Movie 142 – South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut

South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut – July 20th, 2010

When this movie came out Andy and I saw it in the theater pretty early on. At the time we were both working at a local video store and several of our coworkers were talking about going to see it. So after seeing it we headed over to the store to tell everyone how much fun it was. And Andy decided to have a little fun with our coworker, Dan.

“Yeah, it was great,” he told Dan. “I just wish they’d done the Kyle’s Mom’s a Bitch song. They fake you out and then don’t sing it!” I have no idea what inspired him to try and convince Dan that the song wasn’t in the movie, but it didn’t take much. After all, why would anyone who hadn’t seen it think otherwise, right? Which meant that when we went to see it a second time, with Dan, we got to see him crack the fuck up when Cartman fakes out the audience several times before actually launching into a super duper rendition of the song, declaring Kyle’s mom a bitch several times over, complete with jazz hands.

To be honest, that was sort of my reaction to the whole movie, even though no one had played any prank on me. It was more that I knew the show and I was used to the show. Sure, Comedy Central let them get away with things they could never have done on network television. The Kyle’s Mom song didn’t come from nowhere, after all. And I knew the movie was rated R. I knew there would be songs, but I wasn’t quite prepared for Uncle Fucka. I knew the boundaries of taste would be pushed. But I wasn’t quite prepared for Saddam Hussein sleeping with Satan and a giant clitoris in the woods. So I spent a good portion of the movie staring at the screen in awe with my mouth hanging open. They could have been more tasteless, but I have a feeling they were skating on thin ice with the MPAA as it was.

Really, the movie is rife with tasteless jokes. I’m pretty sure that was the point. See how much profanity and how tasteless one could make an animated movie and still get it into wide release. And it’s so very meta. There are a couple of notable instances of the fourth wall being broken, but it’s the subject of the movie that’s the most meta of all. Terrence and Philip, the farting Canadians beloved by the kids of South Park, make a movie that’s rated R and full of lewd acts and filthy language. Of course Kyle, Stan, Kenny and Cartman (and Kyle’s adopted Canadian brother, Ike) manage to go see it, as do the rest of the kids, and suddenly the entire juvenile population of South Park is dropping f-bombs twice per sentence. Of course Kyle’s mom goes on a rampage and manages to start a war with Canada, declaring the entire country full of filth. Which is totally untrue. Why, our favorite funny Canadians are only filthy some of the time! Anyhow, Terrence and Philip are detained by the US and scheduled to be executed at a USO show to kick off the war, and if they die Satan and Saddam Hussein will rise out of hell and take over the world.

And there’s a lot of singing. There’s a metric assload of singing. So much singing. The movie opens with a song about South Park, moves on to Terrence and Philip’s song, then Stan sings about Wendy, Mr. Mackey sings about not swearing, we find out that hell isn’t good, we should blame Canada, Kyle’s mom’s a bitch and we wonder what Brian Boitano would do? Satan gets wistful about the world up above hell and the kids have a very dramatic medley about freeing Terrence and Philip. Saddam swears he can change and Big Gay Al is super. And then we get reprisals of several of the songs. Because it’s a MUSICAL, DAMN IT. At least it owns it. And makes good use of some of the classic musical styles from all over the map. There’s dramatic Broadway, humorous Broadway. Disney. Seriously, Satan’s song about wanting to live up on Earth is inexorably mixed with Part of Your World from Disney’s Little Mermaid. I’m sure that was intentional. My only real disappointment there is that Hell Isn’t Good isn’t on the actual soundtrack. But a RuPaul remix of I’m Super is, so I forgive.

Anyhow, suffice it to say I enjoy this movie. It’s full of swears and horrible filthy jokes. It’s got cheesy musical numbers and it’s absolutely ridiculous. And there’s that giant clitoris. But really, it’s South Park on the big screen. What were you expecting?

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