Tsst
Template:Infobox South Park episode "Tsst," (also known as "The Dog Whisperer,") is episode 1007 (#146) of Comedy Central's animated comedy tv series, South Park which aired on May 3, 2006.
Plot
Cartman is in Mr. Mackey's office with his mother, Liane, where he is forced to explain how he told Billy Tuner that he poisoned his milk, handcuffed him to a flagpole and gave him a saw, telling him that he had to saw off his foot to get the antidote (a clear reference to the movie Saw which is in turn a reference to Mad Max) after he was called 'chubby'. When she realizes she can't control her son anymore, she attempts to get help from an expert. At first, she tries to enlist the aid of the nanny from the reality tv program Nanny 911 after Mr. Mackey recommended it to her, but to no avail; Cartman makes Nanny Stella realize, with her own methods, that the reason she became a nanny is because she was unattractive and undesirable to men, which is why she never had children of her own and the fact that she could have been infertile; this causes her to become angry and give up on Cartman. Her second attempt is with Jo Frost from Super Nanny, who ends up in an asylum eating her own excrement and crying "From hell, it's from hell!" Ultimately Ms. Cartman recruits Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer, from the show of the same name. He takes on his biggest challenge to date when he is signed on to discipline Eric Cartman.
Millan evaluates Cartman as dominant, aggressive, and obese. He teaches Liane to show Cartman she is the boss. Millan teaches Liane that dogs nip each other in the neck to show dominance, and it works well with the children. He, and later Liane, uses two fingers to nip at Cartman's neck to show that they are dominant, although it doesn't hurt him at all. This, at first, angers and annoys Cartman and makes him run away. Cartman tries to seek help from his classmates, but none of them are sympathetic to his problem. He ends up living on the street for four hours before he decides to return home. While Cartman is gone, Liane has taken up her favorite hobby of Japanese sumi-e paintings. When he returns, Liane keeps on disciplining Cartman in the way Millan teaches her, and Cartman eventually reaches a relaxed and submissive state in which he behaves much like a dog (Cartman walks around with his head down, peers aimlessly at all directions and takes a treat off Liane's hand). Cartman brushes his teeth when his mother commands him to, seemingly against his own will. He also loses ten pounds, and his academic performance improves.
However, Cartman thinks his mom is being so dominant that he compares her to Hitler, and plans to kill her. He also makes reference to how his food is like that at Auschwitz, and how he knows how the Jews felt during the Holocaust. When he fails to persuade the other kids to enlist in his plan of murder, he decides to carry out the plan himself, despite his recognition that he will be the most likely suspect. Cartman sneaks into Liane's bedroom and tries to kill her with a knife, he has a struggle in his mind between his newly-good and his normal, "demonic" sides that is a parody of the film Altered States; finally, he passes out and drops the knife.
In the morning, Liane finds the knife, but also sees that Cartman made his own healthy breakfast, and is studying before school, which surprises her, as Cartman never did those things before. At the same time, Millan comes to have a final check. Liane thanks him for converting her son into a good child and being her new friend, and tells him she has tickets for the two of them to see Madama Butterfly together. Cesar informs Liane that he only sees her as a client, and now that his work is done, he must leave. Losing her only friend, a desperate Liane promises that she will take Cartman to KFC and get Cartman a toy, as long as he will spend time with her. Cartman asks for two toys and Liane agrees. In the final scene they hug. As the main theme from The Omen plays, Cartman smiles triumphantly, in a nod to the last scene of the film.
Trivia
- The title "Tsst" is an onomatopoeia for the sound that Cesar and later Liane make when they pinch Cartman on the neck with their fingers to establish dominance.
- Although Cartman does not read it out loud, the last step of his plan to kill his mother is "Frame Token".
- Cartman compares his mother to Hitler negatively, even though in several past episodes (Passion of the Jew, Pink Eye, etc), he idolizes him.
- This was the first episode of the new season to air on SBS TV in Australia.
- According to Matt Stone and Trey Parker on the Season 10 DVD commentary, which was recorded the Sunday (April 30) before this episode was broadcast, they had just realized that they were very dissatisfied with this episode, and planned to rewrite the majority of the episode. It is unknown whether or not they actually did. The commentary on the next episode, which was recorded Thursday, May 4, 2006 (one day after this episode aired), Stone and Parker said that "the Cartman episode we just finished doing turned out okay" and "we liked it, we think we did a good job".
- In real life Nanny Stella is actually married but she does not have any biological kids of her own. Instead she has a 15 year old step-son.
- The T.V. in the house is a 'Fony' model, a parody of Sony.
References to other works
- The first part of the transformation Cartman goes through, where ghost-like images of Cartman's face appear and repeat lines from earlier in the episode, is a reference to the movie Contact. The second part of the transformation (when Cartman's body shifts from different forms and he is banging against the walls in a hallway) is a parody of the movie Altered States. The end of the episode, with the choral music and Cartman smiling at the camera after being promised that he can have anything he wants, is lifted directly from the closing shot of The Omen.
- The scene in which Cartman says that he handcuffed a kid's ankle to the flagpole, claimed to have poisoned his milk, and that he needed to saw off his leg to get to the antidote is a reference to the movie Saw.
- The last nanny seen on Nanny 911 is a Skeksis, a species of evil creatures seen in the Jim Henson movie The Dark Crystal.
- Cartman's line "Yes! Let the anger come! Strike me down while you can!" is a reference to Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi.
- Eric can be seen plugging in his Xbox 360 while singing Don't Stop Believin' by the American rock band, Journey. In the Latin American version, dubbed and aired on MTV Latin America on November 11, 2006 he is singing La Camisa Negra by the Colombian singer Juanes.
References