Le Petit Tourette

"Le Petit Tourette"

"Le Petit Tourette" is episode 1108 (#161) of Comedy Central's South Park. It was first broadcast on October 3, 2007. This episode marked the beginning of the second half of Season 11.

Plot

While shopping in a toy store, Cartman sees a boy named Thomas, who has Tourette syndrome (TS), who continually shouts obscenities as his mother tries to explain to everyone that he is unable to control it. Utterly stunned, Cartman demands to know how the boy is getting away with it; the various onlookers explain that they know the boy can't help it, and even express sympathy for the boy's unfortunate condition. Cartman is amazed, and suddenly runs from the store singing happily. When he gets home and begins to curse in front of his mother, she takes him to a doctor. The doctor, convinced that his continual curses prove he has Tourette's, diagnoses him, and when Cartman innocently asks how he'll be able to handle his disorder in the classroom, the doctor notifies the school so that none of the teachers or faculty will hold him accountable for what he might say.

When Kyle finds out about Cartman's "disorder," he immediately figures out that he's faking, which Cartman quickly admits to him. Nevertheless Cartman continues to enjoy his newfound freedom, repeatedly shouting random curses as he walks down the hall or sits in class, and even manages to get away with insulting people to their face, such as calling Kyle a "kike" in the middle of class. Finally Kyle cannot take it anymore, and rushes to the principal's office to tell her that Cartman is faking. Unfortunately at the moment Principal Victoria is meeting someone from the "Tourettes Tolerance and Understanding Foundation," who is insulted that Kyle would accuse people with Tourette syndrome of faking and takes him to a local support group for kids with the disorder. Kyle attempts to explain that he was referring only to Cartman, and not to others, but the kids are still insulted and tell him how hard it is living with the disorder; Thomas, the boy Cartman saw earlier in the store, is particularly miserable, and comments that his mother would be better off if he were dead. Unable to continue arguing, Kyle finally agrees to apologize for what he said, and even manages to force an apology to Cartman (who enjoys cursing at him and calling his mother a "fatass Jew" during the event). After this gleeful show, Cartman goes up to Thomas and comments that Tourette syndrome must be "fun." Thomas is visibly disturbed by Cartman's comment.

Cartman then decides to appear on Dateline with Chris Hansen, who plans to document the "sad story" of Cartman living with the condition. Cartman then gleefully calls Kyle over to his house to mock him. Just as Kyle suspects, Cartman plans to use the opportunity entirely against Jewish people, but Kyle can do nothing to stop him. Kyle vows to find a way to stop Cartman's Anti-semitism speech. Cartman continues to gloat, lacing his speech with random insults, and tells Kyle how freeing it is to be able to say absolutely anything that comes into his mind, then suddenly blurts out that he wet his bed, which stuns both Cartman and Kyle. Soon Cartman realizes that, having said everything completely unfiltered for so long, he has lost the ability to think before he speaks, and now merely says whatever comes into his head, including embarrassing secrets like that he cries at night because he does not have a father, he fantasizes about kissing with a girl named Pattie Nelson, and that he and his cousin once touched each others' wieners. He quickly tries to cancel the Dateline appointment, but Chris Hansen refuses to allow it and warns him that once, when a pedophile attempted to get out of appearing on his "To Catch a Predator" series, they hunted him down and he "killed himself", clearly implying that Chris Hansen and Dateline deliberately murdered him in revenge for his failure to appear. Hansen warns that it would be terrible if Cartman "killed himself" too. Realizing he has no way to get out of going on the show, and that he still cannot control his self-inflicted Tourette syndrome, Cartman prays to God for some sort of aid.

Meanwhile, Kyle has teamed up with Thomas, who is now convinced Cartman is lying and that his appearance on the show will make others think Tourette's is "fun." In order to provide a distraction, the two team up and go on the Internet, enticing numerous pedophiles to come to the show. When the child molesters come into the studio and see Chris Hansen, they all assume it to be a bust to reveal themselves for who they really are and kill themselves, sending panic through the studio and forcing everyone to flee. Kyle then sneaks in and confronts Cartman, exultant in the fact that he managed to spoil his plan to say vile things on the air. Cartman, overjoyed, embraces Kyle and cries into his shoulder, explaining that he wanted a miracle and saying that Kyle must "really care" about him, and then runs off to find a psychologist to help him control his speech. Thomas comes in to stand next to a stunned Kyle, and both scream "Aw shit!" at the same moment.

Reaction

Prior to the airing, the Tourette Syndrome Association (TSA) issued a press release saying they had requested that Comedy Central air their public service announcements during or after the show and that they "fully expect[ed] it to be offensive and insensitive to people with TS". The President of the TSA said, "[w]e are actually surprised it took the creators so long to use TS as comedy fodder in this program, since no disability, illness or controversial topic is off limits to them." Following the episode, they issued a second press release, expressing concern that the episode perpetuated the myth that most people with TS have coprolalia, when in fact, 85–90% of people with TS do not. They conceded that "the episode was surprisingly well-researched. The highly exaggerated emphasis on coprolalia notwithstanding, for the attentive viewer, there was a surprising amount of accurate information conveyed," adding that several elements of the episode "served as a clever device" for providing accurate facts to the public.

Censorship

This episode featured a higher than normal amount of curse words than are regularly featured. It is the third episode in the show's history to leave the word "shit" uncensored (the others being "It Hits the Fan" and "Ike's Wee Wee"). While all of the vulgarities, except for fuck, were not bleeped as usual, most of the swear words are omitted or replaced with "obscenities" in the closed captioning.

Rating

For the first time in the show's history, an episode was rated TV-MA LV instead of the usual TV-MA; this was due to many uncensored uses of the words "shit" and "cock" and at least nine graphic gunshot suicides.

Trivia

- The song "I've Got A Golden Ticket" that is being sung by Cartman is a nod to the song of the same title from the 1971 film "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory". It has been originally performed by Jack Albertson & Peter Ostrum.