Pee (South Park)

"Pee (South Park)"

"Pee" is the thirteenth season finale of the American animated television series South Park, and the 195th overall episode of the series. It originally aired on Comedy Central in the United States on November 18, 2009 and in the United Kingdom on November 20, 2009. In the episode, the boys visit Pi Pi's Splashtown waterpark, where so many people urinate in the pools that the entire park becomes engulfed in tsunamis of urine.

The episode was written and directed by series co-creator Trey Parker, and was rated TV-MA L in the United States. "Pee" served as a spoof of the disaster film genre, particularly the film 2012, which was released five days before "Pee" was broadcast.

Plot

Cartman, Stan, Kyle, Kenny, Butters and Jimmy arrive at Pi Pi's Splashtown waterpark. Cartman is distraught to discover that many minorities are in attendance, while Kyle is disgusted to learn so many people freely urinate in the pools. Based on his observance of more minorities at the park than white people, Cartman calculates there will be no white people left by the year 2012, and interprets this as a sign that Mayans accurately predicted the world would end the same year. A scientist tests the park's water and discovers it is 98 percent pee. He urges Pi Pi, the park's Venetian owner, to immediately close and evacuate his park, claiming the high pee content will soon trigger a cataclysmic event. Pi Pi dismisses the warning, but the park is soon overcome by tsunamis of pee and volcanic eruptions. Hundreds drown in the subsequent flood, including Kenny, but the other boys manage to survive.

The park is quarantined, and the scientist advises against a mission to rescue those trapped inside, fearing their exposure to "pee contamination" has turned them into angry mutants. To test his theory, the scientist urinates onto a test monkey, which promptly become agitated. An antidote to this reaction is then tested on other monkeys, but proven unsuccessful when the monkeys still become annoyed when urinated on. Meanwhile, Cartman clings to debris to stay afloat, while the other boys have reached higher ground. Cartman is rescued by the occupants of an inflatable raft. Noticing he is the only white person in the raft, Cartman assumes he is the "last of (his) species", and that his envisioned 2012 scenario has occurred three years early. He imagines a world in which he must speak in minority slang, is paid lower wages, and eventually forced to live in a confinement camp.

The other boys find Pi Pi, who informs them the park can be drained of the inundation if someone can swim through the pee to reach an emergency release valve. Kyle reluctantly agrees to do the job, but is horrified to learn he must drink pee in order to offset the fluid pressure he will encounter at the depths. Outside, an antidote that keeps the monkeys calm during yet another urination test is discovered: bananas. Police refuse to launch a rescue until they have tested the antidote on a human, so Stan's father Randy agrees to let the authorities urinate on him.

Back inside the park, Kyle is tethered to a long cord and grudgingly drinks pee in preparation for his plunge into the flood. Just after he finishes the jar, helicopters arrive as part of the rescue mission, much to Kyle's anger. Just as Kyle complains that eating a banana would be the only ordeal more disgusting, he is ordered at gunpoint to eat the new antidote.

Production

"Pee", the South Park thirteenth season finale, was written and directed by series co-founder Trey Parker, and was rated TV-MA L in the United States. It first aired on November 18, 2009 in the United States on Comedy Central. The episode marked the third time during the thirteenth season that Kenny was killed, a running gag throughout the series. He also died during the season premiere, "The Ring" and during W.T.F.

The day after "Pee" was originally broadcast, three different kinds of T-shirts and hooded sweatshirts based on the episode were made available at South Park Studios, the official South Park website. One featured Butters standing next to a puddle of urine saying, "1 in 3 People Admit They Pee in Pools". The second included Cartman and his quote from the episode, "Your world is cold and void of any humanity". The third featured Stan, Cartman, Kyle and Kenny wearing bathing suits and standing in front of a Pi Pi's Splashtown logo.

Cultural references

The episode is a parody on the disaster film genre, which has been spoofed in previous South Park episodes, like "Pandemic", the twelfth season parody of the film Cloverfield. "Pee" included a particularly large number of references to 2012, a science fiction about the end of the world, which was released only days before "Pee" was originally broadcast. The episode spoofs many common elements of such disaster films, including scientists struggling to figure out the source of the problem. The destruction of rides and park amenities by the tsunami of urine is a reference to the destruction of historical monuments in 2012, and other such disaster films by Roland Emmerich, the director of 2012, Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow. "Pee" also includes several references to the 2012 phenomenon, the prediction that cataclysmic events will occur in the year 2012, which is said to be the end of the Mayan Long Count calendar. Pi Pi is said to be from Venice, Italy. Pi Pi says of the city "Venice is almost all pee! We swim in pee! We sing in the pee!" When the scientist urinates on the test monkey the officer says "It is full of rage!", which is a reference to the movie 28 Days Later. Stan references the movie The Abyss, which features a scene in which a character must fill his body with liquid to withstand the fluid pressure far beneath the surface of the ocean. There was a video game arcade called "Abu Ghraib" at the waterpark. The scene where the survivors are rescued and Mr. Marsh yells out Stan's name while holding a red shoe is a reference to the film Alive.

Reception

If magazine writer Carl Cortez, who was critical of the second half of season thirteen, said "Pee" ranked as one of the best episodes of the season, and said it included several "classic South Park moments". Cortez called it a "wonderfully twisted spoof" of disaster films and called the script "pretty biting stuff ... without being wholly offensive". Ramsey Isler of IGN said the emergency staff subplot working on a cure was not "quite perfect parody". But he praised Kyle in the ending scene, as well as the way South Park found a new, literal twist on "toilet humor" by featuring rivers and tsunamis of pee. Sean O'Neal of The A.V. Club said that the episode was overly offensive, rather than an ironic commentary on racism. Although O'Neal said previous South Park episodes like "With Apologies to Jesse Jackson" were effective, "Pee" and its references to minority park attendees and the Italian waterpark owner "came off less like ironic racism and more as good, old-fashioned, butter-your-cornbread-with-it racism".

External links

• "Pee" at South Park Studios
• "Pee" at TvShack
• South Park equates minorities in the U.S. with peeing in the pool at CliqueClack TV