenna is supposed to be the singer for a blind. For a date for Kenneth with a blind girl. And Tracy is the speaking voice for Kenneth. And she's like, oh, who's about to sing? And Tracy's like, Michael McDonald. And Jenna's like, what the supposed to do? And she starts going like, it's. She just doesn't know what to do.

[Marcus Scott]

You know, Michael McDonald is like. Is like. What's his name? Sam Smith now, But, like, straight. Sure. They had the same voice. It's just. It's at a lower. Different pitches, same voice, so I will.

[Matt Koplik]

Say, so Michael McDonald, he does Satan's high note and up there. But everything else is Trey.

[Marcus Scott]

Well, it's. It's great.

[Matt Koplik]

And isn't it? Isn't it? But so, yes, Gregory is a douche. All the kids go off and see Terrence and Philip Asses of Fire. And when they come back, they all are wearing Terence and Philip paraphernalia. They're all singing Uncle Fucka in the classroom. And then Mr. Garrison comes in. And what is one of my favorite scenes of this movie? It's a scene that I replay over and over and over again because it's 45 seconds long and it's perfect.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah, so you're talking about the. The. The back and forth between Cartman of all of them.

[Matt Koplik]

It's so the. It's a. And there is verbiage in this movie that obviously we can't say because we have progressed as a society to know that some of these words, no matter what the humor is, we just can't say the movie still gets away with it as a time capsule piece as well as just sort of what the tone of the movie is. But we can't say. Point is, Mr. Garrison with Mr. Hat comes in and does, you know, the math problem and tries to get one kid to do it. He can't. Clyde. Clyde gets the wrong answer. Mr. Garrison's like, okay, how about somebody who's not the R word? And then Kyle raises his hand and says, I think I know the answer, Mr. Garrison. And Carmen immediately just starts to mock him. And then Kyle just rips on Carmen for being fat. To which Cartman says, you fucking Jew. Mr. Garrison says, Eric, did you just say the F word?

[Marcus Scott]

To which Carmen goes, jewel.

[Matt Koplik]

You can't say school, you fat ass Kyle. Wait, I can do the whole thing for you. Ready?

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

Okay. Eric. Did you just say the F word, Jew? No, he's talking about you can't say school, you fat ass Kyle. Why the not. Carmen. Dude, you just said again, Stanley. Kenny, it's just backwards. What's the big deal? It doesn't hurt anybody. How would you like to see the school counselor? How would you like to suck my balls? What did you just say? Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Actually what I said was whips out a megaphone. How would you like to suck my bowels, Mr. Garrison? Long beat shock and awe from everyone. And then Stanley just going, holy. Dude.

[Marcus Scott]

That was actually big beat for me. Like, oh boy. Like exactly what happened?

[Matt Koplik]

I told you, it's one of my favorite scenes of all time. I've seen, I've seen this. So I. Again, I watched this movie when I was 11 for the first time, I think on and off from like 11 to 14. But I hadn't seen it for about like a year when I was a freshman in high school. And I'd been watching the TV show a bunch, but I've sort of forgotten about the movie for a little bit. And I went to a friend's house that night and we watched it and we both were on the floor, gay gasping because we couldn't, we couldn't catch our breath for air. And I just, I. By that point I made it a habit to watch the movie at least twice a year. And then once YouTube became a thing, I was watching clips from the movie all the time. I would say in the last five years I have watched this movie 20 times. It is, first of all, it's not a, it's not a big time commitment. It's 80 minutes.

[Marcus Scott]

I would say I've watched it twice in the last. Twice or three times as it's one of those. It's a feel good movie. Yeah, it's what? Also it's like one of those movies like where like I'll forget about it and then someone will mention it and like I have to watch it right now.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, I'm probably gonna watch this movie again in a week or two. And that's sort of how it is, is like I'll watch it twice in one month, then not again for six months and then twice again in that month. Like I watch it four times a year. It's, it's so, it's just so good. But that scene in particular I've watched on YouTube so many times. Because it's just so. The timing is perfect.

[Marcus Scott]

Oh, God. Yeah. No. One of my favorite jokes comes up later. But it's like, have you heard of the emancipation population?

[Matt Koplik]

I'm gonna. We need. We need to give you the proper platform to do that joke because it's amazing. It's. It's hilarious. It is timely. It is deep. We're gonna take a breath and you're do that one as we get to it in the plot. It's. It's incredible. That line is incredible. Incredible. I love this. I love it. This should have been nominated for screenplay. Whatever. But.

[Marcus Scott]

So it was a different time.

[Matt Koplik]

It was a different time. We go to the school counselor, Mr. Mackey, who asks them where they heard it all. The mom shall immediately look at. Through the list of. Of terrible words the kids have said. They learn. We all learn what a rim job is thanks to Eric Cartman's mom, who, those of you who know south park know that Cartman's mom. The whole joke of her is that she looks like, you know, the most domesticated housewife from Pleasantville, but actually is a slutty, slutty lady.

[Marcus Scott]

She's had a history.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, that woman has had more pipe than obvious joke here.

[Marcus Scott]

Well, that's just pipe. She's been with women. She's been with, like, she's got a story.

[Matt Koplik]

Oh, yeah, she's been with everybody. No, she's been. You're right. She is the town bicycle. Everyone's had a ride. And. And as we've learned, some of them have filmed their rides with her. Like, she's just done everything. She's done absolutely everything with everyone. And yeah, they. They call her, like, a dirty slut. And I'm like, listen. Where it is a badge of honor. Lord knows she does.

[Marcus Scott]

Oh, my God. Like, what is it? It's like, what the heck is a rim job? It's like, well, that's where.

[Matt Koplik]

You know, I can do it.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah. Yeah. Why? That's where you put your legs behind your head and let someone lick your ass. And she does it with, like, such a smile.

[Matt Koplik]

Oh, yeah, it's the timber. Because you have. You have Kyle's mom and Stan's mom reading. They're all reading lists. And Stan's mom's like, oh, no. And Kyle's mom just goes, what the heck is the rim job? And to which Carmen's mom just goes, why? That's when you put your legs behind your head and have someone lick your ass. It's just.

[Marcus Scott]

It's so.

[Matt Koplik]

It's it. Not only is it a funny line, but the musicality with which it is set. Yeah, it's delivery is half of the humor, you know?

[Marcus Scott]

Okay, shout out to that voice that. The excellent voice, guys, because my God.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. I think it's one woman who does all the moms in.

[Marcus Scott]

In. Yeah, most of the women too. She does Wendy as well.

[Matt Koplik]

Oh, yeah, it's so good. But so they eventually have to go to counseling with Mr. Mackie. All of the kids have to go to counseling because the. The kids originally say, we're not going to tell you. We swore to secrecy where we learned all this. Carmen immediately folds like a card table because he's like, I want to get out of here. It's Terrence and Philip. Get me out. That and he. And again, children trying to bend parents to their whim. I can't help myself. Accursing that movie has worked. My fragile little man. Which is foreshadowing other episodes of south park where he always does this. The episode where they get caught smoking behind the school because they find out from the butt out, like, anti smoking gang, if you don't smoke, you could be just like us. And the kids, like, these guys are the worst. I don't want to be like them. So they start smoking furiously. They burn down the school. And the parents are like, oh, it's not your fault. It's the smoking companies. The evil tobacco companies are. Are infiltrating your brain and brainwashing you. And Carmen's like, oh, yeah, them. Oh, my God, I want to smoke. But the evil tobacco companies and the parents buy it immediately. And that's just. Cartman will always do that because his mom will buy it and. And all the kids are sent home because they all have paraphernalia. So the school's like, okay, we gotta barrel down the hatches. Batten down the hatches and like, get these kids in therapy. That's where they head to Mr. Mackey for therapy. And we will get to that musical number in just a moment. But first we have to take another break. Billy, I beg to differ with you. How do you mean? You're the top. Yeah, you're in our own color. You're the top. You're a coolidge dollar. You're the nimble tread of the feet of. And we back. So Mr. Mackey's room for this therapy. What's going on? What's happening? Talk to me.

[Marcus Scott]

So the. He's speaking to the entire classroom. Everyone's. And he is trying to get them to use substitutions. For the. The profanities that we've learned. I believe it's. Oh, God, I'm trying to remember the song now.

[Matt Koplik]

It's called It's Easy, mk.

[Marcus Scott]

It's easy.

[Matt Koplik]

Okay.

[Marcus Scott]

It's a song, but instead of say.

[Matt Koplik]

Oh, do you want me to say the actual words? I can say the words. Okay, so it's. It's actually it. So. So two things. One is the humor of. The humor of the Replacements is that, like this, the. Nothing's been changed to the phrases. They're just taking out. Taking out the actual words. So it's still an upsetting phrase. And also it. The mentality behind it is actually a mentality that my dad tried to drill into me and my sister when we were kids. But this is the jokey version of it, which is my dad would always say to us, if you're cursing, you're telling me you're too stupid to think of a better word? Which. So for a while, my sister and I didn't curse that much. Because you're like, we're not stupid. We'll think of better words. And now I'm like, I am smart and I curse like a sailor. So the list that Mackie tells them in the song, because he said it's again, it's the fear mongering. Oh, if you curse, it's not long before you're going to be in the alleyway giving hand jobs for money so you can buy crack. Like it's right. And so he says, okay, we're gonna. So let's replace all the bad words. You know, Step one, instead of assay buns, like kiss my buns or you're a buns hole. Calling someone a bunzhole isn't really any better than asshole.

[Marcus Scott]

No. No, not at all. No.

[Matt Koplik]

Next, step two, instead of shit, say poo. Bull poo, Poo head. Or this poo is cold again, like the phrase is still there. It's. It's. You know what we're talking about. Step three, with drop the T, because bic is Latin is. I think it's is Latin generosity. Yep. Step four, don't say fuck anymore because fuck is the worst word that you can say. So just use the word mk. And then when the kids repeat it and they get to the end, they go. Step four, don't say fuck anymore because fuck is the worst word that you can say. We shouldn't say fuck. No, we shouldn't say fuck. Fuck. No, it's so. No, we shouldn't say. No, you're cured. You can Go. It's. It's so fun. Oh God, I love it. But like, it's. It's a perfect example of using a song because in a movie, best case scenario, that's a montage sequence, right, where Mr. Mackey has to instill these kids the. To get the curse words out of them. If it's a play, it's like a three hour scene of like, okay, you got it. You didn't get it. You got it better. You're like. And so with a musical number, it's like, okay, we can cure these kids, quote unquote, in 85 seconds if we plan this correctly and move on.

[Marcus Scott]

What, what they do so well in this is literally. It encapsulates really the theme of the movie. Like if you look at like, like. Yes. You know, there are other songs in the show that like really show off kind of like, you know, the larger themes that come into play later. Like, you know, O Canada. Excuse me? O Canada is the. Is their national anthem.

[Matt Koplik]

It sure is.

[Marcus Scott]

And. And up there. But what this does, this really does get to the heart of this. I feel like this right here, if. If up there is the I want song. This right here is the core of the show. This is the heartbeat. It looks at PC culture before we even like had a word for it, you know, like 10, 15 years before it really came into the PC culture, came into the cultural lexicon. It looks at the. It looks at censorship. But also what I think it does so fascinating is that it plays with patter in a way that I don't think we've. We've really. 1. I feel like the Pattersong is kind of dead. It's kind of died in the last 20 years in musical theater really. I mean, outside of maybe a Hamilton.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, no, I agree with you.

[Marcus Scott]

And I think what this does so well is that it takes that and it kind of like it uses the theme to cut, to really, to really highlight. I don't. I just. It uses the mechanism of the Pattersong to accentuate the. The undercurrent of the show. You know, I. I think that, like. What am I trying to say? I think that his. And just also like, I think the button, the real button of the show, like, of this number is actually what takes place after.

