December 25, 2023 • 33 mins
Harken! The four wise men/women left their summit to discuss Matt Stone and Trey Parker's South Park: "Woodland Critter Christmas"! Released in 2024, the episode stars Matt Stone, Trey Parker, Dante Alexander, and many others! Please enjoy this special holiday trip to Shaolin.
Special thanks to Shane Ivers for allowing us to use the track "Tremendum" under a Creative Commons Attribution license.
Special thanks to Shane Ivers for allowing us to use the track "Tremendum" under a Creative Commons Attribution license.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hi everybody, This is justin thehoary Urchin and before we start our show,
i'd like to remind you to likeand subscribe to our podcast on iTunes.
Please give us a ranking, preferablyall the stars, and give us
a view, preferably glowing. We'dalso like to talk to all of our
listeners and answer any questions that youall might have, For example, why
do this or for what purpose?Or will Erica ever find love? Well?
(00:24):
Email us at the Heavenly Mandate allone word, the Heavenly Mandate at
gmail dot com. That's the HeavenlyMandate at gmail dot com. And maybe
you can be that special someone Ericahas been looking for. Without further ado,
onto the show, Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, Santa Else,
(01:00):
The Heavily Mandate is proud to presentour second annual non sectarian holiday Strapaganza.
So gather your friends and loved ones, your prostitutes, your pillow,
wif fus or your appropriate tasteful vibrators. Is that better mark, Let's say,
(01:23):
let's say not diesel power. Let'ssay eco friendly electric. Yeah,
okay, sustainable, reusable, tastefulvibrators. Yeah. I just wanted to
be like environmentally you know, friendly, yeah, Sandy, the distaste of
pollution. Let us help you bustthose Christmas nuts like nutcrackers of old.
(01:53):
So here's the plan. From Decembertwenty first to twenty fifth, we will
release a review of some of ourfavorite for god or simply inexplicable holiday TV
episodes or specials. Today I amjoined by the ghost of Christmas leftovers.
I would say to interrupt you.These episodes are a really mini advent calendar
(02:16):
of episodes if an Advent calendar wasonly five days. But he's releasing them
every day for like in a row, not every week, so it's like
a really fast one. The one, the only the deadliest Vindoms is here,
Josh, how are you doing,sir? What is crack lating?
(02:40):
Never mind? Lady Deskstab had totake season to work as a Santa's helper
at the Twelve Oaks Mall and NoahMichigan so random. If you visit her,
just ask for a lollygagular mint,hang around, hang out around back
for a few minutes, and shewill be right out. Erica, how
are you doing. I'm fine.I'm trying to figure out what my job
(03:04):
is exactly. But you know welland squawking, squawking and skulking around around
the building is Crampis is unofficial andunpaid understudy. The drunken master himself,
Kellen how is going to be thecramp Is understudy. I talked to him
first. You're too nice. You'retoo nice. Yeah, this is disintegrating
(03:30):
much in the way that most modernwrapping paper will not. Unfortunately. Yeah,
yeah, we're finally We're finally gettinginto at least a Christmas special that
I have some vaguer recollection of talkingabout and seeing many many many years ago.
(03:50):
So curious to see which parts ofit we all remember or which parts
we misremember, because I think we'regoing to find some commonality. I do
all watch this before. Yeah,I've seen it before. Yeah. Oh
I went in blind. No,it was about twenty years ago. Yeah
for me, Yeah, for allof us, and I am justin the
hoary urchin Santsa's a little full.Oh yeah, we forgot about you?
(04:15):
Yeah? How you doing? Ican't forget about me and or Dray Josh
on our final night together. Whatgift do you bring us? I bring
you South Park Woodland Critter Christmas fromtwo thousand and four, written and directed
(04:35):
by Trey Parker. I Paul ishere in our mood. Oh yes,
not to interrupt, but I don'twatch this episode unless you tell me about
watching this episode, and didn't yourparents. I want you to watch this
college at this point. Okay,you're old enough. You're old enough that
(04:55):
they didn't know why you were watchingit. I remember them telling you to
turn it off at one one pointbecause it was Yeah, I mean it
is pretty bad. This is atear above. But that's except so great,
but objectively so when it's trying tobe so, that's it makes it
(05:16):
okay. But the way you prideit to me was so it was it
sounded so lurid that I had togo out and watch it whenever I had
the first opportunity to. Did yousee this back when it came out?
No, I saw it after youtold me about it, so I probably
saw it a year later when theylike, whenever they re ran it.
Yeah. I love that Josh foundthis first. No. No, I'm
(05:36):
pretty sure Collin saw this before me. But well, but I didn't directly
pass it on to you. Ijust probably saw it earlier. Yeah,
this one is. This one islegendary. We're gonna digest this one slowly.
This is gonna be a slow Anacondastyle digestion here. John Voyte might
(05:56):
come back, all right. Soour story begins in the forests outside of
South Park, Colorado, where StanMarsh discovers a group of talking to woodland
critters, which includes squarely Ravity,Raccoony, Beavery Berry, Porcupine, Skunky
(06:19):
Foxy, Deerie Woodpeckery, Mousey,and last but not least, chick a
Dee. They're putting up their Christmastree. They convince an apathetic though slightly
curious Stand to help them construct astar tree topper, after which he goes
home. Later that night, heawakens to find the animals in his bedroom,
(06:44):
at which time they reveal that Porcupine, despite being a virgin, is
pregnant with the critters messiah. Stanagrees to help them build a major to
protect the baby savior, though assoon as he finishes, another problem is
soon revealed a mountain lion and appearsin the shadows of the forest. Apparently,
this mountain lion has killed every pregnantcritter year after year, preventing the
(07:08):
birth of their savior. They imploreStan to help them prevent this from happening
again. This year, Stan goesto the mountain cave where the Mountain Lion
lives and manages to slay it,but it is distraught to find that it
was the mother to three very youngand now orphaned lion cubs, who seem
quite sweet. His horror only growswhen he subsequently learns that the Woodland critters
(07:30):
are actually disciples of Satan and theirsavior is actually the Antichrist. They celebrate
the impending victory of Darkness of herLight by sacrificing Rabity Aztec style and then
devouring his flesh and Organ's Washingtonian style, and then having a blood orgy event
(07:51):
Horizon style crescendo. You really youreally got that? Yeah? That is
that is that as well work theirway to it a little bit, but
that's okay. We're gonna go inchunks here. That's a big chunk though.
