For the album based on the episode see Chef Aid: The South Park Album

Chef Aid: The South Park Album

-Episode reference:- Singles :* "Chocolate Salty Balls "CD1# "Chocolate Salty Balls " - Performed By Chef# "Oh Holy Night" - Performed By Eric Cartman...

"Chef Aid" is the fourteenth episode of the second season

South Park (season 2)

Season two of South Park, an American animated television series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, began airing on April 1, 1998. The second season concluded after 18 episodes on January 20, 1999...

 of the animated television series South Park

South Park

South Park is an American animated television series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the Comedy Central television network. Intended for mature audiences, the show has become famous for its crude language, surreal, satirical, and dark humor that lampoons a wide range of topics...

, 27th episode of the series overall. "Chef Aid" originally aired in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 on October 7, 1998 on Comedy Central

Comedy Central

Comedy Central is an American cable television and satellite television channel that carries comedy programming, both original and syndicated....

. Guest stars in this episode included Joe Strummer

Joe Strummer

John Graham Mellor , best remembered by his stage name Joe Strummer, was the co-founder, lyricist, rhythm guitarist and lead vocalist of the British punk rock band The Clash. His musical experience included his membership in The 101ers, Latino Rockabilly War, The Mescaleros and The Pogues, in...

, Rancid

Rancid (band)

Rancid is an American punk rock band formed in Berkeley, California in 1991. Founded by Tim Armstrong and Matt Freeman, both of whom previously played in the ska punk band Operation Ivy, Rancid is credited—along with Green Day and The Offspring—for reviving mainstream interest in punk rock in the...

, Ozzy Osbourne

Ozzy Osbourne

John Michael "Ozzy" Osbourne is an English vocalist, whose musical career has spanned over 40 years. Osbourne rose to prominence as lead singer of the pioneering English heavy metal band Black Sabbath, whose radically different, intentionally dark, harder sound helped spawn the heavy metal...

, Ween

Ween

Ween is an American alternative rock group. They formed in 1984 in New Hope, Pennsylvania when central members Aaron Freeman and Mickey Melchiondo met in an eighth grade typing class. Ween has a large cult underground fanbase despite being generally unknown in American pop music...

, Primus

Primus (band)

Primus is an American rock band based in San Francisco, California, currently composed of bassist/vocalist Les Claypool, guitarist Larry "Ler" LaLonde and drummer Jay Lane. Primus originally formed in 1984 with Claypool and guitarist Todd Huth, later joined by Lane, though the latter two departed...

, Elton John

Elton John

Sir Elton Hercules John, CBE, Hon DMus is an English rock singer-songwriter, composer, pianist and occasional actor...

, Meat Loaf

Meat Loaf

Michael Lee Aday , better known by his stage name, Meat Loaf, is an American hard rock musician and actor...

, Rick James

Rick James

James Ambrose Johnson, Jr. , better known by his stage name Rick James, was an American singer, songwriter, musician and record producer. James was a popular performer in the late 1970s and 1980s, scoring four number-one hits on the U.S. R&B charts performing in the genres of funk and R&B...

, and DMX

DMX (rapper)

Earl Simmons , better known by his stage name DMX, is a multiplatinum American rapper and actor who rose to fame in the late 1990s. His stage name pays tribute to the Oberheim DMX drum machine, an instrument he used when he made his own rap beats in the 80's...

.

Plot synopsis

Chef

Chef (South Park)

Jerome "Chef" McElroy is a fictional character on the Comedy Central series South Park. He was voiced by Isaac Hayes. A cafeteria worker at the local elementary school in the town of South Park, Colorado, Chef was generally portrayed as more level-headed than the other adult residents of the town...

 discovers that Alanis Morissette

Alanis Morissette

Alanis Nadine Morissette is a Canadian-American singer-songwriter, guitarist, record producer, and actress. She has won 16 Juno Awards and seven Grammy Awards, was nominated for two Golden Globe Awards and also shortlisted for an Academy Award nomination...

's (fictional) hit song "Stinky Britches" is a song that he wrote many years ago, before abandoning his musical aspirations. He contacts a "major record company" executive, seeking only to have his name credited as the composer of "Stinky Britches". Chef's claim is substantiated by a twenty-year-old recording of Chef performing the song. The record company refuses, and furthermore hires Johnnie Cochran

Johnnie Cochran

Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr. was an American lawyer best known for his leadership role in the defense and criminal acquittal of O. J...

, who files a lawsuit

Lawsuit

A lawsuit or "suit in law" is a civil action brought in a court of law in which a plaintiff, a party who claims to have incurred loss as a result of a defendant's actions, demands a legal or equitable remedy. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint...

 against him for harassment

Harassment

Harassment covers a wide range of behaviors of an offensive nature. It is commonly understood as behaviour intended to disturb or upset, and it is characteristically repetitive. In the legal sense, it is intentional behaviour which is found threatening or disturbing...