[Matt Koplik]

Oh, for sure.

[Marcus Scott]

Because he tells them, like, okay, well, now that you've learned you can take the whole day to reflect and then not even 10 seconds later you get a transformation and they're, you know, trans transition and they're back at the, you know, the Movie theater, front row, candy, popcorn, drinks, you know, and they're watching, you know. You know, Terrence, you know, like, you know, we're watching that again.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. Because the. To them, it is just words. And everything about Mr. Mackie isn't terribly cool. Like, and they're. And their kids, they. Their attention spans are shy, so they. Maybe they enjoy themselves in those two minutes of the number, but then they go back and. And Parker has said about the song, he's like, okay, it's like, it's easy. MK is kind of the only song in the movie that doesn't progress the plot in any way, shape or form.

[Marcus Scott]

It doesn't. And yet it still maintains, like, the overall, I feel like the. The scope of not just south park in general. Like, why it's maintained and. Or endured as long as it has. Because once again, you know, these are kind of anthology stories, if you will.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Marcus Scott]

You know, every. Every episode, you know, there's a progression. But, you know, with. With their stories and with their. With the relationships, but they're kind of frozen in amber and, you know, and it's. It's like you said, these kids are literally. You know, it's the attention span. It's like, okay, you said what you said, and we're just going to do this thing over here anyway. And yeah, it doesn't progress the plot in any way, if you were to, like, look at it in that way. But it. I feel that, like, it. Firmly, it's the. To me, it's the. My shot of this music.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, at least stylistically, for sure. I think what it. What it. What about it sort of shortening the whole process of the kids supposedly getting corrected. It. The movie would be like three minutes longer if the song weren't there because that scene would. Would have to be so much longer. So it's necessary to just keep that moment short because we have to have a moment where the parents and the teacher or say, where the parents throw a different solution at their kids, not. Not to teach them themselves, but send them somewhere where they can get taught. Because the whole undercurrent of this plotline with the parents is that the parents never actually stop to tell their kids why the cursing is upsetting, why they shouldn't be doing it, what. What they're saying actually means. And we will talk about that as we continue because it. It is constantly pointed out, not to the characters, but to us as the audience of. These parents love their kids, but they are going about this so incorrectly because they won't stop and Go, hey, we screwed up and let our kids do something without us knowing about it. And now we're dealing with this problem. So rather than take the take on the issue at home, we're blaming everyone else and we're finding the solution outside of us and, and everything keeps failing, so they send them to Mackie and it fails.

[Marcus Scott]

Can we, can we just also point out, like, this is, this film came out in 99. This is the same year as Columbine. All right? And so what was happening also culturally at the time is what we were seeing literally on screen was literally happening in real time culture. Because, because literally after Columbine, there was a period where people were blaming horror movies. They were blaming first person shooter games. They're blaming everything else, but like the problem.

[Matt Koplik]

They were blaming the Matrix.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah, yeah, you know, exactly. They're blaming the Matrix, you know, and, and what's that movie with Leonardo DiCaprio when he was young and he's shooting up the school?

[Matt Koplik]

Oh, God, I don't remember. Basketball Diaries.

[Marcus Scott]

No Basketball Diaries.

[Matt Koplik]

Okay.

[Marcus Scott]

I was like, he's, he's got, he's got crack. It's based on a really famous book. I was like, that one.

[Matt Koplik]

Leonardo DiCaprio has crack. Hu. Could only be seven movies.

[Marcus Scott]

You know, but yeah, it's, you know, we're, you know, you're blaming all. Everything else, but, like, what's going on at home? Yeah, that's what makes this song so pertinent. Not just to, like the moment, but like, honestly, I mean, we're not, we're still seeing it right now. I mean, school shootings have, have, you know, up the ante and instead of, you know, now we're, now we're looking at, you know, gun lobbyists. We're looking at, you know, like, you know, there's still, like, we're not, you know, and now we're look, you know, looking at mental health. But there's still a lot of rhetoric around let's blame this over here or this over here instead of like what the problem really is. And that's what this movie is doing and with this particular song is doing. And that's why I think it's so powerful.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, well, yeah, it's. I agree. The movie is saying like, you know, check in at home, check in with your kids, like, talk to them always. Be like, you don't have to be a helicopter parent, but you need to be present and you need to ask questions and you need to know what's going on. Because God forbid your kid gets into some Kind of danger. You want to know your or your kid might be the one who causes the danger. You want to know so you can help others. It's one of the things of this most. There's that most recent school shooting where they charged the parents because the parents knew that the kid had mental problems and didn't do anything about it and in fact bought him a gun. So the parents have been charged in the school shooting, which is, I think very correct.

[Marcus Scott]

That's now going to be a whole precedent for like officer shootings.

[Matt Koplik]

I hope so. Like I, I'm. If you, if you are worried that your kid could do something like that, my God, you need to start acting immediately.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah, it.

[Matt Koplik]

And the moment you say, oh, my kid isn't the problem. Like I. So I have a very big stance against people who are parents and shouldn't be. People who procreate because they're told to appropriate, because they are like, oh, I have all this love to give. Oh, I just, I wanna, I wanna have a family. I'm like, when the moment you're. You make a child, you are making something that is going to grow up and be a part of this world. You are not making something to shower all your love on. Like, yes, love and nurture, by all means. And you have that chemical response to a, to your child that you should love them, but you also have to give them the tools to be equipped to handle this world, to contribute to this world, to not be detrimental to this world. So with the parents of south park and also, you know, the parents of these children, these children who were doing school shootings, you have to a, give your kids the context of what they are absorbing. So first, Dan Kenny, Kyle Cartman, rather than ban all Terrence and Philip, rather than just ground them, rather than blame Canada. And yes, no, you can say you're not allowed to watch this. And I'm gonna tell you why they don't do that. They just do as I say and everything else is the problem. No, no, give your kids those tools because that the world does not, you know, bend to your child. Your child is not special enough and you're never going to be around all the time. So you have to start equipping them for that kind of crap. On the other end of the spectrum, if you have any inclination that your kid might be a. What's what I'm looking for a danger to they're. To the people around them. Act immediately and figure your shit out. It's a hard truth, but you got to look at It. And I sometimes see people with, you know, who are having kids. I'm like, you should not. I'm not going to name names, but I'm like, you should not be having kids. You don't. You are not equipped to make a person to handle this world. You just want a little love bug to fondle. Not fondle, but cuddle. Sorry, I chose the wrong word. I'm. My brain is too addled by south park right now.

[Marcus Scott]

You know, but, you know, I. I agree with you. There's this idea that, like, and it's just program. It's just part of the society. It's like, you know, we're human. We're, you know, we're here to procreate, to have a progeny. And so we. Instead of people looking inward and being like, I, am I capable of being a parent? Am I. Do I have that skill set? Would I be. Would I be healthy enough to raise a child, to bring a life into this world, to, you know, be responsible and teach them values and teach them moral mores and, you know, and not a lot of people are doing that. And, yeah, I feel that, like, this is. You know, what I think south park has really done over the years, especially as the characters have ever so slightly evolved, is really kind of show us that. I mean, Cartman's mom, their. Their whole dynamic has changed. It used to be for laugh that Cartman used to just kind of like, bully his mom and curse at her and tell her to get out the way and so forth and so on. And, you know, there's now been a line kind of drawn in the sand with them. Yeah, like what he can and cannot get away with, you know, but that. That's. That's responsible because of where we are culturally.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, absolutely. And even. Even years ago, like season, what, eight or nine or maybe 11, when Leanne, that's Cartman's mom, ends up going to reality TV to find people to help her with him because she has just said yes to him all the time, and he's become a monster child.

[Marcus Scott]

Yes, that's. That's what I'm recalling.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, she was like nanny 911 and. And super nanny, and then ends up going with Cesar Romero. Not Cesar Romero, Cesar Milan from the Dog Whisperer. Which is. Which is perfect. But it's. Yeah, it. With. With her, you have someone who is just too weak to raise a kid with Sheila Broski. You have too much of a helicopter parent, too much of a strict parent that, you know, Kyle, in a way, has actually Become far more independent at 10 than he should be because he has to sort of separate himself from his mom. And he's also terrified of her. He'll. He can never go to her with problems because he's terrified.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah, I mean, and, and stand by example, I mean, he's looking at like, his marriage, you know, his, his parents marriage and what he, you know, wants and what he doesn't want, you know, not just, you know, in relationship to being a man, you know, being an adult, but like what he wants out of. Out of relationships in general. And then of course, Kennedy, Kennedy Kenny is, you know, his, his family, I mean, they're white trash, but like, but there's you know, and there's almost like a, you know, there's. There's a lot of neglect, you know, that we see. I don't. And I would like to go back to your statement about Hartman's mom. I don't think that she's ill equipped to have him. I just think that she's a single mother, you know, and it really highlights what is missing in Cartman's life, you know? You know, but, you know, being a.

[Matt Koplik]

Single parent, I think I say. I say eloquid. Just because she says yes to everything. And even when she's not stressed, she's like, absolutely. Like her number one line for the longest time was sure hun. And just like always just gave him everything. And so that's what I mean is she just. She never, she, when she, when she is present, she never has boundaries. I would, I will never, ever demonize Leanne Cartman for being a single mom and having to work the. The streets, the pole, the whole whatever, to get food on the table.

[Marcus Scott]

I'm like, she's the best mom. She's making it work, just making it.

[Matt Koplik]

Work, keeping the lights on all by herself.

[Marcus Scott]

And she's raising carpet, which cannot be easy.

[Matt Koplik]

Cannot be easy.

[Marcus Scott]

But yeah, yeah, I think that, like this particular song in the show, it just, it really highlights the. Just what was happening at the. At the moment, you know, at this very crucial. At the, you know, this very. This is 1999. We're about to go into the millennium. Y2P. Y2K panic is happening. You know, Columbine happened, you know, two years before that. You're watching a lot of violence with that Matthew Shepard and, and James Bird Jr. So you're seeing a lot of, like, violence is in the media all the time. There's a whole thing with Waco, Texas, you're just watching a lot of things Happening. And also like this is like peak in TV. You're watching the rise of the Backstreet Boys and NSync. You're watching Britney Spears becoming over sexualized. You know, she's 16 years old, you know, and this way here was, was, you know, what was happening. And so these kids are watching this. And also this is when Eminem came up with Marsha Mathers. So what's happening also is your, you know, you're in music, it's very aggressive, you know, corn is the P. New metal is happening. So. So like everything's just changing musically. Everything is very aggressive. There's a lot of profanity. This right here is where the parental advisory was happening as well. Where there was slapping labels on everything. So. So this right here was a direct critique of what was happening at that time. And so, yeah, that's why I think it's a very. Yeah, I feel like this song is a really good nugget for 1999. Probably the best year of film, by the way. Oh yeah. You know, like really, like, you know.

[Matt Koplik]

We talk about it still to this day. That's your definitely the best year of cinema in the last 50 years. 60 years. Yeah, I mean 39 is also considered a really great year.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah, I mean I would say 2022. Good year for horror. Good year films.

[Matt Koplik]

You know, is that the. Everything everywhere, all at once.

[Marcus Scott]

Here it is.

[Matt Koplik]

That was a good year.