(08:16):
There was a lot of surprises giveit away, but that's okay,
okay. Yeah, So, mymy distinct memory of this episode was that
the blood orgy was the end happensright in the middle before a commercial break.
Yes, that thing I remembered itending on that note, so that,
(08:37):
Yeah, for some reason, Ialways remember that this is the ending,
whether somehow I didn't remember the restof the episode or didn't watch it.
But why wouldn't I? So howcan you turn away? What is
going on here? It's such brilliantwriting because it captures it captures all the
elements of like that that traditional Christmas, but it also captures all the like
(09:03):
film beats and episode beats and storybeats of Rosemary's Baby, and they're so
together in such a beautiful way thatlike it catches you off guard, and
it's really it's really creepy. Thisis like the really does catch you up
guard kind of a creepy episode whenwhen they initially announced that Porcupine has a
virgin birth, and it's like,what it's like you look at these like
(09:30):
animations and they're like they all looklike bamby, you know what I mean,
they got these huge eyes, they'reall so sweet looking. And and
then when they touched in the Nativitypart, you're like, oh, South
Park, you're poking the bear inmany ways. Yeah, so you're like,
all right, all right, getI just went thinking, Okay,
(09:52):
you're making fun of like, youknow, the Jesus and Tivioty story.
Okay, that's fine. You're justshowing how ridiculous it sounds. So you're
like, that's where I thought wewere going with this. So when he
kills the Mountain Lion, like yeah, like what hel Satan? Then I
(10:13):
was like, Okay, that's clever, that's fine. Then he's very confused.
Yeah, justifiably. This is alsobecause of it being a standalone episode
in the South Park Lord. Itdoesn't rely on anything that the kids are
doing, any anything related to anyother episode doesn't matter, and doesn't have
anything that they don't actually a damnthing about the story. It just happens
(10:35):
around Stan. Initially I forgot Ias you really don't have to know anything
about South Bark too. No,you could watch I think it almost until
the very end. It's funnier ifyou've watched the show. Yeah sure,
but but yeah, this would bea good Like do you want to introduce
someone to South Park and see howthey feel about exactly what South Park does?
(10:56):
I'm say, like, find yourbest interest if you are a familiar
with South Park when you watch this, you know Eric, had you do
you watch most much South Park beforethis? I watched a little bit.
I actually like south Park, likeI was, you know, I kind
of like the Simpsons, but likefor all that kind of stuff, like
(11:16):
south Park is my favorite, itis not enough to actually watch it very
much. Yeah, it tends tobe fairly clever, to be honest,
I mean, the crude humor,it's it's been like a great satire type
of show for many years. Ohyeah, it's super smart. Like I
was, you know, yeah,I was impressed and disturbed. I mean,
right, that's that's the fact.That's the point. Also, it
(11:39):
definitely got way smarter over time.Oh sure. For the first season was
just like crude, like poop humor, and then by like really by season
three, it was turning into thislike vehicle of like social discussion. Yeah
yeah, which is what happens tomost most good comedy animation. Eventually,
(12:01):
at the very least, it's goingto do that, although south Park makes
that it's express goal of doing thatwell. And that's what's telling is like
I've only seen a handful of episodes, but they still give season one no
but like but they I remember thembecause the content was quality, Like they
had this one about Starbucks. Iremember, like about how like everyone's pissed
(12:22):
and like their little coffee shops aregetting like bought out with the big corporations,
and then they actually try them,like oh this is good and your
coffee is ship like you know,I don't know. Or they had that
one where they go to Hell andlike I don't and they're like, oh,
yeah, the Mormons were right thewhole time, and they've got like
Satan's and a breed by the wayis legendary. Yeah, I actually kind
(12:46):
of want to go and watch thewhole thing, but yeah, it's like
I don't watch it all episodes.Are they still making them? It's still
still going. I watched I watchedmost of two seasons ago. Twenty six
seasons at this point, right wow, But they don't really they don't release
(13:07):
as many episodes per season anymore.Right now, it's like eight or ten
episodes of season now and a lot. At least for a while, each
season was really more like a moviedivided into episodes, because it would be
like a single storyline that they choseto do throughout the whole thing. I
think in the last few seasons theykind of veered away from that again,
but the last seasons I watched werevery much like mini series about a single
(13:31):
event or something, and that wasthe basis. I think that was all
twenty twenty stuff basically because they hadto. Yeah, I mean essentially it
essentially caused nothing to make basically isthe Simpsons still It is still the Simpsons,
But unlike Southbark, I don't thinkanybody still watches the Simpsons. They
(13:54):
do. They have to otherwise itwouldn't exist. It wouldn't exist if they
didn't. So you have the marketfor it either, because I don't.
I never hear anyone talking about,hey did you see that episode? Unlet's
say young kids, but even myson didn't every whereas he still you still
come across people that have watched SouthPark. I don't know, but not
many. I mean, I don'tknow. Frankly, I probably don't know
(14:16):
what the market is for a lotof these shows anymore, but that they
somehow go on, somehow they goon? Why is like a rhyming frame
narrative such a Christmas thing? Thisstory? Is that? Literally? It
is? That? Is that?Why is that starting? I feel that's
(14:37):
what it is. Christmas was justa poem, right, Yeah, It's
like become such an absolute idea thatlike Christmas stories start with rhyming narration and
you just accept that the guy whowrote that poem was a doctor. I
think right, was he a doctoranyway? I don't know. I was
trying to pull his name. Idon't know who the author is to be.
