Cartman_sucks

"Cartman Sucks" is episode 1102 (#155) of Comedy Central\'s "South Park" and the second episode of the show\'s 11th season. It originally aired on March 14, 2007.

Synopsis

While playing with the other boys, Cartman shows them degrading pictures of Butters while he\'s sleeping at Cartman\'s house. He is nearly going to tell them about his "ultimate plan" to embarrass Butters, but he is stopped short when Butters unexpectedly arrives. The next morning he runs up to the bus stop showing the boys a picture of Butters\' penis in his mouth, thinking that this would make Butters appear to be gay. The boys are disgusted, and inform Cartman that his action is indicative not of Butters\' sexual orientation, but of his own. Cartman panics and pleads for a way to undo the act. Kyle sarcastically tells Cartman that the only way he can reverse the "gay polarity" is to put his own "wiener" in Butters\' mouth. Cartman finds Butters back up in his own room, blindfolds him, and tries to follow through with Kyle\'s plan, but Mr. Stotch walks in on them. Butters\' father, initially shocked, convinces himself that Butters must just be "bi-curious." Father Maxi further tells Butters that he is just "confused" (which Butters accepts, since he honestly is confused about the term), and Butters is sent to Camp New Grace, a conversion therapy camp to "Pray the Gay Away" (the camp\'s slogan).

Cartman discovers that Kyle misled him and plans to simply destroy the photo so that no one will ever know, but Kyle and the others threaten to tell other people unless Cartman is really nice to them forever. Cartman, knowing he can never fulfill this, instead threatens to digitally alter the picture to replace his face with Kyle\'s, making it appear Kyle has Butters\' penis in his mouth to show to the class (however, Kyle does not seem at all concerned about this threat). Later, when Cartman is unable to find the picture, he blames Kyle for its disappearance.

At New Grace, most of the campers seem to be self-loathing, and in nearly every scene someone commits suicide with little concern from the camp officials. Butters is introduced to his twitchy, nervous "accountabila-buddy" (a portmanteau of accountability and buddy) Bradley, who is constantly quoting Bible verses under his breath, and is clearly on the brink of homosexuality and a mental breakdown.

Back in South Park, Cartman tries to report the theft of the photo to Sergeant Yates. When that fails (due to his unwillingness to admit the intentional nature of the photo), he decides to admit the truth to his mother. However, before talking to her, he pulls his ears to make his eyes water, and tearfully explains his own version of the "truth" (which is typically completely biased against Kyle and unbiased upon himself) and adds that Kyle will show the picture in show and tell. Liane calls Kyle\'s mom, who quickly assures her that Kyle doesn\'t have the picture. Cartman refuses to believe what Kyle\'s mother has said, explaining that "Jews lie all the time". Liane tells her son there is nothing else she can do and Cartman, horrified that his mother couldn\'t help, decides that if he cannot stop Kyle from showing the picture to the class, he will at least deny him the satisfaction of humiliating him by printing out another picture and showing it to the class himself.

At New Grace, a male underwear ad from a 1979 Sears Catalogue is found in Bradley and Butters\' room, and both boys are punished. As they carry out their penance, Bradley apologizes for getting Butters into trouble with the catalogue, and then becomes horrified, realizing that he "likes" Butters. Butters innocently tells him that he "likes" him too, which causes Bradley to panic and run away, declaring that "our only way out is to kill ourselves." Eventually, Bradley turns up on a bridge, on the verge of committing suicide. Butters then reaches breaking point and gives a speech about how he was only confused after people told him he was and that it was okay to be bi-curious. He surmises that if all of them came from God, it must mean God is "a little bi-curious himself." After the speech, Bradley changes his mind about committing suicide, and Butters\' father admits to Butters that he\'s bi-curious himself (referring to Butters\' Very Own Episode). However, Butters is now more confused than ever, because he still has no idea what the term actually means.

Meanwhile, in South Park, Cartman confronts Kyle and states he will not let Kyle embarrass him in front of the whole class. He then volunteers to go first for Show and tell with his photography project. After showing the class a long slide show of artistic photos he took, he reveals the picture of him with Butters\' penis in his mouth. The whole class is shocked and Mrs. Garrison is especially disgusted. Cartman claims that the photo is a conceptual photograph illustrating his opposition to the Iraq War. Mr. Mackey then walks in and tells Cartman that there\'s a note from his mom. He then reads it out loud, which tells Cartman not to show the picture because Kyle never had it; it was under his desk the entire time. Realizing how paranoid he was about the whole issue and that he revealed the photo for no reason, a shocked and dismayed Cartman looks back at Kyle, who is looking back at him wearily in disgust. After a long pause, Cartman finally utters the word "lame."

Cultural references

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Cartman Sucks

• The song Butters is humming when he is playing with his toys before Cartman enters his room, is "Help Me" by Joni Mitchell.
• Bradley\'s physical appearance and mannerisms resemble Brad Dourif as Billy Bibbit from One Flew Over the Cuckoo\'s Nest. Billy commits suicide, as Bradley nearly does.
• The music played when Butters goes to the camp is actually the sample played in the Heroes of Might and Magic III computer game when a new week starts. Many other audio samples from this game have been used in South Park episodes.
• The boys play a board game called Living, a spoof of the game Life.

See also

• Conversion therapy
• Homosexuality and Christianity

External links

• Watch a teaser of the episode (requires QuickTime)
• "Cartman Sucks" at South Park Studios
• Cartman Sucks at TV.com

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from Wikipedia