. Cochran employs the "Chewbacca defense

Chewbacca defense

The Chewbacca defense is a legal strategy used in episode 27 of South Park, "Chef Aid", which premiered on October 7, 1998, as the fourteenth episode of the second season. The aim of the argument is deliberately to confuse the jury by making use of the fallacy known as ignoratio elenchi, or a red...

", resulting in a win for the record company and damages

Damages

In law, damages is an award, typically of money, to be paid to a person as compensation for loss or injury; grammatically, it is a singular noun, not plural.- Compensatory damages :...

 to be paid by the defense, so Chef now has 24 hours to come up with the money or face four years of incarceration. However, instead of allowing all his stuff to be taken by the greedy record company executive, Chef decides to raise all the money by temporarily becoming a prostitute and sleeping with all the women in town. Instead of paying the executive, he will pay Johnnie Cochran the money so this time he can sue the record company.

Meanwhile, Mr. Garrison witnesses many strange attempts on Mr. Twig's life; he finds him boiling in a pot of water, and later snapped in half. The evidence begins to point to Mr. Hat as the culprit, culminating in a showdown between Mr. Garrison and Mr. Hat which lands the former in jail.

The boys try to help Chef by rounding up various musicians whose careers have been boosted by Chef's advice to hold a benefit concert

Benefit concert

A benefit concert or charity concert is a concert, show or gala featuring musicians, comedians, or other performers that is held for a charitable purpose, often directed at a specific and immediate humanitarian crisis. Such events raise both funds and public awareness to address the cause at...

. The record company executive sabotage

Sabotage

Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening another entity through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. In a workplace setting, sabotage is the conscious withdrawal of efficiency generally directed at causing some change in workplace conditions. One who engages in sabotage is...

s the concert, but the outpouring of support for Chef touches Johnnie Cochran, whose heart "grew three sizes that day

How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

How the Grinch Stole Christmas! is a children's story by Dr. Seuss written in rhymed verse with illustrations by the author. It was published as a book by Random House in 1957, and at approximately the same time in an issue of Redbook...

". Cochran switches sides for free and successfully defends Chef, in a new trial, although he uses the Chewbacca Defense again (resulting in an explosion of one juror's head), ending with Chef finally getting his name on the album. Mr. Garrison and Mr. Hat eventually make up their differences and get back together.

Album release

An album was released based on the episode. It featured 21 songs, some being extended and unaired songs from this episode and previous episodes in the series, others being completely original to the album. Many notable artists from all different genres made cameo appearance

Cameo appearance

A cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television...

s on the album.

Chewbacca defense

The Chewbacca

Chewbacca

Chewbacca, also known as Chewie, is a character in the Star Wars franchise, portrayed by Peter Mayhew. In the series' narrative chronology, he appears in Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Episode IV: A New Hope, Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back and Episode VI: Return of the Jedi...

 defense is a fictional legal strategy used in Chef Aid. It is a form of Red Herring

Ignoratio elenchi

Ignoratio elenchi is the informal fallacy of presenting an argument that may in itself be valid, but does not address the issue in question...

 argument, used to deliberately confuse the jury

Jury

A jury is a sworn body of people convened to render an impartial verdict officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment. Modern juries tend to be found in courts to ascertain the guilt, or lack thereof, in a crime. In Anglophone jurisdictions, the verdict may be guilty,...

. The concept satirized

Satire

Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...

 attorney Johnnie Cochran

Johnnie Cochran

Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr. was an American lawyer best known for his leadership role in the defense and criminal acquittal of O. J...

's closing argument

Closing argument

A closing argument, summation, or summing up is the concluding statement of each party's counsel reiterating the important arguments for the trier of fact, often the jury, in a court case. A closing argument occurs after the presentation of evidence...

 defending O. J. Simpson

O. J. Simpson

Orenthal James "O. J." Simpson , nicknamed "The Juice", is a retired American collegiate and professional football player, football broadcaster, and actor...

 in his murder trial

O. J. Simpson murder case

The O. J. Simpson murder case was a criminal trial held in Los Angeles County, California Superior Court from January 29 to October 3, 1995. Former American football star and actor O. J...

. In court, Cochran resorts to his "famous" Chewbacca defense, which he "used during the Simpson trial", according to Stan

Stan Marsh

Stanley Randall "Stan" Marsh is a fictional character in the animated television series South Park. He is voiced by and loosely based on series co-creator Trey Parker. Stan is one of the show's four central characters, along with his friends Kyle Broflovski, Kenny McCormick, and Eric Cartman...