(14:58):
I think he used to own theentire Chelsea neighborhood in New York and
he donated that land or part ofthat land for something like he was a
really wealthy dude. Outside of thefact and the church there, yeah,
I think it was. The churchthere still gives like a mass on his
death day every year, which isaround Christmas, and they read the entire
(15:20):
poem or something like that. Soit's him and Doctor Seuss with the Grinch.
That's why we think that rhyming coupletsare essential to telling a holiday story.
I also forgot, like five minutesinto this, how weird this special
is. I knew it's South America. I'm like, yeah, it's gonna
(15:41):
get weird because I had this vaguememory again, as we both said,
about the blood orgy being the end. But it's like within five minutes weird,
It's not. It wasn't like avery last minute episode that they like
threw together timpe of thing it mighthave been. It's fairly it's still fairly
(16:03):
early in the run. I meanthe original South Park is also a Christmas
episode, that's true. Yeah,yeah, when it was a test footage
where they actually used construction paper andeverything. It was literally Santa Versus Jesus
and the kids like running around inthe town square trying to avoid the fight.
Wow, that the open Oh itwas even like they didn't even release
(16:29):
it. That was literally like thetest. It was, yeah, I
think it was. Yeah, itwas just them trying the animation bing around.
Yeah, it was just that itwas like an animation test. I
have a copy of it actually,yeah I remember. I remember. I
think you actually sent it to meat one point, so I probably have
it backlogged. I still have iton my external hard drive. Yeah,
I got the zip. I gotzip file of that one. Yeah,
(16:53):
zips. Yeah. Weird to thinkthat Comedy Central saw that in Green Lip
with they were like, we gotto have a serious whole show based on
that idea. Go. We alsohad some excellent Lion King animation references going
on. Yeah, that was nice. Stan tries for a time to ignore
(17:17):
the impending apocalyptic threat until the persistentnagging of the narrator convinces him to act.
He tries initially to break up themanger, but the critters use their
satanic powers to drive him away.He then returns to the mountain and enlists
the help of the orphaned Mountain Lioncubs, but since they're too small to
fight off the Woodland critters, theplan is to stop the birth of the
(17:42):
Antichrist by teaching them how to performan abortion. Dan takes the cubs to
the town's abortion clinic, where theylearn all about how to perform the procedure
with the help of the local gynecologistand a charming mont where everyone's having a
great time learning term musical montage noless the scene where the fetus falls on
(18:07):
the floor and they also start laughing, and they falls for a second start
laughing at the I guess the accidentwas. That's hilarious. The best line
is, it's like three days untilChristmas and I have a lot of abortions.
Would the date matters? Meanwhile,the critters are searching for an unbaptized
(18:34):
human host body for the Antichrist toultimately possess Stan was not an option being
baptized in Christian But they discover Kylein the forest, who reveals to them
that he is unbaptized due to himbeing what's that not, Kyle, No,
Kyle is unbaptized. Kyle doesn't talk. He was not even in this
(19:02):
for some reason. Confused for aminute. Okay, Kenny, Kenny talks,
You just can't understand what he's saying. Yes, and he Kyle doesn't
celebrate Christmas, so they lure himdeeper into the forest. Stand in.
The cubs return to the forest manger, only to discover, to their horror
that the Antichrist has already been born. They also find Kyle bound to a
(19:26):
Satanic altar, unwittingly ready to receiveits spirit. Just as all hope seems
to be lost, Santa Claus appears, pulls out a shotgun, and proceeds
to massacre all the Woodland critters.Now, for those who watched our most
recent episode, same Santa like kindof mental institution. Yeah, probably similar
(19:47):
vibes. But Kyle, having justbeen freed from his bonds, abruptly decides
to allow the Antichrist to possess him, intending to conquer the world for the
Jews to destroy Christmas once and forall. Suddenly, the story cuts to
mister Garrison's fourth grade class, whereit is revealed that the entire episode has
been the narration of a Christmas Themesstory being read by Carmon. When Kyle
(20:10):
complains about the story's anti semitism,mister Garrison, more worried about complaints from
Kyle's mother, stops Cartman from readingit. The rest of the class,
though, wants to hear how thestory ends, and they plead with Kyle
to allow Cartman to keep reading,and he ultimately relents, thoughts Kyle is
a really good sport overall, Yeah, Kyle is a good sport. He
(20:33):
relents because he's he's convinced that Cartmanis just gonna have sand to kill him
part and shall I continue? Yes, I think you may as well go
through the climax. Okay, backinto our story, Kyle immediately regrets his
(20:56):
decision to become possessed. The newevil inside him cause horrible pain and suffering.
Santa thinks that they'll need to killKyle to expunge the evil anti Christ
for good, but Stan has anotheridea. He has the cubs instead performing
after birth and an abortion of theanti Christ. That's which Santa smashes it
(21:18):
with a sledgehammer. Santa, withthe apparent power of life over death,
also grants Stan's wish to resurrect theMother Mountain Lion, much to the gratitude
of the Cubs. Everyone has awonderful Christmas, except Kyle, who dies
of ages two weeks later. Ilaughed hysterically the first time I saw this,
(21:44):
and I laughed hysterically the second time. It's really funny the fact that
Stan busts out smash it so absurdly. This cartoon is so bloody or like
I was thinking about we skipped overthis, but I was thinking about the
scene. The blood orgy scene wherethe animals get such a blissed out,
(22:11):
sexually charged look on their faces isso disconcerting but also so necessarily funny because
they make that switch it and itjust doesn't the best part of it is
so many I had to like computeranimate that like, what did you do
at work today? Well, letme tell you I was heartbroken up by
(22:36):
various death. Though yeah, Imean, I will say like as messed
up as the whole episode is,like it's clever, and they brought back
the Lioness, you know, thedead Mountain lion. I felt like really
satisfied and like happy. It's weird. It was like I'm more emotionally invested
(23:00):
into this show right now than Iand like I feel much more in peace
with the world. No ironic thatthis episode maybe stirred the spirit of Christmas
in you more than any other one. Maybe not super Yeah, I don't
(23:22):
know. Yeah, you don't haveto analyze it that much. Yep.