[Marcus Scott]

It's a good year, you know, but yeah, like 1999 was banner year and this right here was everyone was pushing the envelope. Not just with music, not with, just with theater. Because you're seeing how theater is slowly changing and we're kind of getting hints of what's happening now with immersive of theater in glimmers of that with. With, you know, with a lot of the fourth wall breaking, a lot of meta commentary. This particular film kind of took all of that, put it in a blender and spat it back out at us. And it did it in a two minute song.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, absolutely. Well, and I think it also is an example of what the movie does so well, is that it is all of these things. And the reason why it's able to do is it's never one of these things for too long. It will always come back to whatever threat it has. But it never like when it's meta, it's not meta for longer than 15 seconds. Like the joke that Cartman makes about the animation being crappy for Terence and Philip. And then a shot of the kids in profile walking exactly it's, it is a six second joke maximum. And then they move on to the next thing. And then they don't do another meta joke for like another 15, 20 minutes. And it's, it's, it's very smart. And I think it keeps the movie and keeps the audience on its toes and keeps the movie always having to push itself to the next stage. But. So the kids go back to Terrence and Philip. One of them lights their fart on fire and the movie ends. They leave and Carmen says, you can't do that. Kenny says you can. Carmen bets Kenny 100 bucks that he can't light his own fart on fire. So Kenny does, which sets him whole body on fire.

[Marcus Scott]

Yes, it does.

[Matt Koplik]

They go to the hospital where guest star George Clooney is the doctor operating on Kenny. This is another one where they are making a commentary on gore of they're at the hospital and it's like very straight out of er. Blood and guts everywhere. They are doing all of this intense surgery on Kenny and just like the most grotesque shit is coming out of his body, which makes Stan throw up. And then Cartman and Kyle see that and they go, that's disgusting, Stan. Like, like they're watching Kenny's organs come out of his body and getting snapped apart. Then Stan has the reasonable reaction to vomit at that. And Carmen and Kyle are like, jesus Christ, that's disgusting. And, but also like ER is on network television at a time that kids can watch it dealing with people coming in with stab wounds and their guts spilling out. I remember like ER had some for the 90s network TV, like some graphic stuff. I could never look at the TV that is. And even Grey's Anatomy now still has all this stuff. Like a lot of kids can get traumatized by seeing a heart help, you know, pumping with an open cavity surgery thing, whatever that's called. And so they do that. They accidentally replace Kenny's heart with a baked potato, which makes him. Which makes him die almost immediately. Carmen stoked he doesn't have to pay Kenny the 100 bucks. The moms come back to find out that the boys went back to see Terrence and Philip. They're all grounded and we go to the afterlife. Kenny's about to go to heaven, but he's rejected and goes straight to hell with the billions of others of souls.

[Marcus Scott]

Yes. Can we talk about heaven and what it looks like? Because this is peak 90s, by the way.

[Matt Koplik]

Oh, for sure.

[Marcus Scott]

Like peak late 90s, you know, once again, this is like, you know, this is when MTV was partying on the beach. This is like when Freaknik was happening. Okay. You know, just setting the scene. It's going to heaven. It's a bunch of outstretched, nude women.

[Matt Koplik]

You know, breasts abound.

[Marcus Scott]

Breasts abound. He pushes a button to enter heaven and he's rejected and he calls to hell and he is ransacked and he is pulverized by these hell spirits to a Metallica song. That's. I don't even know what the. If. If it's a. If it's a song, because it kind of begins with like a heavenly voice and then it becomes something else.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, I think it's still Trey Parker singing it because Trey Parker is the one singing the heaven song.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

And then I think he's still singing the hell song. Little boy, you're going to hell.

[Marcus Scott]

Oh, that's not Metallica.

[Matt Koplik]

I. Well, I think it's of that style. I think it's still Trey. I don't. I can't say that for certain. Don't quote me, but I'm pretty sure.

[Marcus Scott]

Okay. I'm not. I'm not going to quote you, but I'm like, are you sure that's not.

[Matt Koplik]

When it comes to south park, when in doubt, assume it's Trey doing the voice, because Trey does, like, 80 of the voices. But the thing about the. I always wondered with the image of heaven, if it's what south park is saying heaven looks like or if that's what Kenny is viewing heaven as. As he's getting there.

[Marcus Scott]

I had to look it up. I'm sorry.

[Matt Koplik]

Look it up. Look it up. So, yeah, I also don't remember the exact number of residents that they say heaven has in it, but this is them predating the Good Place and. And coming to the same conclusion. Because in heaven, it's like 1600 souls, but hell has like 20 billion.

[Marcus Scott]

Everybody.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. Including Gandhi. Like, Gandhi is in hell.

[Marcus Scott]

Like night. It's like 9 billion or something like that.

[Matt Koplik]

Something like that.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah, yeah. Gandhi's in hell. Hitler's in hell. And I forget who the third person is.

[Matt Koplik]

It's the say goodnight, Gracie guy. George. George Burns. Is that his name?

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Marcus Scott]

Yes, yes.

[Matt Koplik]

And then. And then they. They continue this joke in the actual TV show that basically everyone's in hell. They have an episode where you realize Princess Diana is in hell. Do you find out that the Australian crocodile guy is in hell? And it's. Yeah, yeah. And it's not them saying these were terrible people that deserve to go there. This is them saying, like, what's required to get into heaven is so strict and, and impossible that in the however many thousands of years you could say that the conscious human being has been alive.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

Less than 2,000 of them have made it into heaven.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah. Which, I mean, it makes sense. I mean, Gandhi is Gandhi, but also Gandhi has a dark past.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, and. Well, also the other joke on the TV show is you had to have the right. The correct religion to get into heaven. And of course their joke is Mormon. Was the correct answer. Yes. If you were Mormon, then you, you made the right choice in getting into heaven.

[Marcus Scott]

Hilarious.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. So when they, when they punish Saddam in the TV show, he doesn't get to go back to hell anymore. He goes up to heaven with all the Mormons, which is like his own. That's his own torture. Because like, we're going to write, we're going to do a whole play about how it hurts to lie. And Saddam's like, it's so good.

[Marcus Scott]

Love it.

[Matt Koplik]

It's so good. But so Kenny gets to go to hell where he meets Satan, and Satan, prince of darkness, is in a homosexual relationship with the now deceased Saddam Hussein.

[Marcus Scott]

Yes. And it's, you know, you would think, you know, by the way, Satan is kind of like taking a book from like Tim Curry in 1985's Legend, Ridley Scott. Like, he's got the look, you know, the big body, the, you know, the muscular build.

[Matt Koplik]

He's got horns, he's red, he's got.

[Marcus Scott]

You know, six pack abs.

[Matt Koplik]

Looks like he's wearing a jock strap.

[Marcus Scott]

I mean, maybe I think it's like a thong or a jock strap. And I mean, and he is, I mean, from what it. For what it's giving us, he might be the bottom.

[Matt Koplik]

No, he's absolutely the bottom. But we'll get to that.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah, there's.

[Matt Koplik]

There is no doubt. He is the bottom of that relationship.

[Marcus Scott]

And he is having this relationship with Saddam Hussein, who was a violent. Probably, probably one of those violent terrorists in all of history.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Marcus Scott]

And, and he, and, and we kind of learn that what's happening is like if that, that there's going to be a war.

[Matt Koplik]

They learn in hell about the war between America and Canada, which we'll get to in a second. Uh, when then when they learn of that, that's when Satan reveals that there's a prophecy of when the blood of the innocent of two of those two Canadians is spilled and hits the earth, basically hell will rise up and Satan will be able to rule the earth again. Saddam hears this and he's like, oh, I got to go to earth with Satan. But more importantly, while Satan and Saddam are in this homosexual relationship, it is a toxic one.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes. And it's humorous because Satan is so much bigger than Saddam. He's muscular, he's red, he's got horns and all this stuff. But he is far more sensitive. And he's the emotionally battered one of the two.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah, he's a shrinking flower, you know.

[Matt Koplik]

Absolutely.

[Marcus Scott]

And Saddam is very vocal. He's very. He. He kind of lords over pun intended.

[Matt Koplik]

And also. And. And also it always comes back to sex with Saddam. Saddam always wants to have sex. And Satan. It makes Satan feel like a piece of meat. It makes Satan feel like he is not being respected by Saddam and keeps trying to communicate with him. And again, it's very funny because of the. Just the physical dynamics and of course, just like where they are. They're in hell. And. And you watch Satan try to, you know, communicate with Saddam. And Saddam, when he says to him, you know, do you remember when you first got to hell? We would just sit in bed and talk all night long. And Saddam's answer is like, well, yeah, dummy, because I'm still trying to get you in a bed. Let's fuck. And Satan is just so distraught about it. And it's. It's hilarious. But it is a brilliant depiction of a toxic relationship Because Satan thinks that he is only worth the love that Saddam is giving him. And he val. And he defines his value based off of the relationship he's in. He is nobody if nobody loves him. And Saddam is the one who says that he does. Satan says, I want to believe you mean it when you say you love me. And Saddam's like, yeah, I do. So now turn off the light, let's get busy. So like Satan, Saddam says whatever he needs to say to get what he wants, which is sex or to go up to earth. And Satan believes whatever he wants to believe just to keep Saddam around even though he's not happy. Because being with somebody in his mind is better than being alone. And.

[Marcus Scott]

And it's. But it's also kind of interesting because, like, if going to get like really like dramaturgical about it, it's actually kind of fascinating because all that trauma and how he got got into this relationship deals with him being in hell in the first place. Being. Being the fallen angel that. That rebelled against like, you know, quote unquote, the love of his life, you know, God. And feeling like he needs to be in this toxic, toxic relationship because he feels like that defines his value is actually very Great job. Just like. It's a really good character study of how he got into that relationship.

[Matt Koplik]

Absolutely. And you. We're sort of jumping out a little bit over now, but when. When we get Satan's I want song, which is. It's very late for an I want song in the movie happens. But his I want song up there, which is very part of your world, you know, and they. They even have an image that is directly from part of your world when he's on the. On the boulder with his hand up to the air and. And. But he wants to be where the people are. And his. And his fantasy of heaven is amazing. I'm sorry. Of earth is amazing because he's on. In meadows holding babies, watching flowers grow. He's on a gay cruise where all the men are buffing and Speedos and he gets to do the Jack I'm flying bit. But it's all. It ultimately just stems from a loneliness and his despair that he has to be in hell. And thus, like, well, clearly I am only worth where I'm at and I'm worth with who I am. So this is where I'm meant to be. The lyric in Up There that is so goddamn incredible is, I need to remember how it start, how it starts. I'm told they don't belong. I must stay below I must stay below alone. Oh, no, I must say alone below. Because I'm evil. I must stay where evil is so. But what is evil anyway? Is there reason to the rhyme? Without evil there can be no good so it must be good to be evil sometime. And I'm like, jesus titty fucking Christ, Trey. That lyric is incredible. Without evil there can be no good so it must be good to be evil sometime. I'm like, that is. That should be an Oscar winning song. They lost to Phil Collins for you'll Be in My Heart, which is a lovely song, but like. Come on. It doesn't have that lyric.

[Marcus Scott]

No, it doesn't have that lyric. I think that once again, this was the lyric instead of Blame Canada. I mean, listen, let's be real. Like. Like Phil Collins put his whole pussy in the target. Like, he really did. He really did.

[Matt Koplik]

These strangers like me, baby.

[Marcus Scott]

Right? It's a great. It's. He did his thing on that, you know, that whole soundtrack.

[Matt Koplik]

That soundtrack is great.

[Marcus Scott]

It's laps, you know, but like putting them neck and neck together. I mean, south park, it's just. It's just on another level. And that's a great. That's a great.

[Matt Koplik]

The Tarzan soundtrack is A really great Phil Collins album where it's Phil Collins songs commenting on the action. The south park score is a legitimate musical theater score that stems from character and stems from story. And let me be very clear, they were never going to win the Oscar no matter what song they put in. Because the fact they got nominated for this Oscar at all is incredible.

