Osama bin Laden Has Farty Pants

Template:Infobox South Park episode "Osama Bin Laden Has Farty Pants" is episode 509 of the Comedy Central series South Park. It originally aired November 7, 2001. It is somewhat notable as the first episode to air after 9/11, as well as the American Invasion of Afghanistan; it dealt with the latter and only tangentially made mention of the former.

Plot

South Park has changed since the events of 9/11: everyone was afraid of terrorists, wore gas masks for fear of anthrax attacks, and Stan's mother simply sat on the couch all day, watching CNN endlessly, apparently for "about eight weeks." At school, the kids each bring in a dollar in response to President Bush's request for charity to Afghanistan; Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny bring in money and send it to four Afghan kids (who just so happen to resemble them immensely, except of course that they're Afghan and speak Persian amongst themselves. Kenny's counterpart even has his face covered, minus his eye level), who in response send them a goat in the mail.

The boys realize they cannot keep the goat, and so try to send it back to Afghanistan; but since only American military planes are flying over the country, they can only do it by sneaking the goat aboard a military plane. They sneak into a nearby base, able to do so when the guards mistake the goat for Stevie Nicks there for a USO show; however, the boys wind up on the plane too, and arrive in Afghanistan.

The boys manage to find their Afghan counterparts, who refuse to take back the goat; furthermore, the two groups get into an argument over America (the boys assumed that most Afghans liked America, but the Afghan boys reveal that they don't). After the boys leave to try to get home, they get caught by terrorists and are brought to the hiding place of Osama bin Laden; bin Laden (who is depicted as being completely insane) makes a video tape revealing his hostages, and again the Army mistakes the goat (who's still with the boys) for Stevie Nicks. The Afghan boys, finding out about this, go and rescue the American boys despite their argument; Cartman, however, goes to challenge bin Laden in a struggle of wits, which parodies old cartoons with Cartman as Bugs Bunny.

The American army storms the cave to rescue "Stevie Nicks" and the boys escape, though Kenny and his Afghan counterpart die in the process. The boys wind up getting in yet another fight. Meanwhile, Cartman manages to trick bin Laden into dressing up like Uncle Sam. A bunch of terrorists crowd around to kill him, but they all end up getting killed. Bin Laden is shot by an American soldier. With the Taliban overthrown and bin Laden dead, the boys go back home, after saying goodbye to the Afghan kids who, despite a somewhat schmaltzy moment, still hate them.

Trivia

• This episode parodies the constant state of fear and terror America was put under after 9/11, especially with the scare tactics constantly on the news and fear of terrorism being rampant.
• According to the letter that Stan sends to his Afghan counterpart, he lives at Bonanza Street. Also, his twin's name is Akmash Shulur and he lives in Rhkrabrhanishi St. no. 124, Jahafffarrr, Afghanistan. The names, of course, are purely fictional.
• All the Afghan characters speak Farsi, one of the official languages of Afghanistan, during non-English dialogue. It is, remarkably for a comedy show, fluent and lacking an accent, but, in a dialect more reminiscent of neighboring nation Iran, which is far more common. Bin Laden's words, however, are pseudo-Semitic nonsense, with a few words like "jihad" and "Ramadan" thrown in randomly (much like in Parker & Stone's later parody on the same subject, Team America: World Police). He also speaks a few words of French, Italian, etc. while courting a camel.
• The song performed by Fleetwood Mac and the goat at the end of the episode is a parody of the 1982 Stevie Nick's song "Edge of Seventeen."

• When Cartman parodies the Bugs Bunny cartoons with signs depicting 2 pictures—which, when saying the 2 words together, forms a humorous word or phrase describing the antagonist (Elmer Fudd, bin Laden). Cartman's signs describe bin Laden as a "Screwball", a "shithead", a "jackass", a "cocksucker", and "Barbra Streisand." The first one of these (Screwball) is the only one of true Looney Tunes vintage; the rest come from his string of curses at the end of South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, and from the show's continuous parodies of Barbara Streisand.
• An animated penis is shown from Osama. When few magnifying glasses zoomed in (approx. 12), revealing a micropenis. To add insult, a sign saying "Tiny Ain't It?" popped up from the side like in a typical Tex Avery cartoon. Cartman comments, "So THAT'S what this is all about," referring to the root cause of the American-Al Quaeda conflict.
• The scenes with Cartman and Osama also spoof the various Warner Brothers/Disney cartoons during World War II, wherein the characters interact with animated versions of Hitler and other Nazi affiliations as to mock them. Osama's last line ("Terrorists is the CRAZIEST peoplez!") is directly from a Warner Bros. short called "Russian Rhapsody" where Hitler says "Nazis is the CRAZIEST peoplez." [1] [2]
• This episode was nominated for an Emmy, but didn't win. The only episode, as of the end of 2005, that has won the creators an Emmy is the season nine episode "Best Friends Forever."
• Cartman references the film Star Wars when they are in Afghanistan: "I told you! Jawas have no heart." To which Kyle replies "Jawas?" Cartman retorts: "You know, Sand People" (note: In the Star Wars universe, Sand People and Jawas are two different races).
• At one point in the episode, Towelie (from the previous episode, "Towelie") appears for the following gag, in reference to the Taliban:

"Don't forget to bring a towel!"

"Oh no, not Towelie."

"When going someplace new, you should always bring a towel."

"Okay, thanks Towelie."

"You wanna get high?"

"NO WE DON'T WANNA GET HIGH!"

"Y'mean.. You don't want Towelie around?"

"That's right!"

"So am I to understand that there's been a Towelie ban?"

A short pause occurs, and Towelie snickers. Upon getting the joke, the boys then share an exasperated groan at the appalling pun on the word Taliban.

• When Afghan Kenny is killed during the shoot out, the kids exclaim "Ya Allah! Koshtaen Keyvano!" which translates to "Oh Allah, they killed Keyvan!" Keyvan is an accurate Persian/Afghan name. They also parody Kyle's line of "you bastards!" in English but replaces the word "bastard!" with "murdering Americans!!"
• On the commentary of the episode, one of the creators stated that they hated Stevie Nicks, which is why they put the goat to be mistaken for her as an act of revenge.
• When they show the hostage tape Kenny is sitting next to "Stevie Nicks" but however in the next seen Stan is.