. It was a parody

Parody

A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...

 of Johnnie Cochran's closing arguments in the O. J. Simpson murder case

O. J. Simpson murder case

The O. J. Simpson murder case was a criminal trial held in Los Angeles County, California Superior Court from January 29 to October 3, 1995. Former American football star and actor O. J...

 where he stated to the jury: "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit",
in reference to an earlier point in the trial when prosecutor Christopher Darden

Christopher Darden

Christopher Allen Darden is an American lawyer, writer, lecturer and practicing attorney. He was a 15-year veteran of the Los Angeles County District Attorney, where he was assigned to the prosecution of O.J. Simpson. Darden gained fame during the O.J...

 asked Mr. Simpson to try on a bloody glove found at the murder scene, and Mr. Simpson could not put it on because it did not fit his hand.

Cochran's defense is successful and the jury finds Chef guilty of "harassing a major record label" and sets his punishment as either a two million dollar fine to be paid within twenty-four hours or, failing that, four years in prison (the judge initially sentences him to eight million years).

Ultimately a "Chef Aid" benefit concert

Benefit concert

A benefit concert or charity concert is a concert, show or gala featuring musicians, comedians, or other performers that is held for a charitable purpose, often directed at a specific and immediate humanitarian crisis. Such events raise both funds and public awareness to address the cause at...

 is organized to raise money for Chef to hire Johnnie Cochran for his own lawsuit against the record company. At the concert Johnnie Cochran experiences a change of heart and offers to represent Chef pro bono

Pro bono

Pro bono publico is a Latin phrase generally used to describe professional work undertaken voluntarily and without payment or at a reduced fee as a public service. It is common in the legal profession and is increasingly seen in marketing, technology, and strategy consulting firms...

. He again successfully uses the Chewbacca defense, this time to defeat the record company and make them acknowledge Chef's authorship of their song. In the second use of the Chewbacca defense, he ends by taking out a monkey

Monkey

A monkey is a primate, either an Old World monkey or a New World monkey. There are about 260 known living species of monkey. Many are arboreal, although there are species that live primarily on the ground, such as baboons. Monkeys are generally considered to be intelligent. Unlike apes, monkeys...

 puppet and shouting "Here, look at the monkey. Look at the silly monkey!" causing a juror's head to explode.

Usage

The Associated Press

Associated Press

The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...

obituary for Cochran mentioned the Chewbacca defense parody as one of the ways in which the attorney had entered pop culture

Popular culture

Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...

.

Criminologist Dr. Thomas O'Connor says that when DNA evidence shows "inclusion", that is, does not exonerate a client by exclusion from the DNA sample provided, "About the only thing you can do is attack the lab for its (lack of) quality assurance and proficiency testing, or use a 'Chewbacca defense' …and try to razzle-dazzle the jury about how complex and complicated the other side's evidence or probability estimates are." Forensic scientist Erin Kenneally has argued that court challenges to digital evidence

Digital evidence

Digital evidence or electronic evidence is any probative information stored or transmitted in digital form that a party to a court case may use at trial...

 frequently use the Chewbacca defense per se, in that they present multiple alternative explanations of forensic evidence obtained from computers and internet providers to raise the reasonable doubt understood by a jury. Kenneally also presents methods that can be used to rebut a Chewbacca defense. Kenneally and colleague Anjali Swienton have presented this topic before the Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

 State Court System and at the 2005 American Academy of Forensic Sciences

American Academy of Forensic Sciences

The American Academy of Forensic Sciences is a professional society for people in all areas of forensics.For over sixty years, the AAFS has served a distinguished and diverse membership. Its nearly 6,000 members are divided into eleven sections spanning the forensic enterprise...

 annual meeting.

The term has also seen use in political commentary; Ellis Weiner

Ellis Weiner

Ellis Weiner is an author and humorist who has previously worked as an editor of National Lampoon and a columnist for Spy Magazine. His humor has also appeared in The New Yorker, Paris Review, and the New York Times Magazine....

 wrote in The Huffington Post

The Huffington Post

The Huffington Post is an American news website and content-aggregating blog founded by Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer, and Jonah Peretti, featuring liberal minded columnists and various news sources. The site offers coverage of politics, theology, media, business, entertainment, living, style,...

that Dinesh D'Souza

Dinesh D'Souza

Dinesh D'Souza is an author and public speaker and a former Robert and Karen Rishwain Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He is currently the President of The King's College in New York City. D'Souza is a noted Christian apologist and conservative writer and speaker....

 was using the Chewbacca defense in criticism of new Speaker of the House

Speaker of the United States House of Representatives

The Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, or Speaker of the House, is the presiding officer of the United States House of Representatives...

 Nancy Pelosi

Nancy Pelosi

Nancy Patricia D'Alesandro Pelosi is the Minority Leader of the United States House of Representatives and served as the 60th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 2007 to 2011...

, defining it as when "someone asserts his claim by saying something so patently nonsensical that the listener's brain shuts down completely."

External links

• "Chef Aid" Full Episode at South Park Studios
• "Chef Aid" Episode Guide at South Park Studios