Just I mean, and obviously thesecond act proves more than anything that at
that point there was still such athing as the quote unquote South Park Republican,
(23:44):
which was a term back then thingsPark Republican. At that time,
this was like Trey Parker and MattStone not I'm paraphrasing. Obviously, there
are words of like being like conservativein certain ways but also kind of more
like libertary in in other ways,of like yeah, you want to get
(24:06):
an abortion, fine, We're alsogoing to make fun of it, like
we don't take it seriously, it'sfine whatever, Like having a lot more
anything goes attitude about a lot ofsocial issues and sticking to a more conservative
thing in terms of concrete ideas,so like making fun of things that are
(24:27):
religiously based, They're like, yeah, that's fine, it's nonsense. Anyways,
we don't care. I think.Also, in the last ten years
they've been like, we might notactually have ever been Republicans anyways, but
we thought so back then. Yeah. Also the show Alter also introduced us
to one of the best representations ofpot smoking in the entire history, Tally
(24:48):
Hollie. Ellie's amazing. I forgotabout Towly Tally. He's wasted, actually
lost, perpetually lost. I gottahave to go back. And while yeah,
I kind of I really what happenedto Tally? And if there's anything
(25:11):
else left? Is there more storiesthat we I don't know about in the
interim that I've mid Well, funny, the weirdest thing about Talley after like
the first episode where and he wasclearly just supposed to be like a one
off type of character, was himbeing directly connected to one of the rich
families from Grand Rapids, Like hehate an entire fucking parody all that rich
(25:36):
asshole kid from Grand Rapids and Towleewas the fill in character for him.
Just felt like, why are youare you paying that close up attention to
anything. This is granted involved Ithink Oprah Winfrey, so that elevate,
but he was definitely not. It'sgonna be a recurring character. They got
(25:59):
it got blown up. Oh man, did you see? Also, I
don't know what episode had, likethe follow up to, like the probably
the nineteen ninety seven episode, theMan Bear Pig episode. Oh yeah,
actually, well the follow up one. I didn't see the episode. I
just saw the part that they putin about it. Pretty fucking funny,
pretty good, pretty smart, nice, nice stats. Those are your you're
(26:27):
hard hard to come the destructions here, but I counted fifteen deaths, one
of which was reversed Mountain Leon.True, it doesn't count. And uh
well no, no obvious nudity.But there was a blood orgy, so
you know true. I mean allthe animals were naked. That's that's true.
(26:51):
Technically they're not wearing clothes. Isthat our first official blood orgy and
all the films you've seen? Yeah, sure seems like it. Is it
weird that that while Bravity was beingfeasted on, I could only think of
America. Yeah, love to Washingtonian. Yeah, oh, the Washingtonians always
(27:15):
You'll have a special place. Wewant to we want to review this beast.
Yeah you ready? Yeah, onthe twelve Days of Christmas scale,
with the worst show being like seventeenUseless Birds and the best shows being like
ten Lords of Leaping. How doyou rank South Park's a Woodland Cridler Christmas?
(27:42):
So? Uh? This movie orthis special Uh. Given the level
of actual effort put into it isprobably much better than either of the other
ones we've done this year. Iwould say it probably ranks. I'm gonna
say it's the full eight Maids ofMilking. Okay, it is definitely above
(28:03):
average. It definitely delivers, especiallyin the second half. The first half
is a little bit slow and alittle bit unclear what's going on and whether
it's just going to be a quickone off, like here's a joke and
we're done with it. But bythe end, yeah, we get that
milk. So stones Craft is onlymatured with time or gotten stupider, but
(28:29):
it has gotten better. This isa good early glimpse of them being able
to really take a stab at somethingfairly serious that according to most people,
especially with throwing abortion in a majorsecond joke and coming away relatively yeah,
relatively clean handed, honoring their ownmyth thos for those who already know,
(28:55):
but also making an approachable project.If you just wanted to show someone a
simple, unrelated episode and say,hey, are you just progressive or depraved
enough to find this funny? Youmight want to watch more? Ericre you
go next. Okay, I'll giveit the full wild drummers, drumming,
(29:19):
wild drummers. Yeah, no,I'm committed. Is the highest writing you've
ever given? I gave. Ialso gave Kevin in the say I know
you have because I've heard Josh saythat before. I might have even given
Crampis that too, I don't remember. We're really close. I think you
went. I don't think you gaveit quite the foe. All it took
(29:41):
was a lot orgy. Yeah right. I just thought, like I didn't
know what I was getting into,and I thought, I mean, definitely
fucked up, very messed up.But I thought it was very clever and
yeah, very clever and very satisfying. And what high school er feel about
this? What does did junior missErica feel about this? We're not going
(30:07):
to go back to that, allright, here's my review. Amazing one
of the all time great Christmas specials. It manages to offend almost everyone,
but its heart still resonates with thetrue spirit of Christmas and the triumph of
(30:30):
good. If this special was achild, even Crampus wouldn't lay a finger
or upon it. I give thisone twelve Lords of Leaping Out a twelve
wow, and I have a Ihave a limerick written by chat GPT.
I prefer the limerick because that's basicallywhat it's trying to do. Anyways,
(30:51):
in Woods where the critters conspired,satanic whispers transpired, Santa with hearts so
Bold halted, the stronghold, Goodnesstriumphed, and Pete was acquired like that.
Okay, I guess nothing rhymes withabortion distortion. I also give this
(31:21):
five Lords the Leaping. This wasThis is probably the best thing we're probably
going to watch in this entire runof episodes. It was very clever,
It was very smart. It remindsme of Josh explaining to me, which
I have. It was a dearmemory because I couldn't understand how weird it
was, and I so I hadto go watch it. This was a
(31:44):
good I described this episode the firsttold me bits and pieces of it,
and I was like that, yeah, this is my first memory of it.
The fact that the rabbit is happyand smiling when they adviserd him horrible
excited, Yeah, to be sacrificed. I like to transition and how sweet,
(32:07):
happy, high pitched voiced animals theyare. And then he was like,
yeah, I'm gonna stop you.And it's like, don't make us
us like transitions if you're not gonnakill me, Santa, are you way?