[Marcus Scott]

They're probably in fifth place. They were, they were really in everyone's, you know, in the pop, you know, cultures. They were number one in their number two.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, absolutely. It's. But to the Oscars, the Oscars that you're like, God damn it. We really wish that American Beauty or Cider House Rules had an original song we could put in place here. Like couldn't, couldn't the Sixth Sense come up with a banger for Haley Joel Osman like give us something baby and, and they wouldn't.

[Marcus Scott]

Outsider House Rules and you know, when it was really one of the weakest movies of that year is of, you know, whatever.

[Matt Koplik]

It's, it's a, it's a fascinating lineup. I, I will, I will still vouch for American Beauty which hasn't aged well, but it's still objectively speaking a well made movie and was so new for that year like all the like. But like, you know, when people are like, oh, how could it won? I'm like, that was a very special case of like a movie like that hadn't really come out yet. And we have done that movie better since then. But at the time that was, yeah, that was the beginning. Sixth Sense, Sixth Sense made too much money to be ignored. It was the Barbie of the year where they're like, we cannot deny the movie that made almost a billion dollars. Yeah.

[Marcus Scott]

I think has her only Oscar nomination for that movie. This is also the year of election of the Matrix. But it's just, it just, to me, it just. This is, this is like one of those categories like you know, best score, best song where it, it's just South Park. It was, it was South Parks.

[Matt Koplik]

It should, it should have been South Parks. South park should have been able to submit any goddamn song they wanted and, and won the thing easily. But because this is society. We live, we live in a society. That's not how this works. Back on Earth, though.

[Marcus Scott]

Back on Earth.

[Matt Koplik]

Back on Earth. Terence and Philip, it is explained to us, have been dominating the culture. Their movie is making so much money, but it is it destroying America's youth because kids at a spelling bee won't spell forensics. I love it. And what ends up happening in one of my favorite scenes of the movie. Like maybe not top five top ten though when Terrence and Philip are on Conan o' Brien promoting the movie and it ends up being a sting operation where they get trapped by the US government. And Conan, who enjoyed the movie, we find out can't bring himself to see himself through anymore because he feels like a traitor. So he jumps out the window to his death, hits a car and dies. The car alarm goes off, a man comes out, turns off the car alarm. And when the kids, the kids are watching this at home as they see their moms on TV arresting Terrence and Philip and watching Conan o' Brien kill himself. And the moment Conan kills himself, they go back to the boys and their boy. Their response is, oh my God, did you see that? They arrested Terrence and Philip. And also Brooke Shields is a guest on Conan o' Brien's show. And her, her contribution voiced by Minnie Driver and, and Brent Spinner or Spiner, however you say his name is the voice of Conan o' Brien who's in the original company of Sunday in the park with George was on Star Trek Next Generation. He is the voice of Conan o'. Brien. I just love that Brooke Shields is as voiced by many drivers contribution to the conversation is I farted once on the set of Blue Lagoon.

[Marcus Scott]

I think. Was this the same year? I think it was. Or the, or is that the year after where she did goodwill hunting?

[Matt Koplik]

This was about a year and a half after goodwill hunting. So the, the Oscars for goodwill hunting had happened a year prior, but the movie had come out a year and a half earlier. But so yeah, she was, she wasn't like a major movie star, but she definitely did this because she's good people. Yeah, in the same way like George Clooney did this because he's good people. But the. Their moms arrest Terence and Philip. Oh, I don't even think we. But we didn't talk about the actual Oscar Oscar nominated song yet. Yes, because Kyle's mom, Sheila Brofloski leads the brigade telling moms against Canada, Mac, the P and the pta. We have to stop this at the source, this scourge at the source of what is corrupting our youth. But what is the source? Oh, that's easy. And the biggest banger of a march comes on and she says our kids are, are getting terrible and times are getting worse. And they go, well, should we blame the government, society, the images on tv? No, blame Canada.

[Marcus Scott]

The ultimate deflection.

[Matt Koplik]

The ultimate deflection and it keeps going. Don't and then Stan's mom says, well, don't blame me for Stan. He saw the darn cartoon and now he's. He's run away. And like, yeah, it's all Canada's fault. And certain responses like, they're not even a real country anyway. It's one giant march towards moral absolutism of no self reflection. And the ultimate line at the end is we have to kick up and make a fuss before somebody thinks of blaming us. And it's the only lyric in the movie where the characters actually sing what the writers are feeling, not what the characters are feeling. Yeah, but it needs to be said. True.

[Marcus Scott]

No, true. I'm like, I'm trying to think, are there other moments in the show that in the movie that they do that?

[Matt Koplik]

I think there are moments where it sort of toes the line. Like in Mountain Town when the kids are singing like the white, white trash kick ass usa but like, it's ultimately a form of positivity and it's a little self referential. But the last two lines of blame in Canada are very much Trey Parker and Matt Stone being like, it's. We want it to be clear that the parents need to take responsibility. And. And so they have the like before somebody thinks of blaming us. And I think in the world of South Park, Sheila Broflowski and the rest of the. Of Mac wouldn't even think that they were the problem.

[Marcus Scott]

And it's funny because, like, they never, in the whole rest of the movie, they never take responsibility. Never.

[Matt Koplik]

Not once.

[Marcus Scott]

Not once. Even when everything wraps up, not one time, not.

[Matt Koplik]

Not a single time. Can't be bothered. And they. It's just it. They. They then have to deal with the UN because the ambassador from Canada comes in and says, you have to release Terrence and Philip. Our economy relies on them. When. When America won't do it and everybody laughs at Canada's accents, they bomb the Baldwin residence. Another amazing moment when we go back to the school and Mr. Garrison's trying to teach. He has that great line, periods. A line that.

[Marcus Scott]

God, that is probably one of my favorite lines.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, so I said, I. I say it to my best friend Sarah a lot, and she has said it back to me maybe twice because she knows it's funny, but she doesn't like to super endorse it. But it's.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah, but it's still funny.

[Matt Koplik]

Oh, it's great. Mr. Garrison, why are our moms trying to invade Canada? Your moms are all pissed off. They're probably on their periods or something and Then Wendy and Gregory say that that was a sexist statement. And Mr. Garrison says, I'm sorry, Wendy, but I just don't trust anything that bleeds for five days and doesn't die. It's. I lock it up. That's an amazing line.

[Marcus Scott]

So funny.

[Matt Koplik]

Keep it. Keep it safe from all harm's way, because that is an amazing line. And they end up. And everyone is informed that we are going to war against Canada because they bombed the Baldwins. Everyone else is like, oh, my God, we're going to war. And Mr. Garrison shouts, all the Baldwins are dead. And this is back when they were all still fuckable.

[Marcus Scott]

Oh, yeah, yeah. No, you're right.

[Matt Koplik]

So of course that's where Garrison's head lies. He's like, I'll never get a chance with any Baldwin. We're gonna take another break, and then we're gonna talk about Brian Boitano. Billy, I beg to differ with you. How do you mean? You're the top. Yeah, you're an arrow collar. You're the top. You're a coolage dollar. You're the nimble tread of the feet. And now we're back.

[Marcus Scott]

Marcus, before we get into Brian Rotana.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah. We forgot to mention that Robin Williams performed Blame Canada at the Oscars.

[Matt Koplik]

He sure did.

[Marcus Scott]

And only memorable performance from that whole.

[Matt Koplik]

It's true. And Trey Parker. Matt Stone wouldn't alter any of the lyrics. So any of the lines that weren't allowed to be said on tv, Robin Williams just put a piece of tape over his mouth and sang it. And Trey Parker. Matt Stone showed up in dresses high on acid. They're like, what's the way to go to the Oscars but not go to the Oscars? And that's. That was their response. And they're like, some people were super into it. Like, Michael Caine thought we were hilarious. Gloria Estefan hated us. I was like, sounds about right. Michael Caine would absolutely have a sense of humor about it. Gloria Estefan would be like, how dare you? I am here for Music of the Heart. I'm here representing that movie, that masterpiece by Wes Craven.

[Marcus Scott]

You know what? We're not going to shit on that movie because I would never shit on that movie of his that got to like. That got any Oscar recognition. It got Meryl Streep one of her. One of her many Oscar nominations.

[Matt Koplik]

And they got nominated for best song. Listen, that movie is perfectly fine. But also my story with Music of the Heart. So my two stories is my violin teacher in elementary school taught all the kids in that movie how to play the violin for that movie. In fact, I had some classmates who were in that movie. But also I was at the opening night party of on your feet, the glorious death on musical. And at the after party, I went up to her. She was. She. Or I'd rather say she came up to me because they started a conga line and she put her hands on my shoulders and we were dancing and I turned to her as we danced and I said, I love music of the heart. And she went, ah. And then we kept dancing.

[Marcus Scott]

Oh, that's great.

[Matt Koplik]

Notice I did not tell her that I loved the musical we had just seen that night. But I did say I love music of the heart, which is the lie. I like that movie. Don't love that movie. But also just I love Gloria Stefan. So, yes. So two things, two numbers happen. One, Cartman tells everyone that Kyle's mom is a. A big fat. She's the biggest in the whole wide world. Talk to all the kids around the world to Michael with something like this. The song was written for the TV show. Cartman sang it on the TV show at one point. So him doing the. Well, that's. It's him launching into a known song at that point. And I also just love the. It ends with a. I really mean. It has men like. It's in like. It's a big old brassy finale. It's good.

[Marcus Scott]

It's so good. It's so good.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes, but to go into the Parker Stone school of thought of storytelling. But Sheila Broflosky shows up for the end of the number. Therefore, Mac mothers against Canada insert the first V chip into Cartman's brain to keep him from swearing. Anytime he admits an obscenity, it sends a little shock into his system. So he cannot say horse fucker or big floppy donkey dick. Another amazing scene.

[Marcus Scott]

Or apparently it comes much later. But Barbra Streisand is also a curse.

[Matt Koplik]

Word in the world of South Park. She's absolutely a curse word. Can't even say pissed off. Say. Say pillow. Pillow. Notice that nothing happens now. Doggy Montana. Now I want you to say horse. Go ahead, Eric. It's all right. Now I want you to say big floppy donkey dick. Now success. The child doesn't want to swear. And so Carmen has the V chip and he cannot curse. And soon all these kids are going to have V chips. And their parents are burning all of their Terence and Philip memorabilia. They're making all the kids in town do it. And this is the breaking point for Kyle and Stan and they go, we have to do something. This is going too far. And our moms are not listening to us because Kyle won't stand up to his mom. And they go, what would Brian Boitano do? Marcus Scott, who the fuck is Brian Boitano?

[Marcus Scott]

Brian Botano is a figure skater. Probably one of the most famous male figure skaters of all time.

[Matt Koplik]

Certainly one of the most accomplished.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

Olympic champion, world champion, national champion.

[Marcus Scott]

Like, he's got the. The grand slam, I believe, of. Of a couple of times, actually. I believe.

[Matt Koplik]

And you want to know something amazing, Marcus, that I learned in my research this morning?

[Marcus Scott]

What?

[Matt Koplik]

In 1994, Brian Boitano competed in the World Professionals. And for his technical program, he skated to the Carousel Waltz from Carousel, my favorite musical. And he got. Say it with me. Tens, tens, tens across the board. You can watch it on YouTube. It's. He. It's. He does. I think. I think he does two triple axles in a row. And you can hear the crowd just go nuts. And then when he finishes and the commentators are like, well, that was pretty perfect. And they wait for the scores and it's just all tens. And everyone's like, goddamn straight. It was. And I'm watching, I'm like, what would Brian wait on to?

