Terrance and Phillip in Not Without My Anus
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"Terrance and Phillip in Not Without My Anus," also known as the April Fool's episode, is the 14th episode of Comedy Central's animated series South Park.[1] It originally aired on April 1, 1998.
Plot
The episode begins with a notice that although viewers have waited four weeks for the answer to the mystery "Who Is Cartman's Father," they're not going to get it. Instead is a presentation of "Not Without My Anus" starring Terrance and Phillip.
The drama opens in a courtroom in Canada with Terrance on trial for the murder of Dr. Jeffrey O'Dwyer. Phillip is acting as his lawyer while Terrance and Phillip's sworn nemesis Scott the Dick is acting as the prosecution lawyer. Scott uses a group of airtight exhibits such as a hammer, a piece of Terrance's shirt as well as a Haiku written by Terrance called "Time to kill doctor Jeffrey O'Dwyer," to prove Terrance's guilt but after a series of farts during the verdict reading Terrance is found not guilty. Upon hearing the verdict Scott promises to get Terrance and Phillip soon. Terrance says,"Scott really hates us." To which Phillip responds,"Perhaps he's homophobic" though Terrance asserts they are not gay.
Terrance and Phillip return home where they enjoy some "Kroff" Dinner and Terrance dresses up as a pirate. Terrance is interrupted by a courier who delivers a telegram informing him that his daughter Sally has been kidnapped in Iran. Terrance and Phillip both decide they will go to Iran to rescue her but first must visit Celine Dion, who is revealed to be Sally's mother.
Terrance and Phillip head out to Tehran, where they manage to find Sally within a few seconds of landing and quickly head back home. Meanwhile back in Canada it is revealed that Scott has struck a deal with Saddam Hussein to take care of Terrance and Phillip for him in exchange for helping his troops begin an invasion of Canada. (The kidnapping of Sally in Tehran was orchestrated by Saddam in order that his troops could be smuggled back to Canada on the return flight.)
Terrance and Phillip are outraged by the changes they see in Canada upon their return. Scott, after realizing he has been double crossed by Saddam, visits Terrance and Phillip to tell them that they are to blame for his impending invasion and informs them that the only way to stop it is to suicide bomb him and his troops at a football game between the Ottawa Rough Riders vs. Vancouver Roughriders [sic] football game. However they decide upon a different plan which will both get rid of Saddam once and for all and save them from certain death.
Meanwhile, Celine Dion is now sleeping with, and has become pregnant by, a friend of Terrance and Phillip named Ugly Bob, who has been convinced that his face is so ugly that he should wear a paper bag over his head at all times (Despite the fact that he is identical to both Terrance and Philip in every aspect, excluding hair color; people scream in horror at the sight of him. According to Phillip, he looks like "someone who tried to put out a forest fire with a screwdriver."). To consolidate his power, Saddam breaks into their house and kidnaps Celine Dion to sing the Iraqi national anthem at the game.
At the game, Saddam signals his intention to begin his hostile takeover of Canada and forces Celine Dion to begin singing the Iraqi anthem. Terrance and Phillip, who are sitting in the crowd, then prompt the fans (who each has an 'F' on his or her shirt) to put on gas masks and fart in unison. Eventually Saddam and his troops are overpowered by the gas and fall over. Terrance & Phillip loudly proclaim that they killed the Turks (presumably believing Saddam to be Turkish), Saddam is disemboweled and the crowd celebrates Canada's freedom with a rendition of the Canadian national anthem.
Production
"Terrance and Philip in Not Without My Anus" was written by Trisha Nixon and South Park co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and directed by Stone. It was the second season premiere and first episode centered completely around Terrance and Phillip, fictional cartoon characters within the South Park show.[2][3]
The episode, which first aired aired April 1, 1998, was an April Fools' Day prank by Parker and Stone on South Park fans, who were anxiously waiting to learn the identity of Cartman's father after the cliffhanger ending of "Cartman's Mom Is a Dirty Slut", the season one finale. Instead, Parker and Stone presented an episode entirely focused on an Terrance and Phillip cartoon, with nothing in the story about Cartman's father.[4] Upset fans wrote more than 2,000 angry e-mail complaints to Comedy Central within a week of the episode's original broadcast,[5] and media outlets said some fans harbored a grudge against the show more than five years after the episode was broadcast.[6] Matt Stone said to Entertainment Weekly in response to the angry fan response, "If you get that pissed off because you don't know who a little construction paper kid's father is, then there's really something wrong with you."[7] Comedy Central originally planned to air "Cartman's Mom Is Still a Dirty Slut", the episode with the true identity of Cartman's father, on May 20, 1998, but the air-date was moved up to April 22, 1998, in response to the angry feedback from fans.[8][9] Allan Johnson of the Chicago Tribune said Comedy Central was "punking out" with the decision.[9]
Several reviewers noted a significant number of crude and vulgar humor in "Terrance and Philip in Not Without My Anus", even by South Park standards; The Sydney Morning Herald noted the episode contained 29 separate fart jokes in the span of 22 minutes.[3] Global Television Network in Canada reported no complaints about the episode in the weeks after its release; Claire Buckley of the Toronto Sun said this suggested, "that Canadians either have lives or are grateful for any representation on U.S. television, even as gassy animated cable access hosts."[10]
Home video release
"Terrance and Phillip in Not Without My Anus" was released on VHS on June 15, 1999, as a stand-alone episode; at the time, the episode had not been repeated since it first aired on April 1, 1998.[11] It was also among the second season episodes released on "South Park: The Complete Second Season" DVD set released in June 2003.[6]
Cultural references
The episode's title and elements of its plot are clearly modeled after the 1991 Sally Field film Not Without My Daughter.