Bit by bit? I would liketo thank Shane Ivers for allowing us
(32:52):
to use his track Tremendium under aCreative Commons license. Thank you, one
two, three minutes of Palms straightUp
Hi everybody, This is justin thehoary Urchin and before we start our show,
i'd like to remind you to likeand subscribe to our podcast on iTunes.
Please give us a ranking, preferablyall the stars, and give us
a view, preferably glowing. We'dalso like to talk to all of our
listeners and answer any questions that youall might have, For example, why
do this or for what purpose?Or will Erica ever find love? Well?
(00:24):
Email us at the Heavenly Mandate allone word, the Heavenly Mandate at
gmail dot com. That's the HeavenlyMandate at gmail dot com. And maybe
you can be that special someone Ericahas been looking for. Without further ado,
onto the show, Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, Santa Else,
(01:00):
The Heavily Mandate is proud to presentour second annual non sectarian holiday Strapaganza.
So gather your friends and loved ones, your prostitutes, your pillow,
wif fus or your appropriate tasteful vibrators. Is that better mark, Let's say,
(01:23):
let's say not diesel power. Let'ssay eco friendly electric. Yeah,
okay, sustainable, reusable, tastefulvibrators. Yeah. I just wanted to
be like environmentally you know, friendly, yeah, Sandy, the distaste of
pollution. Let us help you bustthose Christmas nuts like nutcrackers of old.
(01:53):
So here's the plan. From Decembertwenty first to twenty fifth, we will
release a review of some of ourfavorite for god or simply inexplicable holiday TV
episodes or specials. Today I amjoined by the ghost of Christmas leftovers.
I would say to interrupt you.These episodes are a really mini advent calendar
(02:16):
of episodes if an Advent calendar wasonly five days. But he's releasing them
every day for like in a row, not every week, so it's like
a really fast one. The one, the only the deadliest Vindoms is here,
Josh, how are you doing,sir? What is crack lating?
(02:40):
Never mind? Lady Deskstab had totake season to work as a Santa's helper
at the Twelve Oaks Mall and NoahMichigan so random. If you visit her,
just ask for a lollygagular mint,hang around, hang out around back
for a few minutes, and shewill be right out. Erica, how
are you doing. I'm fine.I'm trying to figure out what my job
(03:04):
is exactly. But you know welland squawking, squawking and skulking around around
the building is Crampis is unofficial andunpaid understudy. The drunken master himself,
Kellen how is going to be thecramp Is understudy. I talked to him
first. You're too nice. You'retoo nice. Yeah, this is disintegrating
(03:30):
much in the way that most modernwrapping paper will not. Unfortunately. Yeah,
yeah, we're finally We're finally gettinginto at least a Christmas special that
I have some vaguer recollection of talkingabout and seeing many many many years ago.
(03:50):
So curious to see which parts ofit we all remember or which parts
we misremember, because I think we'regoing to find some commonality. I do
all watch this before. Yeah,I've seen it before. Yeah. Oh
I went in blind. No,it was about twenty years ago. Yeah
for me, Yeah, for allof us, and I am justin the
hoary urchin Santsa's a little full.Oh yeah, we forgot about you?
(04:15):
Yeah? How you doing? Ican't forget about me and or Dray Josh
on our final night together. Whatgift do you bring us? I bring
you South Park Woodland Critter Christmas fromtwo thousand and four, written and directed
(04:35):
by Trey Parker. I Paul ishere in our mood. Oh yes,
not to interrupt, but I don'twatch this episode unless you tell me about
watching this episode, and didn't yourparents. I want you to watch this
college at this point. Okay,you're old enough. You're old enough that
(04:55):
they didn't know why you were watchingit. I remember them telling you to
turn it off at one one pointbecause it was Yeah, I mean it
is pretty bad. This is atear above. But that's except so great,
but objectively so when it's trying tobe so, that's it makes it
(05:16):
okay. But the way you prideit to me was so it was it
sounded so lurid that I had togo out and watch it whenever I had
the first opportunity to. Did yousee this back when it came out?
No, I saw it after youtold me about it, so I probably
saw it a year later when theylike, whenever they re ran it.
Yeah. I love that Josh foundthis first. No. No, I'm
(05:36):
pretty sure Collin saw this before me. But well, but I didn't directly
pass it on to you. Ijust probably saw it earlier. Yeah,
this one is. This one islegendary. We're gonna digest this one slowly.
This is gonna be a slow Anacondastyle digestion here. John Voyte might
(05:56):
come back, all right. Soour story begins in the forests outside of
South Park, Colorado, where StanMarsh discovers a group of talking to woodland
critters, which includes squarely Ravity,Raccoony, Beavery Berry, Porcupine, Skunky
(06:19):
Foxy, Deerie Woodpeckery, Mousey,and last but not least, chick a
Dee. They're putting up their Christmastree. They convince an apathetic though slightly
curious Stand to help them construct astar tree topper, after which he goes
home. Later that night, heawakens to find the animals in his bedroom,
(06:44):
at which time they reveal that Porcupine, despite being a virgin, is
pregnant with the critters messiah. Stanagrees to help them build a major to
protect the baby savior, though assoon as he finishes, another problem is
soon revealed a mountain lion and appearsin the shadows of the forest. Apparently,
this mountain lion has killed every pregnantcritter year after year, preventing the
(07:08):
birth of their savior. They imploreStan to help them prevent this from happening
again. This year, Stan goesto the mountain cave where the Mountain Lion
lives and manages to slay it,but it is distraught to find that it
was the mother to three very youngand now orphaned lion cubs, who seem
quite sweet. His horror only growswhen he subsequently learns that the Woodland critters
(07:30):
are actually disciples of Satan and theirsavior is actually the Antichrist. They celebrate
the impending victory of Darkness of herLight by sacrificing Rabity Aztec style and then
devouring his flesh and Organ's Washingtonian style, and then having a blood orgy event
(07:51):
Horizon style crescendo. You really youreally got that? Yeah? That is
that is that as well work theirway to it a little bit, but
that's okay. We're gonna go inchunks here. That's a big chunk though.