[Marcus Scott]

He would kill it. That's what you do.

[Matt Koplik]

He would slay. He would get. And apparently, like, it was right after he, I guess, had an injury or he, like, had a bad skating year. So he comes back for the 1994 World Professionals and just annihilates. And he's like, still got it. Ta da.

[Marcus Scott]

I love it.

[Matt Koplik]

I love it. And also is gay, but he wasn't out at the time. You can watch. Brian Botano has two major appearances on South Park. He's in the, as I said, he's in the spirit of Christmas sort of proof of concept that they do. He comes in and Trey Parker does the Voice room. And he's very flamboyant. He's like, boys, remember to love everyone. Christmas is about giving and family. Bye. And then he has an episode, I want to say in season two, maybe. Maybe season one. But he shows up again and he has, like. It turns out he's got some superpowers. And so for the song what Would Brian Boitano Do? It starts off with like, he does a triple axel while wearing a blindfold. And then it becomes like he used his fire breath to. To beat the dragon and save the maidens. Like, he does. He does all these things because Brian Bono does take from anybody.

[Marcus Scott]

I mean, I Just what I love is, is the, the rising of like, the mythology of him. They literally do to like a biblical figure by the end of the song.

[Matt Koplik]

As well they should.

[Marcus Scott]

I mean, well, he's, he's, you know, he's not just a world champion, a US Champion, he's a. An Olympic figure skater, you know.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, he sure is.

[Marcus Scott]

He won the gold around the world. He's one of, you know, he's the.

[Matt Koplik]

Best guys, I'm telling you, look up Brian Boitano, Carousel Waltz. Watch that man get tens, tens, tens, tens, tens across the board. And I didn't, I didn't. I did not know that this existed until today. Another wonderful reason to watch south park bicker long run uncut. It brings you to the glory that is Brian Bono.

[Marcus Scott]

You know, it's one of those things. By the way, with the talk, I'm probably off, but I just, I need to know. The obsession with, with Carousel, I just, I never got it.

[Matt Koplik]

You never understood my obsession with it.

[Marcus Scott]

Ever. Understood it.

[Matt Koplik]

That's okay. That's a story for another day. All you have to do is just watch the 94 production with Audra. That's all.

[Marcus Scott]

Got it. Okay.

[Matt Koplik]

In a nutshell, it's that it is a musical that's absolutely not idiot proof. It is a musical that needs to have a great director and good actors. The biggest issue with productions. I've talked about this before, people think that Carousel is a great score and bad book. So they cast singers who can't act and like, well, now you've done that. Yeah, the book is going to seem terrible, but if you actually cast good actors. No, that book is very good. It's. It's very Tennessee Williams. Moving on. But watch the 94 production. It's on YouTube. It's it. I'm telling you. Or go to the library and watch it. It's. It's wonderful and the best revival that's ever existed. Anywho, they bring all the kids together for a Viva la resistance. They send out a mass email.

[Marcus Scott]

Probably one of the best lame is probably the best lamest satire.

[Matt Koplik]

Absolutely. Well. And I was so. I was in my. In the interview with Mark Shaman, I was reading, he was like, I'll be honest. He's like, I managed to avoid ever listening or seeing Les Mis until we made this movie. He said, I came to New York at the same exact time that, like, Cats and Les Mis were on the scene. And I was so resentful. I wanted to be writing musicals. And this is what they were, these Brits. Were coming in, these French guys were coming in. And I was so fucking resentful. It's like. So I just. I never saw them. He goes, and I come in to work with Trey, and as it turns out, he's a giant queen for Les Miserables. Like, he loves that musical. And he's like, I really want to do a One Day More kind of mashup. And luckily, so this was also the last song they made because they needed to have the rest of the score finalized so they knew how they were going to mash it all up. And Mark Sherman's also, like, this is what I do. Like, piecing different songs together. Like, I can do that in my sleep. It's. It's. It's like. It's as natural as breathing to me. And so.

[Marcus Scott]

Sister act like that's all mashup.

[Matt Koplik]

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. He just has an ear for it. And he said, because it was the last song we worked on during that time, I had to absorb Les Mis. He's like, and I've come to appreciate it. He goes, but I was always a little resentful at the time that I managed to last 12 years without ever listening to it. And because of South Park, I had to listen to it. But he's like, I needed to know what One Day More was and how it worked in order to understand what Trey and Matt were going for. But it is. It is a genuine One Day More. First of all, it is a revolution song. Yes, it's a flag and everything, so that already makes it Les Mis. But then on top of that, like, meshes into all of these other songs we've already heard. Up There is in there Blame Canada. An amazing moment because, like, at that point, we have. We have the Tomorrow night. We have the Blame Canada we have up there. And then all of a sudden, we go into Terence and Philip in their cell just hanging by chain singing. It's like it just. It fits musically so well and we've forgotten about it. And it's so. It's a great pop up. And then the whole song ends. Also, it has another great line from Gregory because Gregory's the one who leads it. Like, the whole reason they're doing the Revolution. Also, like, Kyle wants to stand up to his mom. Cartman wants to be chip out of him. Stan wants to prove to Wendy that he can be political. And then on top of all of this, new Gregory kind of takes the reins and tells them about the mole. And, you know, the mole will help you break into the USO show. Where they plan to assassinate Terence and Philip. And Gregory has a line in it towards the end, he goes, they may cut your dick in half and feed it to a pig, and though it hurts, you'll laugh and dance a dickless jig. And I am.

[Marcus Scott]

But like, you know, it's. It's funny because, like, in the same. In the same song, he goes, you may be stabbed in the head with a dagger or a sword. You may be burned to death or skinned a lot. Like, like, it's so good because the.

[Matt Koplik]

Line of the song is, though you die, la resistance lives on. And it just gets more and more intense. And these are nine year olds. It's great. And when the song ends, everyone poses and Butters runs across the stage with the flag and of course trips because he's Butters. And this is before Butters is ever like a real, real character. I think he's had like four lines of dialogue at this point. But you look back in 1999, you're like, of course Butters is the one who trips and drops the flag. It's great. It's great.

[Marcus Scott]

What is it? I think one of my other favorite lines, it's like, when Canada is dead and gone, there'll be no more Selene to you. Like, it's just so fudgeing good.

[Matt Koplik]

As if we needed another reason to hate Sheila Broflowski. She's excited for no more Celine Dion. And I'm like, you, ma' am can go fist yourself.

[Marcus Scott]

And this is like peak Celine Dion era, by the way. She's had, like, she's had the song from Titanic. She's had, you know, she's. She's got a diamond record. At the same time, this album is literally, you know, this. Excuse me. This soundtrack is being made. It's great.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. It's so good. I love it. I love it so much. Kenny here, Kenny in hell hears about the plan to rise to earth and tries to bash through to earth to tell Carmen as a ghost about the. About the plan. And he's too overexcited, so Carmen doesn't really absorb it all. And Carmen tries to tell Stan and Kyle and they can't really believe it. They go find the mole, who they realize is a French kid who has a hate of God. I love it so much. He goes, he goes, I am grounded for two weeks. Why are you grounded? Why? Because God hates me, that's why. He makes. He makes my whole life torture. So I call him a cock sucking asshole and I get grounded. The mole says some of the Most amazing things in this movie. When they make it to the USO show, which is. Has a guest appearance by Winona Ryder, who I also love. They tell as the mole's about to dig a hole to get to Terence and Philip, they go, mo, be careful. And he goes, careful. Was my mother careful when she sto. Stabbed me in the heart with a clothes hanger while I was still in the womb? Long beat. Then goes into the hole. I go, jesus Christ, that kid is up.

[Marcus Scott]

It's so good.

[Matt Koplik]

It's so good.

[Marcus Scott]

My favorite, like, one off character in all of south park, but my friend.

[Matt Koplik]

Tyler loves the line where they. They get there and he goes, did you bring the shovel? Yes. And the rope. Yes. And the. But for. What's a butt for. Well, pooping, silly. It's just. And. And he doesn't actually have binoculars. He has the like, little slideshow thing, like, because, again, these are children. It's so funny.

[Marcus Scott]

And he's a teen smoking child, by the way. Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

Who's. Who always is having to put out cigarettes whenever he goes to his mom with. To his mom. His mom's like, kristoff, get in here. Coming, Maze. It's just so. It's. I. I love that Trey and Matt never forget that these are kids and will always find the most inopportune moments to remind us. These are children. They have parents, they have bedtimes, they are grounded. They. They have access to a lot of stuff, but also, like, they have toys. Like, it's. It's just so. It is truly genius. It is the kind of comedic genius that we don't see very often, and it's what makes this movie evergreen.

[Marcus Scott]

No, this is like Mel Brooks level genius. That's why it works.

[Matt Koplik]

Listen, Mel Brooks, circa 1999, wishes he came up with south park bigger, longer and uncut.

[Marcus Scott]

I mean, this is true. This is true.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes. This is. Yeah. This is like Blazing Saddles level of brilliance. This is. Honestly, it's like something like a hot level.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

Saddam talk. Talk to us about Saddam Hussein song. I can change. Because at this moment, Satan has had a very lovely pep talk from his new bestie, Kenny, where he's like, saddam doesn't treat me right. And Kenny goes, well, leave him. He's like, I guess I should. And Kenny goes, good for you. So. And also, Saddam is reading a book called. Sorry. Satan is reading a book called Satan. Saddam is from Mars. Satan is from Venus, trying to learn how to communicate.

[Marcus Scott]

Well, that was also like the biggest book at the time.

[Matt Koplik]

It sure was. Men Are from Mars, women are from Venus.

[Marcus Scott]

Yes. This I can change is probably like the, like if this, if this movie is probably one of the greatest examples of a toxic relationship, this particular song is probably the greatest. I mean like we talk about gaslighting right now. Like, I mean that's like become like the. That particular word has become like the. The vocab du jour. You know, everyone talks about gaslighting. This song is like the gaslighting a guy. A narcissistic gaslighting anthem. You know, it's literally him just coming. It's a white lie after white lie after white lie of him just telling him all the ways he's going to change and you know, to look past all of his evil. You know, his evil ways of, you know, you know, beneath the surface he's actually, you know, a stand up guy.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Marcus Scott]

You know, and every. And it's also most. I will say this too, just categorically this. Every. This is like a rhomba song. But it's also like, it's like, you know, it has obviously like Middle Eastern influences, but also like, like stylistically too. It's also very different than from a lot of the songs. This is a jazz song. It's written in aaba.

[Matt Koplik]

Oh, interesting.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah, because of like, you know, it starts with that I can change. I can change. It's not really a chorus. Not really. Like I can change this kind of like either a bad guy or I can change or the beginning of every song. But there's not really a chorus.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, I would say. Yeah, the, the chorus is that I can change. But yeah, you're right, it is verse, chorus, verse, chorus. There's no bridge. There's no nothing.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah, it's it. And, and yeah, but it's a, it's a gaslighter's anthem and it's literally him blaming society for. For his ills and put. Putting it on that versus like his. And he never wants to apologizes.

[Matt Koplik]

He never apologizes. He never takes accountability. He ign. He acknowledges that he had that he is, you know, can be a prick, but he never gives examples of when he's done wrong. And he. And is as we both said, like he doesn't technically speaking apologize. He gaslights Satan with the white lies that he knows Satan wants to hear. He doesn't say he doesn't. He doesn't say. He can't say Satan, you're wrong. I don't know what you're talking about. Rather he gives Satan the narrative that he, that he knows Satan wants To hear. Because ultimately, in Satan's eyes, Saddam is like the bad boy that Satan can change. It is very Jess and Rory on season three of Gilmore Girls. Like, he's a tortured soul, but I can fix him. It's like, no, first of all, not your job. Second of all, no, that's not how relationships work. A healthy relationship isn't I will fix you.

