The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs
Encyclopedia
"The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs" is the second episode of the fourteenth season
of the American animated television series South Park
, and the 197th overall episode of the series. It originally aired on Comedy Central
in the United States on March 24, 2010. In the episode, the South Park boys write a vulgar book with the sole intention of getting it banned. When Stan's parents discover the manuscript, the boys accuse Butters
of writing it, then are enraged when it is hailed as a literary masterpiece.
The episode was written and directed by series co-creator Trey Parker
, and was rated TV-MA L in the United States. It serves as a satire of pop culture criticism
, and mocks people who find hidden messages in works where there are none. The episode includes other themes, including the lack of interest in reading among American youths, and mocks the idea that a book alone causes people to commit violent crimes.
The novel The Catcher in the Rye
by J. D. Salinger
plays a major part in the episode, as the South Park boys are inspired to write their own book when they feel Salinger's book does not live up to its controversial reputation. The episode also mocks actress Sarah Jessica Parker
and the Kardashian family from the reality series Keeping Up with the Kardashians
, who are murdered by a crazed reader of Butters' second book.
"The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs" received generally positive reviews, with many commentators praising the episode's themes of the over-analysis into works of culture, although some said the vomiting jokes were too old and grew redundant. According to Nielsen Media Research
, the episode was seen by 3.24 million viewers. After the episode aired, Kim
, Kourtney
and Khloé Kardashian
praised their portrayal and on-screen deaths.
, and grow excited when Mr. Garrison
tells them that the book has caused so much controversy, it has been banned from public schools in the past. However, after reading the book, Stan
, Kyle
, Cartman
, and Kenny
are angry to find the content completely inoffensive, and feel the school has "tricked" them into reading. They decide to write their own offensive novel, The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs, with the intention of disgusting as many people as possible and getting the book banned. Later, Stan's parents find the first draft and read it. They find it so disgusting that they repeatedly vomit while reading. However, they both consider it the best book they have ever read. Fearful they will get into trouble for the book's content, Stan and the boys tell Butters
he actually wrote the book. Butters believes them because ever since reading The Catcher in the Rye, he has been entering into altered states of consciousness
, that make him want to kill John Lennon
, even though Lennon is already dead.
Butters confesses to writing the novel himself. However, Stan and the boys are furious to learn that not only do the South Park adults love the book, a publisher has agreed to sign Butters for a book deal. The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs becomes a huge success, and everybody who reads it vomits profusely, but declares it a masterpiece nonetheless. As Butters becomes a literary icon, the four boys unsuccessfully campaign to have the book banned. They are angered to find readers interpreting passages from the novel as allegories for contentious political issues, even though the boys never intended to convey such messages. Since the book made many references to the unattractiveness of actress Sarah Jessica Parker
, Cartman and Kenny plan to get her killed, believing the negative publicity will cause the book to be banned. They dress Parker as a moose
, then lead her into the woods during hunting season.
Butters writes his own novel, The Poop That Took a Pee, which consists solely of simple descriptions of scatological
acts. The four boys are convinced the book will be a disaster and expose Butters as a fraud over the first book. However, much to their surprise, readers actually find it an ever better, more profound book, and continue reading their own allegorical messages into the text. After finishing the book, one crazed reader storms on to the set of reality television series Keeping Up with the Kardashians
and murders the entire Kardashian family with a pump-action shotgun. Both The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs and The Poop That Took a Pee are banned as a result, and Butters is horrified because he considered Kim Kardashian
"the most beautiful woman in the world". Stan and Kyle suggest that instead of reading books and possibly discovering the wrong message in them, people should simply watch television instead. Cartman also claims Sarah Jessica Parker has also been killed because Butters accidentally dressed her in a moose costume while sleepwalking, although Butters says he does not care because she was ugly.