(08:16):
There was a lot of surprises giveit away, but that's okay,
okay. Yeah, So, mymy distinct memory of this episode was that
the blood orgy was the end happensright in the middle before a commercial break.
Yes, that thing I remembered itending on that note, so that,
(08:37):
Yeah, for some reason, Ialways remember that this is the ending,
whether somehow I didn't remember the restof the episode or didn't watch it.
But why wouldn't I? So howcan you turn away? What is
going on here? It's such brilliantwriting because it captures it captures all the
elements of like that that traditional Christmas, but it also captures all the like
(09:03):
film beats and episode beats and storybeats of Rosemary's Baby, and they're so
together in such a beautiful way thatlike it catches you off guard, and
it's really it's really creepy. Thisis like the really does catch you up
guard kind of a creepy episode whenwhen they initially announced that Porcupine has a
virgin birth, and it's like,what it's like you look at these like
(09:30):
animations and they're like they all looklike bamby, you know what I mean,
they got these huge eyes, they'reall so sweet looking. And and
then when they touched in the Nativitypart, you're like, oh, South
Park, you're poking the bear inmany ways. Yeah, so you're like,
all right, all right, getI just went thinking, Okay,
(09:52):
you're making fun of like, youknow, the Jesus and Tivioty story.
Okay, that's fine. You're justshowing how ridiculous it sounds. So you're
like, that's where I thought wewere going with this. So when he
kills the Mountain Lion, like yeah, like what hel Satan? Then I
(10:13):
was like, Okay, that's clever, that's fine. Then he's very confused.
Yeah, justifiably. This is alsobecause of it being a standalone episode
in the South Park Lord. Itdoesn't rely on anything that the kids are
doing, any anything related to anyother episode doesn't matter, and doesn't have
anything that they don't actually a damnthing about the story. It just happens
(10:35):
around Stan. Initially I forgot Ias you really don't have to know anything
about South Bark too. No,you could watch I think it almost until
the very end. It's funnier ifyou've watched the show. Yeah sure,
but but yeah, this would bea good Like do you want to introduce
someone to South Park and see howthey feel about exactly what South Park does?
(10:56):
I'm say, like, find yourbest interest if you are a familiar
with South Park when you watch this, you know Eric, had you do
you watch most much South Park beforethis? I watched a little bit.
I actually like south Park, likeI was, you know, I kind
of like the Simpsons, but likefor all that kind of stuff, like
(11:16):
south Park is my favorite, itis not enough to actually watch it very
much. Yeah, it tends tobe fairly clever, to be honest,
I mean, the crude humor,it's it's been like a great satire type
of show for many years. Ohyeah, it's super smart. Like I
was, you know, yeah,I was impressed and disturbed. I mean,
right, that's that's the fact.That's the point. Also, it
(11:39):
definitely got way smarter over time.Oh sure. For the first season was
just like crude, like poop humor, and then by like really by season
three, it was turning into thislike vehicle of like social discussion. Yeah
yeah, which is what happens tomost most good comedy animation. Eventually,
(12:01):
at the very least, it's goingto do that, although south Park makes
that it's express goal of doing thatwell. And that's what's telling is like
I've only seen a handful of episodes, but they still give season one no
but like but they I remember thembecause the content was quality, Like they
had this one about Starbucks. Iremember, like about how like everyone's pissed
(12:22):
and like their little coffee shops aregetting like bought out with the big corporations,
and then they actually try them,like oh this is good and your
coffee is ship like you know,I don't know. Or they had that
one where they go to Hell andlike I don't and they're like, oh,
yeah, the Mormons were right thewhole time, and they've got like
Satan's and a breed by the wayis legendary. Yeah, I actually kind
(12:46):
of want to go and watch thewhole thing, but yeah, it's like
I don't watch it all episodes.Are they still making them? It's still
still going. I watched I watchedmost of two seasons ago. Twenty six
seasons at this point, right wow, But they don't really they don't release
(13:07):
as many episodes per season anymore.Right now, it's like eight or ten
episodes of season now and a lot. At least for a while, each
season was really more like a moviedivided into episodes, because it would be
like a single storyline that they choseto do throughout the whole thing. I
think in the last few seasons theykind of veered away from that again,
but the last seasons I watched werevery much like mini series about a single
(13:31):
event or something, and that wasthe basis. I think that was all
twenty twenty stuff basically because they hadto. Yeah, I mean essentially it
essentially caused nothing to make basically isthe Simpsons still It is still the Simpsons,
But unlike Southbark, I don't thinkanybody still watches the Simpsons. They
(13:54):
do. They have to otherwise itwouldn't exist. It wouldn't exist if they
didn't. So you have the marketfor it either, because I don't.
I never hear anyone talking about,hey did you see that episode? Unlet's
say young kids, but even myson didn't every whereas he still you still
come across people that have watched SouthPark. I don't know, but not
many. I mean, I don'tknow. Frankly, I probably don't know
(14:16):
what the market is for a lotof these shows anymore, but that they
somehow go on, somehow they goon? Why is like a rhyming frame
narrative such a Christmas thing? Thisstory? Is that? Literally? It
is? That? Is that?Why is that starting? I feel that's
(14:37):
what it is. Christmas was justa poem, right, Yeah, It's
like become such an absolute idea thatlike Christmas stories start with rhyming narration and
you just accept that the guy whowrote that poem was a doctor. I
think right, was he a doctoranyway? I don't know. I was
trying to pull his name. Idon't know who the author is to be.
(14:58):
I think he used to own theentire Chelsea neighborhood in New York and
he donated that land or part ofthat land for something like he was a
really wealthy dude. Outside of thefact and the church there, yeah,
I think it was. The churchthere still gives like a mass on his
death day every year, which isaround Christmas, and they read the entire
(15:20):
poem or something like that. Soit's him and Doctor Seuss with the Grinch.
That's why we think that rhyming coupletsare essential to telling a holiday story.