Saddam Hussein, the real-life former President of Iraq, was featured predominantly in "Terrance and Phillip in Not Without My Anus". Also featured was the real life Canadian pop singer Celine Dion. A song Dion sings in the episode is an altered parody of the actual Canadian national anthem, "O Canada". The football game features the Ottawa Rough Riders and the Saskatchewan Roughriders, two actual Canadian Football League teams.[2]
The fifth season South Park episode, "Terrance and Phillip: Behind the Blow", refers to "Terrance and Phillip in Not Without My Anus" by featuring a controversy over the airing of the "Not Without My Anus" episode.[12] "Not Without My Anus" is advertised as a Terrance and Phillip episode for sale in the window of a store during the opening sequence of the South Park movie, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut.[13]
Reception
Reviewers were mixed on Parker and Stone's elaborate April Fools' Day prank. Diane Werts of Newsday said of the episode, "Fans rioted. Some jumped ship and never came back. The lesson: Pay off our expectations, or you'll be sorry."[14] Jim Minge of the Omaha World-Herald said South Park fans were "duped" by the episode.[15] Philip Martin of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, who said in May 1998 the South Park phenomenon was "dead", described the April Fools' prank as "lamentable" and part of the reason for the show's apparent decline.[16] Others, however, praised Parker and Stone for making the move at the risk of upsetting fans. Tim Clodfelter of the Winston-Salem Journal said, "It was a funny, clever move (that) quickly separated the fans who truly "got" (Parker and Stone's) humor from those who were just watching for the dirty jokes."[6] Jon Casimir of The Sydney Morning Herald said, "It is gratifying, in an entertainment world dominated by market research and common denominators, to see a program that obviously doesn't care if you like it or not." However, he said the characterization of Terrance and Phillip are too thin to be particularly funny, and added that the novelty of the prank is lost in repeats in later years.[3]
Jakob Von Bayer said the episode continued a long history of South Park Canada-bashing: "South Park has gotten a lot of comic mileage out of Canada over the years. ... This episode portrays a country full of Bob and Doug McKenzies; Toronto is but a highway town en route to Buffalo."[2]
"Terrance and Philip in Not Without My Anus" was among the episodes featured in a 2006 list by the Winnipeg Free Press of the ten most memorable South Park episodes.[17] The Toronto Sun listed the episode as one of the most memorable television moments of 1998, and the single most memorable moment from the month of April.[7]
References
- ^ "Terrance and Phillip in Not Without My Anus".South Park Studios
- ^ a b c Bayer, Jakob Von (2002-02-09). "Canada, as seen on TV: With The Simpsons coming to Toronto, we revisit some of our other starring roles". p. SP4.
{{cite news}}: Unknown parameter|pub=ignored (|publisher=suggested) (help) - ^ a b c Casimir, Jon (1998-08-31). p. 15.
{{cite news}}: Missing or empty|title=(help); Unknown parameter|pub=ignored (|publisher=suggested) (help) - ^ Idato, Michael (2002-08-19). p. 24.
{{cite news}}: Missing or empty|title=(help); Unknown parameter|pub=ignored (|publisher=suggested) (help) - ^ Feran, Tom (1998-04-04). ""Tom Jones" big, bawdy, well done". The Plain Dealer. Cleveland, Ohio. p. 1F.
- ^ a b c Clodfelter, Tim (2003-07-04). "Lots of fun some Comedy Central shows make it to DVD". Winston-Salem Journal. p. E4.
- ^ a b Bickley, Claire (1998-12-26). "The television year in months; hello to CablePulse24, Goodbye to Seinfeld and have a good thought for Michael J. Fox". Toronto Sun. p. 137.
- ^ Low, Bob (1998-04-17). "The Net; Web goes toon barmy; Bob Low surfs the Net". Daily Record. Glasgow, Scotland. p. 43.
- ^ a b Johnson, Allan (1998-04-17). "On his first CD, "Raging Bully", Bobby Slayton takes no prionsers". Chicago Tribune. p. 10.
- ^ Bickley, Claire (1998-04-21). "Jerry strikes out pitch to book Skydome for Seinfeld bash nixed". Toronto Sun. p. 62.
- ^ "No Foolin'! Terrance & Phillip Episode, Aired Only Once on Television, Becomes Available on Video June 15". Business Wire. Burbank, California. 1999-06-11.
- ^ Booker, M. Keith (2006). Drawn to Television Prime-time Animation from the Flintstones. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers. p. 140. ISBN 0275990192.
- ^ [[South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut]] (Film). New York City: Paramount Pictures. Retrieved 2009-03-29.
{{cite AV media}}: URL–wikilink conflict (help) - ^ Werts, Diane (2000-07-13). "Do viewers need closure after canceled show's cliffhanger?". South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Fort Lauderdale, Florida. p. 3E.
- ^ Minge, Jim (1998-04-09). "One rumor is for real: Foo Fighters will perform at Westfair". Omaha World-Herald. p. 46.
- ^ Martin, Philip (1998-05-10). "On the American trash heap; Like South Park, pop culture wasn't built to last". Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. p. E1.
- ^ "Politically incorrect comedy, heeeeerrre!". Winnipeg Free Press. Canada. 2006-11-19. p. D5.