[Marcus Scott]

No, it's very Zack Morris.

[Matt Koplik]

That's who. That's who.

[Marcus Scott]

Like, he's never going to change. He's like an awful person, you know, person. He's, you know, he. But he's charming. And we love Zack Morris, but, like. But that's Saddam Hussein. And, like, one. Also, like, one of my favorite lines is like, hey, Satan, don't be such a twit. Mother Teresa won't have on me. On me. It's great. It's just. It's. It's just. Once again, it just shows, like, the. The. The acumen, the lyrical acumen that we're going to see a decade later with, you know, per. You know, you could do. We could, you know, criticize Book of Mormon for what it, you know, now with, you know, in. In a. You know, how it's changed so much culturally since and how it's been received in the last decade. But, my God, like, it's all here and it's all in this particular song, too. It's great.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. Shaman said that the vibe they went with was one of Fagan's songs from Oliver. But if it was in the Middle east, which I think you can absolutely hear, you can also hear, like, little bits of poor unfortunate souls in there. It's just. It's a. It's a class. Yeah, it's a classic Disney villain. But, like, with.

[Marcus Scott]

I was gonna say the same. I'm about to say, yeah, it's definitely a Disney villain song. It's a Scar with the high. The. What is that song?

[Matt Koplik]

Be Prepared.

[Marcus Scott]

Be Prepared. I do. I have a reference to that particular song, One of My Places I Should know it. It's Poor Unfortunate Souls. And it's. And in a way, it's. It's literally, in a way, hellfire from. From. From. You know. Oh, my God.

[Matt Koplik]

I mean, it literally takes place in the hell of Fire. What makes it such a master, manipulative song is Satan Saddam acknowledging that he has been a prick is not him actually owning up to anything. It is one of them. It's one of the major gaslighting, manipulative moves of just setting a sense. Setting up a sense of trust. Of you're not seeing, imagining things. You're absolutely right about this. I. I was. I've been acting this kind of way without giving examples and without ever officially saying sorry. Just saying every. You're totally right.

[Marcus Scott]

And it's really, really epicenter of it. It is what it is. I am what I am. Like, love me or hate me. That's it. Yeah, it's, it's, it's wonderful. And it's. Yeah, it's. And, and also. But it also doubles as a love song. But the love song is not to say himself.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, well, he, he is presenting it as, I'm doing this for you. Watch all these things I'm doing for you. Watch me change. And the dance changes him literally doing a dance break. And at the end of the dance break, he goes, I've really matured. Which is. It is both using musical theater vocabulary and making fun of musical theater vocabulary. Because in so many ways, dance is used as the ultimate final expression. When you can't talk, you sing. And when you can't sing, you dance. And it can be interpreted in so many ways. And because it's such a chemical reaction you have, and because you're not saying anything specific, it's like, well, what a beautiful, bold, raw expression of your feelings. You're dancing for me. And it's like, what has he actually done to change for you?

[Marcus Scott]

No, but that's what makes it great. I mean, it's literally like, why, why it's also musically brilliant is because it's a rumba, right? So it's like that scene from like Beelgiers, the Day O scene. It's like under possession, you're under his spell. So you're just kind of like. You're just kind of following along with, you know, whatever he's saying. It's like, really, it's brilliant. Gaslighting.

[Matt Koplik]

Brilliant Gaslighting. And ultimately, this leads to the USO show where they are going to assassinate Terence and Philip. Mr. Garrison is there as Anonymous to flip the switch with a hood over his face and a bare torso. It is hosted by Big Gal and Sheila Brofloski. Winona Ryder comes in to show her ping pong ball trick, which is both not what do you think and what do you think at the same time. It's great. Yeah. In order to stall Stan and Kyle, ask Big Gay Al to do a number. So he sings, I'm super. Thanks for. Thanks for asking.

[Marcus Scott]

It is okay. Why this song is. It's. I mean, it's so inappropriate. It's probably the most UNPC song. It is so problematic.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, well, first of all, it's titled that because that's his catchphrase from the show. Hey, Big Al, how are you doing? I'm super, thanks for asking.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah, no, it's just why it's so campy. It's the campy. It's. It's very Liza, like. It's very Liza with the Z. It's, you know, in that variety, you know, style. It's looking at the glam musicals really of the 70s, you know, like, stylistically and like. And yeah, it's just, it's just, it's. It's the, it's the bust of Berkeley. I'm saying his name right?

[Matt Koplik]

Busby Berkeley.

[Marcus Scott]

Busby Berkeley. It's that number. And like, you know what we've been waiting for probably the entire musical.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Marcus Scott]

And just fits in so well with like the theme of the show. You can now explain it. I'm sorry, I'm guessing.

[Matt Koplik]

No, there's nothing to explain. It's true. It's. He is, he is. You know, Big Al has always been a very over the top character. He is Albert and Birdcage Alban and La Cage. He's very effeminate. He's the absolute stereotypical gay man. And there are people who do not enjoy his presence on South Park. I've always enjoyed it because I think that everybody on south park goes to some extreme at any given time. And every demographic is brought up in both a positive and negative light whenever it's necessary. But Big G has always been an outspoken, confident and kind and intelligent person. And in fact, they have a whole episode with Big Gay Al where he is the troop leader for the boys Boy Scout group. And he's an amazing leader, but the fathers are super uncomfortable about it because he's gay. So they have him fired and they bring in a super butch guy who ends up being a sexual predator. And, and, and the boys miss Big Gay Al. Not because they're. They. They don't enjoy that they're getting nude photographs taken of them. But they also just like miss Big Alex. He thought he was cool. And eventually it comes out that the new guy is the predator and the Gale gets reinstated and the fathers learn their lesson. And I like that's. I just love that that's where Parker and Stone come from with him. And in the movie, I think what makes I'm super. Thanks for asking. Work is two things. One is that it is Big Gay Al's just ease with which it is so over the top, like, it just. It fits his skin so well. And the number is so outlandish that there's absolutely no way you can make the argument that Stone and Parker being like, well, this is all gay people. It's like, no, this is. It is so ridiculous. If you think that for a second, it tells me that you are dumb.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah. No, and. And I mean, by the end of the musical, I mean, he's nude, like, like it all.

[Matt Koplik]

It also has a great line in it, an amazing line, because he keeps evading the word gay for a while. He goes, it's. Everything is super when you're done. You think I look cute in this hat. Everything is super when you don't. You think I look cute in this hat. This. These little pants, matching tie I got at Merv's. And one of. And in the bridge from the chorus, they go big A. Al says, do ask, do tell. And I'm like, that's an amazing line. Do ask, do tell. Because he's just out. He's proud, and he's. And he's loving it. I always had an issue with the. And listen, everything is cyclical, and we go through these pendulum swings, but there was a long time when the queer community would come out all the time and say, we're just like you. We're not outlandish. We're like, don't believe the media. We, like, we'd walk around and we're just, like, boring like the rest of you. And it's like, yeah, no, we're boring. We go to sleep, we shower, we poop. But, like, some people are not, you know, Jonathan Bailey in an interview. Some people are Nathan Lane in the birdcage. And that's totally fine. You know, they're all walks of life. And this was at a time in the 90s when a lot of gay people had issues with any feminine characters being done a. Because it had been done so much already, so it became the stereotype. But they really were trying to push the narrative hard of, like, we're just like you, and everything we do is just as normal as you. I'm like, no. Like, we also go to drag shows and we say, like, cunt and fag and, like, that, like, that's part of our vocabulary.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah, no, I mean, like, what. You know, like. So you said, like, do ask, do tell, right after that, he says, skittles, which I just think is great. But, like, also, like, you know, upon this watch, because I was like, I was. You know, I wanted to, like, figure out what. What he was saying, I always thought it was like, no, no one me. And it's. No, no one bugs me, like. And I just like, oh, that's like that, like the way it was written, like, as a kid, you know, thinking that lyrics that. That like, that, like, made me go, oh, wow. Like that, like. I wonder what, like, middle America, how they interpret this particular number because of just like, some of the things that you just don't hear that you kind of assume is being heard.

[Matt Koplik]

Absolutely.

[Marcus Scott]

There's a lot of that in here. Also, just like the. The way in which he. They. They use like, the stakes of the song, it gets more and more like, you know, like, I'm sorry, Mr.

[Matt Koplik]

Cripple. Like, I can't just feel. I can't do. Feel bad for you right now.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah, I feel bad for you right now to just kind of like the. Just the extravagance of it. It's just so extravagant and it's so. It really does spit in the face of. I mean, of so many of the themes in this show. I mean, like, later. We will talk about it in a moment. But what happens with. With the army that comes up later with the. With, you know, with the buffalo soldiers, you know, it's looking at. Oh, you know, you. You think we're, you know, we're talking about PC and. And, you know, culture. We have to talk about sexuality. We have to talk about that. And to have these two heterosexual men writing, you know, well, with Mark Shaman, who is not working on, you know, these. These projects, it's. It's. It just shows a level of wit in a level of. Of frankly, balls that a lot of people did not have at this time. And it's still. It's aged really well, actually, because.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, well, I think because of the boldness of it. I also just love that this pro. The prompt for it is when he's asked to sing a song, he goes, I did write a little something about the war. And like, the song has nothing to do with the war. The song begins as. Just like, bombs are flying. The world is going to hell. But how are you? Well, I'm super. And the whole thing is just like it. The. I think the more positive interpretation of it could be the jinx Monsoon Water off a duck's back. Like, it all just rolls off me and I'm great. And like, no one can get to you if you don't let them. And nothing can be harmful to you if you don't let it. And there's a lot of positivity about that message. It is a little. They go a little too extreme with it. But that's again, on purpose.

[Marcus Scott]

Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah. And. And just the way in which it's conveyed you. I feel. I feel that, like, how they convey this particular song, it spits in the face of not only like, of the message of the show, like what's politically correct, what's whatever, but also like at the end of the button of the show of this particular song is the kids. Even though they're stalling for time, they're a surrogate for us, the audience at home again. Again. Because it's such an infectious. It's such an infection song that you're just like, you know. But yeah, it's Lights up with the Sea, it's Judy Garland, it's Barbra Streisand, actor, like peak powers. You know, when they were singing, when they were, you know, when they were doing cabaret, you know, numbers. And, And. And they. They. It fits like a glove with this particular character.

[Matt Koplik]

1000%. Really? I beg to differ with you. How do you mean? You're the top. Yeah. You're an arrow caller. You're the top. You're a Coolidge dollar. You're the nimble tread of the feet of. So after this, there is no more musical numbers. It's just plot. It's just war. The war starts to break out. They get to. They are able to escape Terence and Philip for a second. The mole does not survive. He does. The mole, unfortunately, is killed. A child is murdered in this movie.

[Marcus Scott]

Yes. Yeah, many people are murdered. But yes, it's a child and it's.

[Matt Koplik]

Is the only child I know of that, other than Kenny, that gets fully murdered in this movie. And while the war is breaking out, we watch Operation Human Shield. Now. We are exposed to Operation Human Shield earlier when all of America. When all the American men sign up for the army and including Chef and Mr. Garrison and Mr. Mackey and. Why don't you explain to us in the war room what happens?

[Marcus Scott]

What.

[Matt Koplik]

What the plan is for Operation Human Shield and what Chef's response to it is.