I also forgot, like five minutesinto this, how weird this special
is. I knew it's South America. I'm like, yeah, it's gonna
(15:41):
get weird because I had this vaguememory again, as we both said,
about the blood orgy being the end. But it's like within five minutes weird,
It's not. It wasn't like avery last minute episode that they like
threw together timpe of thing it mighthave been. It's fairly it's still fairly
(16:03):
early in the run. I meanthe original South Park is also a Christmas
episode, that's true. Yeah,yeah, when it was a test footage
where they actually used construction paper andeverything. It was literally Santa Versus Jesus
and the kids like running around inthe town square trying to avoid the fight.
Wow, that the open Oh itwas even like they didn't even release
(16:29):
it. That was literally like thetest. It was, yeah, I
think it was. Yeah, itwas just them trying the animation bing around.
Yeah, it was just that itwas like an animation test. I
have a copy of it actually,yeah I remember. I remember. I
think you actually sent it to meat one point, so I probably have
it backlogged. I still have iton my external hard drive. Yeah,
I got the zip. I gotzip file of that one. Yeah,
(16:53):
zips. Yeah. Weird to thinkthat Comedy Central saw that in Green Lip
with they were like, we gotto have a serious whole show based on
that idea. Go. We alsohad some excellent Lion King animation references going
on. Yeah, that was nice. Stan tries for a time to ignore
(17:17):
the impending apocalyptic threat until the persistentnagging of the narrator convinces him to act.
He tries initially to break up themanger, but the critters use their
satanic powers to drive him away.He then returns to the mountain and enlists
the help of the orphaned Mountain Lioncubs, but since they're too small to
fight off the Woodland critters, theplan is to stop the birth of the
(17:42):
Antichrist by teaching them how to performan abortion. Dan takes the cubs to
the town's abortion clinic, where theylearn all about how to perform the procedure
with the help of the local gynecologistand a charming mont where everyone's having a
great time learning term musical montage noless the scene where the fetus falls on
(18:07):
the floor and they also start laughing, and they falls for a second start
laughing at the I guess the accidentwas. That's hilarious. The best line
is, it's like three days untilChristmas and I have a lot of abortions.
Would the date matters? Meanwhile,the critters are searching for an unbaptized
(18:34):
human host body for the Antichrist toultimately possess Stan was not an option being
baptized in Christian But they discover Kylein the forest, who reveals to them
that he is unbaptized due to himbeing what's that not, Kyle, No,
Kyle is unbaptized. Kyle doesn't talk. He was not even in this
(19:02):
for some reason. Confused for aminute. Okay, Kenny, Kenny talks,
You just can't understand what he's saying. Yes, and he Kyle doesn't
celebrate Christmas, so they lure himdeeper into the forest. Stand in.
The cubs return to the forest manger, only to discover, to their horror
that the Antichrist has already been born. They also find Kyle bound to a
(19:26):
Satanic altar, unwittingly ready to receiveits spirit. Just as all hope seems
to be lost, Santa Claus appears, pulls out a shotgun, and proceeds
to massacre all the Woodland critters.Now, for those who watched our most
recent episode, same Santa like kindof mental institution. Yeah, probably similar
(19:47):
vibes. But Kyle, having justbeen freed from his bonds, abruptly decides
to allow the Antichrist to possess him, intending to conquer the world for the
Jews to destroy Christmas once and forall. Suddenly, the story cuts to
mister Garrison's fourth grade class, whereit is revealed that the entire episode has
been the narration of a Christmas Themesstory being read by Carmon. When Kyle
(20:10):
complains about the story's anti semitism,mister Garrison, more worried about complaints from
Kyle's mother, stops Cartman from readingit. The rest of the class,
though, wants to hear how thestory ends, and they plead with Kyle
to allow Cartman to keep reading,and he ultimately relents, thoughts Kyle is
a really good sport overall, Yeah, Kyle is a good sport. He
(20:33):
relents because he's he's convinced that Cartmanis just gonna have sand to kill him
part and shall I continue? Yes, I think you may as well go
through the climax. Okay, backinto our story, Kyle immediately regrets his
(20:56):
decision to become possessed. The newevil inside him cause horrible pain and suffering.
Santa thinks that they'll need to killKyle to expunge the evil anti Christ
for good, but Stan has anotheridea. He has the cubs instead performing
after birth and an abortion of theanti Christ. That's which Santa smashes it
(21:18):
with a sledgehammer. Santa, withthe apparent power of life over death,
also grants Stan's wish to resurrect theMother Mountain Lion, much to the gratitude
of the Cubs. Everyone has awonderful Christmas, except Kyle, who dies
of ages two weeks later. Ilaughed hysterically the first time I saw this,
(21:44):
and I laughed hysterically the second time. It's really funny the fact that
Stan busts out smash it so absurdly. This cartoon is so bloody or like
I was thinking about we skipped overthis, but I was thinking about the
scene. The blood orgy scene wherethe animals get such a blissed out,
(22:11):
sexually charged look on their faces isso disconcerting but also so necessarily funny because
they make that switch it and itjust doesn't the best part of it is
so many I had to like computeranimate that like, what did you do
at work today? Well, letme tell you I was heartbroken up by
(22:36):
various death. Though yeah, Imean, I will say like as messed
up as the whole episode is,like it's clever, and they brought back
the Lioness, you know, thedead Mountain lion. I felt like really
satisfied and like happy. It's weird. It was like I'm more emotionally invested
(23:00):
into this show right now than Iand like I feel much more in peace
with the world. No ironic thatthis episode maybe stirred the spirit of Christmas
in you more than any other one. Maybe not super Yeah, I don't
(23:22):
know. Yeah, you don't haveto analyze it that much. Yep.