[Marcus Scott]

So the. The plan for this? The. For this? Yeah, the plan is that they're going to have on the front lines, which is historical of many a war, is to have black men standing at black soldiers at the front of the. Of the. Of the war and standing behind them to protect, you know, who are going to be protected and is going to be the second wave are going to be these white men. So the human shields are black men. And it's literally a historical thing. These are the buffalo soldiers. And you know, it's. It's. You know, it's. It's. Yeah, it's a historical thing and it's played for last. But yeah. Chefs response is like, hell, you know.

[Matt Koplik]

Or what does he specifically say? Marcus quote the line.

[Marcus Scott]

Oh, no, wait, wait, wait. What does he say? He.

[Matt Koplik]

He says to the commander, raises his hand. He says, have you ever heard.

[Marcus Scott]

Oh, yeah. Have you? Oh my God, yes. Thank you. Have you heard?

[Matt Koplik]

Sorry, I. I cut you off. Say it again very cleanly for us.

[Marcus Scott]

Have you heard. Have you ever heard of the emancipation proclamation? And he says, I never heard hip hop.

[Matt Koplik]

I don't listen to hip hop.

[Marcus Scott]

It is probably one of the greatest lines ever uttered. And I'm sorry that I messed it up. I'm sorry that I messed it up. You gave me. You gave me you. I'm sorry for everyone at home. I ruined the. I ruined it.

[Matt Koplik]

I ruined it. I'm a flatter for you.

[Marcus Scott]

You didn't really. Marcus on a platter. And I was like, huh? I was like, squirrel. That was really. That was my brain fart. We were. My God, you really did. I'm so sorry. I was like, what are you trying to say?

[Matt Koplik]

No, it's wonderful. It's great. Fantastic. Also, also the. When they are in the war, they do enact Operation Human Shield, which ends up just being the black soldiers ducking and the missile hitting all the white soldiers.

[Marcus Scott]

Everybody take everybody out, people.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, way more. And, and, and. And Chef's like, operation Human Shield, my fucking ass. I love it. The other thing that we have we mentioned, we haven't really fully connected to. So Stan's trying to impress Wendy. He wants to get her to like him. And he thinks it might be being political because Gregory's political. And he asks Jeff at the very beginning of the movie, how do you get a girl to like you more than any other guy? And Chef goes, oh, that's easy. You just gotta find the clitoris. Stan doesn't know what that means. He's nine and he spent the whole movie trying to know what the clitoris means. He asks his older sister. She throws a chair at him. They look it up online. They end up finding porn starring Cartman's mom. The line I love is when he first hears about it from Chef, he goes up to the guys, he goes, guys, you know where I can find the clitoris? And then go, the what? And Carmen goes, what is that like finding Jesus or something? It's.

[Marcus Scott]

One of the greatest lines. What's good?

[Matt Koplik]

I'm sorry. There are 30,000 lines in this movie that you need to lock up in an airtight vault and keep safe from the rest of humanity. The Jesus line.

[Marcus Scott]

Oh, no.

[Matt Koplik]

By the way, there's a very quick shot of the. Of the soldiers storming down the street. And Jesus is one of the soldiers.

[Marcus Scott]

Yes.

[Matt Koplik]

And then on top of all of this.

[Marcus Scott]

Oh.

[Matt Koplik]

Stan eventually gets knocked out and hallucinates the. A giant clitoris that tells him he's got to help save Terence and Philip. He goes, no, you got to tell me how to get Wendy to like me. And the Clarice just says, be confident. Chicks love confidence. And he's confident. Wendy likes him. He says, what about Gregory? She goes, gregory right in the ear. And ultimately, Kyle finally stands up to his mom, tells her, no, no, no. Discipline me. Talk to me. Don't blame them. And everyone. Everyone understands. For a millisecond before Sheila Buff Brofloski kills Terence and Philip, their blood spills. Satan and Saddam come up to earth. Everyone realizes that.

[Marcus Scott]

I'm saying coup de grace, like she shot them point blank.

[Matt Koplik]

She sure do. And. And. But there is no greater way to know that you are in the wrong than Satan and Saddam Hussein rising from hell to say, your actions brought us here. Thank you very much.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah. Spitting literally out of the earth with hellfire and damnation.

[Matt Koplik]

Literally telling them that. Yeah. And Sheila realizes that she was in the wrong. What ends up saving them is Cartman's V chip because he got electrocuted at the USO show. His V chip every time he swears causes a little spark. So. So when he starts to curse, he has electricity shooting out of him. And this weakens Saddam Hussein. And ultimately Cartman's foul mouth is what saves them all in the end, including shouting, Barbra Streisand shooting Saddam back to hell. Satan is able to find his confidence and throw Saddam back into hell because Saddam made him feel worthless. And so for a moment, he thought he was worthless. And. And ultimately, that is. That is the end of the Saddam Satan romance. And Satan taking Mr. Hat, Mr. Garrison's Mr. Hat, and going back to hell, knowing that's where he belongs, but also granting Kenny the wish to turn everything back to how it was before. But also, Satan has an open invitation from Earth that he can come up anytime he wants. He says, I think I might do that. And Satan, Kenny go back to hell. But then Kenny gets to shoot back up to heaven because he helped save everybody. And that's sort of Terence And Philip get brought back to life. Everyone's sort of happy. Ish again.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah. I mean, like, you know, you get like, a lot of really great, just Easter eggs in pop culture, like Cartman, you know, basically turning into Goku from Dragon Ball Z, which was huge at that time, and Kamehameha at. At Satan. And. And yeah. And in. Everything gets wrapped up and we.

[Matt Koplik]

Very neatly, I must say, very neatly.

[Marcus Scott]

We never. I don't think we've ever gotten really a musical, south park like, movie after this or anything. Anything like, longer form. This is kind of. This sits like in its own kind of space. They have many movies and many, like, longer. Like, long episodes. But this right here, we never really got something as bold or as. As just as joyful.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. One of the questions somebody asked in the Discord was could you see this ever being a stage show to which I. Well, the material is strong enough that it could absolutely work on stage. It's. The score is amazing. This. This. The script is tight. I don't think I'd ever want to see it on stage, though. I think the medium of it being a cartoon adds to the charm. And I think that what you can do in a movie that you can't do on stage adds to a lot of it. It becomes a lot more lumbering and literal on stage than it does in a film.

[Marcus Scott]

Agreed.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. The material can withstand being performed on a stage. It will never work as well. That is my take also, too.

[Marcus Scott]

Like, and this might sound a little ageist, but this was. I mean, by. By this point, they were entering their 30s. They. And even, you know, about. Or about to. And. And, you know, this right here was like, them proving themselves. Right. And of course we got, you know, we later got Book of Mormon, but I feel that, like, to go back and put this on stage, it would require a level of hunger. This is them putting. Putting everything, blood, sweat, tears, everything on the floor floor and giving us a classic that has really endured 25 years.

[Matt Koplik]

Absolutely.

[Marcus Scott]

And I. And I just. I honestly don't think that, like, even if they. They took it and just brought it to. To stage and of course, fleshed it out and made it so they could probably get a best score nomination, it. It would still require that. That level of hunger and that level of just don't give a. And I. And I just feel that, like, I would love to see more pro. More musicals, more work from these two. I mean, they. They, you know, they're. They're brilliant fighters. They continue to be brilliant. I mean, south park is still, you know, bringing the funny. But this right here. This right here was two people who were just really trying to make it. They. They stumbled upon a hit and then they, you know, got more time to, like, really put it on there. They didn't know, you know, yes, they got a second season, but they didn't know that they were going to be on air for 20 years. Yeah. So this right here is something that really force them to kind of just put it all, you know, into the final product. And I don't think we're going to get. We could get that if they did it now.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, it's a. They're in a different state of their lives and their careers and. And they just know more. And I don't think they're. They're always still pushing themselves and trying to be adventurous, but there's also a lot that they just know works now. And they're not really in a fighting mode anymore. They don't have to be. They have so much power and, and currency. What I think people need to know about this movie as we go forward because it's going to come up in a couple of shows that we talk about in the future. Trey Parker has a deep respect and knowledge of musical theater, and he and Matt Stone both have a respect and knowledge for film. So in making this movie, while they do have a sort of counterculture humor about them, they do not have a counterculture mentality about craft. They are very big proponents of knowing structure, of knowing storytelling form. Like all this stuff. They're like very big about that. Like, you can't just stumble into this. You can't. There's. I'll be talking about this in a future episode, but there may or may not be a musical that was co written by someone who, like, famously hates musicals. It's like I wanted to write sort of the anti musical. Like, okay, well, you're not gonna write a great musical then, because you have to know and. And understand the formula before you write.

[Marcus Scott]

Before you break the formula form. Yeah, yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

I'm going to be repeating myself on this when I talk about it this in American Psycho. And I'm just saying I'm repeating it now because I don't know if I'll be able to say it well or as well as I want to, but I look at musicals as baking. Like, it's the Great British Bake Off. You. There are certain things you have to know how to do just to get the right consistency. Like you have to know what kind of flour to use and how hot the oven has to be to get a certain kind of bake for a certain kind of crust, for whatever. What you bring to it is flavor. What you bring to it is size. Like knowing what kind of custard to bring with what kind of fruit for a certain kind of pastry. And, oh, I want it to be this shape. I want it to go be paired with this thing. Like, that's where your creativity comes in. You take what works or you take the fundamentals that you need, and then you add your own spin to it. But you need to know the fundamentals, and they do. And the fundamentals are all here in South Park.

[Marcus Scott]

You know, listen, like, awards on everything, but, like, they've got everything but the Oscar.

[Matt Koplik]

It's true.

[Marcus Scott]

I think Emmys, they got.

[Matt Koplik]

I think they've got a. Yeah, they've got Emmys for South park, and they have a Tony and I'm pretty sure a Grammy for Mormon.

[Marcus Scott]

Grammy for Mormon. I mean, they will. They have multiple Tonys and they have multiple Emmys and they have the Grammy. Like, you know, this is. And. And. And they have their one Academy nomination and they've got all these things. But that doesn't. That's not because of likability like that. That comes from, like, knowing your craft and, like, and being able to. Like, once you know your craft, you can break it and break form. And also it comes from, like, being able to. I mean, you. We were talking at the very beginning of our conversation that these are people who had. They had written two or three films before South Park. They had, you know, the Cannibal musical, they had Orgasmo, and then they kind of stumbled upon South Park. You know, by the time you get to basketball there, there's. There's already a rhythm. They're already, like, found. Okay. Like, it. Basketball is very much of its time. It hasn't really. No one really talks about it anymore. It's still very funny. It's still like a 90s, like, you know, cult jam. But regardless, if you, like, follow the trajectory of their career, if you follow the. What they did with this particular movie musical and like, what. And everything they've done after it, it's just always been about, like, leveling up and getting better at their craft. And as a result, I mean, the show has been running almost 30 years now. And, you know, other than the Simpsons, which is the longest running animated TV series, I mean, south park is like, right behind it.

[Matt Koplik]

You know, it really is. Yeah. And. And as you said, more culturally relevant now than the Simpsons is And. And much longer, like Simpsons really dominated most of the 90s. And I would. Well, south park kind of came in like a bullet in 97, the Simpsons was still relevant. I feel like the Simpsons stopped being on the pulse around 0203. And South park never really stopped. It had pauses. But there would always be an. Even with some other weaker seasons, there would always be like an episode or two that would come out that people will be talking about.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah, I mean, you know, the thing about the Simpsons is that like, it had. It came back. There was a period, you know, right before the movie came out, which many, in many ways there are a lot of similarities. If you look at kind of like they're very different movies, but like the, the just how they. How they, you know, tell the stakes or whatever. You know, the Simpsons movie takes a lot of cues from south park, the movie, and just. Just because of what it's doing story wise and what it's. What it's exploring with the characters and. And you know, and yeah, the Simpsons had. It had a moment where people were watching the Simpsons regularly, where you were getting a new generation of stars. Lady Gaga and Annie Hathaway, you know, all these like, you know, and people are still making cameos. It's kind of like a part of like the thing to do now. And there is a thing about, oh, the Simpsons did it first. But there's some things to be said about south park where even though the Simpsons stumbled upon it first and told the joke in a way that. That is just snappy and zippy and fun. There's something about the. There's almost a. There's almost like a. A nastiness and a. And a just a no fucks given ethos to south park that has made it endure. And it's all here in movie form in 80, 85 minutes, you know.

[Matt Koplik]

Absolutely. And not to totally degrade the Simpsons. They. They have stuck around and a lot of their stuff has been popping up in social media the last two or three years. The meme of like the Simpsons are predicting the future, but it's not a lot of the more recent stuff. It's not from like the 90s that they. That have been popping up.

[Marcus Scott]

No, exactly. It's never. That hasn't been like anything from like the 2000, like 10s.

[Matt Koplik]

Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Last, last sort of tidbits about south park bigger, longer and uncut as a piece of culture, as a movie. We think that this still sort of stands, that it's still relevant, that people still talk about it, it's in the.

[Marcus Scott]

I was thinking about. I listened to the, the. They have a CD and so. And some songs on that particular cd, the soundtrack are not on the movie. There's a, There's a song that, that Isaac Hayes, you know, made in like 19. He dropped in like 1971. I think it's called like Good Luck and you know, he gave it to the. You know, it's a blaxploitation song and it's ripping on that. And it was supposed it was going to be used, but they didn't use it. And, and you know, and so, and it's really. That's, you know. And so the fact is that this is a. If you are a person that is who loves musicals, this is a really good, like, it's up there with like. In terms of musicals that are exploring multiple genres that are, that are giving you a different vantage points and different viewpoints. It's a musical that is giving you kind of like the DNA of like the pop up culture canon of musical theater history. And it's doing it in a funny and irreverent way. And, and I think that if you are a person, not just an actor, but if you're a book writer, if you're a lyricist of your composer, this is one of those movies where you know, like, you can pop on a cabaret, you can pop on a Chicago, a Dream Girls. But put this in the canon as well. This is a, this is a story. This is a movie that should be studied because it's, it's giving you everything you need to know. It's giving you different song styles, it's giving you different genres, it's giving you tight lyrics, it's giving you different great points of view from each character. It's ambassading the culture while also giving you pointed political critiques. And in, oh, and in every. And. And no matter who's telling the story or who's singing a song, there's a clear vision behind every lyric, a clear intent in every lyric, every melody. This is, this is just a songwriting team that honestly, I wish they wrote a stage show. This is, this is probably the only time we'll see the three ever again together. And.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, yeah, I, I agree. I, I think, I think Parker and Stone are phenomenal. Writer. Shaman is a great composer. I haven't loved everything that he's done for stage since this hairspray. I think that score is incredible. Cat catch if you can. Fine. Some might get hot. Fine. But you know, nothing. Nothing awful. But I'm like, nothing on a level. These two. Yeah, he did do Smash, of which there are some amazing songs and then there are songs. But.

[Marcus Scott]

Yes, but those songs, those amazing songs are amazing. The highs are really high and the lows are really low. But it's great. It's great.

[Matt Koplik]

High risk. High risk. High reward, baby.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, It's. This is absolutely a movie musical that should be studied if you want to make musicals, either a movie musical or a stage musical. 1,000%. And yes, if you are not a fan of the TV show, you might be a little wary of seeing it. I would. This is absolutely part of the south park canon of the legacy. I would make the suggestion that this is actually one of the sweeter incarnations of South Park. Like, it doesn't get more wholesome than this movie in terms of South Park. No. Yeah, it's like, there's still vile stuff going on. There's a lot of language, but, like, it's overall very earnest and. And there's a lot of sweetness to it. Like, this is. This is definitely the most, like, childlike these kids are in all of South Park.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah, yeah, agreed.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. And it's. And. But that's also sort of part of the point because in order for us to get riled up in the parents anger, we do have to sort of see the innocence that the parents see, but also find the humor knowing that they are a rambunctious bunch of rascals. Like, this is the foul mouth little rascals. That's what south park is and always has been. And at the very least, you'll appreciate the craft of the songwriting, of the structural integrity of it as a musical, as a movie, of all the different plot lines that it's able to keep threaded within each other, as you were saying, the themes that it touches on and does all of this in a highly digestible way. So I literally just recorded, right before we did this, my pitch and my ask for my own play. Marcus, I don't know if you know this. I wrote my first play.

[Marcus Scott]

I did. Congratulations.

[Matt Koplik]

Thank you. Marcus has written 9,000 plays, so he's like, oh, baby, congrats. You made your first pancake. But for me, it's a big deal. But when talking about sort of what I like, what I like about my own play, and we're on a day today where I have put on what I call my BDE suit, my big dick energy suit. I don't wear it naturally. I. What I like about my play is I feel like we go through Some themes, but make it a very digestible piece. We don't come out feet forward being like we're important. Like, no, it's. The play is structured and presented almost like a romcom until it stops being one which makes an audience want to live with it. South Park Bigger, longer to uncut. All of these things that it touches on. Yes, but in an 82 minute animated musical comedy. It is so delightful and enjoyable, but. And the things that it says and things that it dives into are so massive. But it doesn't feel massive when you're watching it. You're just enjoying the fuck out of it. And then afterwards, like, oh, the things that it touches on. My God.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah. I mean, like. And also, like, I was thinking about this too. Like, this film came out in 99, and even though there were comedies, there wasn't really something that became like a cultural blueprint or, you know, or a. Like, it's just like a landmark in comedy really, for a decade. I think the next comedy that we get that, like, kind of changed how we see comedy was in 2009. That's super bad, you know, like, for a long time, south park, you know, this movie really elevated how we experience comedy. And so many people kind of told jokes in that, like, south park kind of humor, you know, and then we. And it wasn't really until, like, on television, yes, you get like Family Guy, which changed again how we saw comedy. But that. That was on a cut and Family Guy was huge. But, like, in terms of, like, how, like, what embedded itself into, like, every Hollywood script, the humor of this movie. There was also. There were so many kind of like south park related humor. And then like a movie like, like Superbad, where now everyone's trying to do Superbad for another, you know, decade. And it speaks to, like, just like the immediate influence of this movie.

[Matt Koplik]

Absolutely. I think it comes down to there's a YouTube account called Friendly Space Ninja. And he just talked and because he. He deconstructs a lot of really bad TV shows like the Idol and Emily in Paris and the Pretty Little Liars reboot and Gossip Girl reboot. And he always just says, good writing always wins out. Bad writing, if it's presented in a stylized way with. With beautiful actors. Like, it might get popular for a minute, but eventually the bad writing shows itself and people lose interest. Good writing will always win the day, and it lasts. And even if it's not popular in the moment, it will become popular. People will catch on. This movie was successful by all metrics of when it came out, it actually got pretty strong reviews, got an Oscar nomination, it made its money back. It wasn't a blockbuster, but with each passing year, it has become more and more respected and more and more popular.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah, I got a cult following. And also like, you know, we were talking about the writing, but like, composition wise, like it's peak Shaman. I mean, like, literally he went from. Well, he worked on multiple projects, but he did Sister act, he did Music of the Heart, he does this and he does Hairspray, like right after, you know. Yeah, I mean, you're getting, you're getting a run.

[Matt Koplik]

And he said, he said he got the Hairspray gig from the south park movie. Yeah, because. Because at this point he had only done musical scores. Like, as in terms of movie scores. He had done First Wives Club and all these other things and Oscar nominated, but this was his first like legitimate storytelling score that people had ever heard.

[Marcus Scott]

I mean, First Wives tell. Oh my God, like, you got like. Okay, yeah, there's that one moment and you know. Yeah, there's some really great songs in that as well. Yeah. I mean. Yeah, you're getting this right here was a man kind of like at the peak of his powers. And to go from like, you know, we were just talking about the hit parade that is, that is in this new, this movie musical. To go from this to Hairspray, which is just full of hits. It's like the equivalent of like the Katy Perry teenage dream, like to.

[Matt Koplik]

Right.

[Marcus Scott]

Like to just put a full on, just hit parade. Like, you know, that's what this is.

[Matt Koplik]

Absolutely, absolutely. And it's, it's, it's, it's a great moment in time to see where everyone who worked on it went on to do and this and, and to look at it as the beginning of so much for everyone involved and yet look at it and go. But it doesn't feel like a freshman effort. It doesn't feel like, you know, oh, the beginning of a. Better, better things to come. It's like this is as equal to all the great things they do after the fact that.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah. I mean, in many ways some of it kind of eclipses some of the things that they do later. Yeah, I mean, it's definitely a. It's definitely like the, A holy grail, if not the holy grail of their careers, but what, what they go on to later. I mean, my God, like, people can dream for sure.

[Matt Koplik]

For absolute sure that it's. Yeah. I love this movie. I think this movie is a masterpiece.

[Marcus Scott]

It is.

[Matt Koplik]

I, I will sing his Praises till I'm dead. Marcus, this has been delightful. Thank you so much for coming on today, for having me.

[Marcus Scott]

As always.

[Matt Koplik]

As always, baby, where can people find you if you want them to find you?

[Marcus Scott]

The real Marcus Scott and Instagram. Real Marcus Scott without the.

[Matt Koplik]

The.

[Marcus Scott]

At Twitter or. I'm not calling it a Twitter.

[Matt Koplik]

I always say it's the one thing you're allowed to Dead name.

[Marcus Scott]

Yes. And I'm on new play exchange. You can just Google me. Marcus Scott.

[Matt Koplik]

Amazing. You can follow me on Instagram at Matt Koplik. Usual spelling. You can join the Discord channel. The link will be in the episode description for this. And also please give us a nice 5 star rating or review. We've gotten a couple of new five star ratings over the week, but no new reviews. Just that one two star review that said that I do too much housekeeping, which was their opinion, not mine. But the rest of the reviews have been all very lovely five stars. So we haven't gotten a five star review in a while. So I would love it if somebody wrote one because they're really good at doing it. Marcus, what diva should we close out with today?

[Marcus Scott]

I was dreading this because it's. It's so different. I'm always like, let me give you a diva. But I, I think that we should. We should do something. Let's do something from Hairspray. We've been talking about it.

[Matt Koplik]

We have.

[Marcus Scott]

I don't know, Mama. I'm a good girl now.

[Matt Koplik]

Big girl now. Yeah, let's do that one. That actually makes sense because those three ladies are doing a show with that title at the moment. So.

[Marcus Scott]

Oh, great.

[Matt Koplik]

Thank you.

[Marcus Scott]

And thank you for correcting me because I was like, I have not listened to his. In a minute. Right.

[Matt Koplik]

Because I will correct anyone about anything, even If I'm only 80. Sure. I am personally correct. So, yes, we'll do that. Join us next week. I am pretty sure the next episode will be American Psycho, but don't quote me on that. It's either going to be American Psycho or Jekyll and Hyde. One of the two. Either way, musical is about dudes who kill or do or do they. Unclear. And that's it for now. Yeah. Join us next week. And thank you, Marcus. And thank you, everyone. Take it away, Hairspray gals. Bye. I Mama, I've been a nap for far too long so please give a push and mama, watch me fly, watch me fight say mama, one day I will meet a man you won't condemn and we will have some kids and you can torture them. But let me be a star before I take that down. Cause, Mama, I'm a big girl now. Mama, I'm a big girl.