Just I mean, and obviously thesecond act proves more than anything that at
that point there was still such athing as the quote unquote South Park Republican,
(23:44):
which was a term back then thingsPark Republican. At that time,
this was like Trey Parker and MattStone not I'm paraphrasing. Obviously, there
are words of like being like conservativein certain ways but also kind of more
like libertary in in other ways,of like yeah, you want to get
(24:06):
an abortion, fine, We're alsogoing to make fun of it, like
we don't take it seriously, it'sfine whatever, Like having a lot more
anything goes attitude about a lot ofsocial issues and sticking to a more conservative
thing in terms of concrete ideas,so like making fun of things that are
(24:27):
religiously based, They're like, yeah, that's fine, it's nonsense. Anyways,
we don't care. I think.Also, in the last ten years
they've been like, we might notactually have ever been Republicans anyways, but
we thought so back then. Yeah. Also the show Alter also introduced us
to one of the best representations ofpot smoking in the entire history, Tally
(24:48):
Hollie. Ellie's amazing. I forgotabout Towly Tally. He's wasted, actually
lost, perpetually lost. I gottahave to go back. And while yeah,
I kind of I really what happenedto Tally? And if there's anything
(25:11):
else left? Is there more storiesthat we I don't know about in the
interim that I've mid Well, funny, the weirdest thing about Talley after like
the first episode where and he wasclearly just supposed to be like a one
off type of character, was himbeing directly connected to one of the rich
families from Grand Rapids, Like hehate an entire fucking parody all that rich
(25:36):
asshole kid from Grand Rapids and Towleewas the fill in character for him.
Just felt like, why are youare you paying that close up attention to
anything. This is granted involved Ithink Oprah Winfrey, so that elevate,
but he was definitely not. It'sgonna be a recurring character. They got
(25:59):
it got blown up. Oh man, did you see? Also, I
don't know what episode had, likethe follow up to, like the probably
the nineteen ninety seven episode, theMan Bear Pig episode. Oh yeah,
actually, well the follow up one. I didn't see the episode. I
just saw the part that they putin about it. Pretty fucking funny,
pretty good, pretty smart, nice, nice stats. Those are your you're
(26:27):
hard hard to come the destructions here, but I counted fifteen deaths, one
of which was reversed Mountain Leon.True, it doesn't count. And uh
well no, no obvious nudity.But there was a blood orgy, so
you know true. I mean allthe animals were naked. That's that's true.
(26:51):
Technically they're not wearing clothes. Isthat our first official blood orgy and
all the films you've seen? Yeah, sure seems like it. Is it
weird that that while Bravity was beingfeasted on, I could only think of
America. Yeah, love to Washingtonian. Yeah, oh, the Washingtonians always
(27:15):
You'll have a special place. Wewant to we want to review this beast.
Yeah you ready? Yeah, onthe twelve Days of Christmas scale,
with the worst show being like seventeenUseless Birds and the best shows being like
ten Lords of Leaping. How doyou rank South Park's a Woodland Cridler Christmas?
(27:42):
So? Uh? This movie orthis special Uh. Given the level
of actual effort put into it isprobably much better than either of the other
ones we've done this year. Iwould say it probably ranks. I'm gonna
say it's the full eight Maids ofMilking. Okay, it is definitely above
(28:03):
average. It definitely delivers, especiallyin the second half. The first half
is a little bit slow and alittle bit unclear what's going on and whether
it's just going to be a quickone off, like here's a joke and
we're done with it. But bythe end, yeah, we get that
milk. So stones Craft is onlymatured with time or gotten stupider, but
(28:29):
it has gotten better. This isa good early glimpse of them being able
to really take a stab at somethingfairly serious that according to most people,
especially with throwing abortion in a majorsecond joke and coming away relatively yeah,
relatively clean handed, honoring their ownmyth thos for those who already know,
(28:55):
but also making an approachable project.If you just wanted to show someone a
simple, unrelated episode and say,hey, are you just progressive or depraved
enough to find this funny? Youmight want to watch more? Ericre you
go next. Okay, I'll giveit the full wild drummers, drumming,
(29:19):
wild drummers. Yeah, no,I'm committed. Is the highest writing you've
ever given? I gave. Ialso gave Kevin in the say I know
you have because I've heard Josh saythat before. I might have even given
Crampis that too, I don't remember. We're really close. I think you
went. I don't think you gaveit quite the foe. All it took
(29:41):
was a lot orgy. Yeah right. I just thought, like I didn't
know what I was getting into,and I thought, I mean, definitely
fucked up, very messed up.But I thought it was very clever and
yeah, very clever and very satisfying. And what high school er feel about
this? What does did junior missErica feel about this? We're not going
(30:07):
to go back to that, allright, here's my review. Amazing one
of the all time great Christmas specials. It manages to offend almost everyone,
but its heart still resonates with thetrue spirit of Christmas and the triumph of
(30:30):
good. If this special was achild, even Crampus wouldn't lay a finger
or upon it. I give thisone twelve Lords of Leaping Out a twelve
wow, and I have a Ihave a limerick written by chat GPT.
I prefer the limerick because that's basicallywhat it's trying to do. Anyways,
(30:51):
in Woods where the critters conspired,satanic whispers transpired, Santa with hearts so
Bold halted, the stronghold, Goodnesstriumphed, and Pete was acquired like that.
Okay, I guess nothing rhymes withabortion distortion. I also give this
(31:21):
five Lords the Leaping. This wasThis is probably the best thing we're probably
going to watch in this entire runof episodes. It was very clever,
It was very smart. It remindsme of Josh explaining to me, which
I have. It was a dearmemory because I couldn't understand how weird it
was, and I so I hadto go watch it. This was a
(31:44):
good I described this episode the firsttold me bits and pieces of it,
and I was like that, yeah, this is my first memory of it.
The fact that the rabbit is happyand smiling when they adviserd him horrible
excited, Yeah, to be sacrificed. I like to transition and how sweet,
(32:07):
happy, high pitched voiced animals theyare. And then he was like,
yeah, I'm gonna stop you.And it's like, don't make us
us like transitions if you're not gonnakill me, Santa, are you way?
Bit by bit? I would liketo thank Shane Ivers for allowing us
(32:52):
to use his track Tremendium under aCreative Commons license. Thank you, one
two, three minutes of Palms straightUp
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