"The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs" was written and directed by series co-founder Trey Parker
, and was rated TV-MA L in the United States. It originally aired on Comedy Central
in the United States on March 24, 2010. The episode serves primarily as a satire of pop culture criticism
. Although the South Park boys wrote The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs simply to shock and offend people, readers delve too deeply into the meaning behind the book, finding hidden allegories and symbolism that the actual authors insist are not present. People with conflicting philosophies, including liberals
and conservatives, and pro-choice
and pro-life advocates, attempt to claim that the same work conveys and validates their own ideology. The script serves as a criticism of people who take such works of pop culture too seriously. Although this is demonstrated specifically through literary criticism
in the episode, the theme can be extended to film criticism
and television criticism
as well. The episode suggests people are so desperate for inspiration, they are willing to impose their hopes and dreams into works of art, even if they completely lack those qualities. Some commentators thought South Park creators Parker and Matt Stone
were implicitly mocking the amount of analysis into deeper meaning South Park itself often receives in its reviews. Others have suggested this over-analysis is a reference to the amount of adult themes identified in the Harry Potter
and Twilight young adult novel series.
"The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerBalls" portrays young children as almost entirely uninterested in reading. The South Park boys only exhibit excitement for their reading assignment based on the promise of offensive and controversial material in the book. Rather than finding any merit in the book, the boys are angry when they find the material inoffensive, prompting Cartman to declare he has been "tricked" into reading an entire book. Through the rise and fall of Butters' career as an author, the episode also demonstrates the perils of literary success and hoaxes. The episode also mocks the idea that a book can be identified as the sole causation for a reader to commit violent crimes, particularly through Butters' reaction to The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs. Butters experiences blackouts after reading The Catcher in the Rye and plans to kill both John Lennon
and Ronald Reagan
, until he disappointedly learns they are already dead.
to shoot and kill musician John Lennon
, and John Hinckley, Jr.
to attempt to assassinate
former U.S. President Ronald Reagan. Lennon, a former member of The Beatles
and long-time peace activist, is referred to by Cartman as "the king of hippies". Butters and the eventual murderer rail against 'phonies' in the same manner as Holden Caulfield
in Salinger's book. "The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs" aired two months after the death of author J.D. Salinger, and just weeks after letters by J.D. Salinger went on display at The Morgan Library & Museum in New York City.
The episode also prominently features members of the Kardashian family, who are the focus of the E!
reality series Keeping Up with the Kardashians
. Kris Jenner
, her husband Bruce Jenner
and her daughters Kim
, Kourtney
and Khloé
are all portrayed in the episode. Sarah Jessica Parker, an actress who has been mocked on South Park before, is also lampooned in the story. Both the Kardashians and the Parkers are portrayed as particularly unattractive throughout the episode, and the Kardashians are portrayed as spoiled and irritating. Actor Matthew Broderick
, Sarah Jessica Parker's real-life husband, is also featured in "The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs".
During one scene, Butters appears on Today, a morning talk show on NBC
(referred to as HBC in the episode, but with NBC's peacock logo), to promote his book. Television host Matt Lauer
is featured in the scene, during which he vomits for a particularly long time in response to some of the more vulgar passages in The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs. Morgan Freeman
, an actor widely known for his powerful voice, conducts a reading in the episode of Butters' second book, The Poop That Took a Pee. Trey Parker provided the voice of Freeman in "The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs". During one scene, Butters' father can be seen reading a newspaper with a front page story about a historic health care bill passing, a reference to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
, which was passed and signed the same week the South Park episode first aired.
, making it the most watched cable television show of the night. The episode received an overall 1.9 rating/3 share. Among viewers between ages 18 and 49, it received a 1.8 rating/5 share, and among male viewers between 18 and 34, it received a 3.5 rating/12 share. As a result of the episode, the phrase "Scrotie McBoogerballs" was the top trending topic for March 25 on the social networking and microblogging website Twitter
.
"The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs" received generally positive reviews. Carlos Delgado of iF Magazine called the episode a potential classic and a "phenomenal follow up showing" to the season premiere "Sexual Healing
", which he did not enjoy. Delgado said the script was intelligent and praised the theme of over-analyzing art. He also praised the vomiting jokes, and said he could not remember the last time he laughed so hard during a South Park episode. Entertainment Weekly
television columnist Ken Tucker said it was better than the season premiere, which he also praised. Tucker particularly enjoyed the satire of pop culture criticism, and wrote, "I'd compare the Scrotie episode to the work of Rabelais, Henry Miller, and Dennis Cooper, but then I'd be part of the boys' satire, wouldn't I?"
TV Fanatic said the episode was not as strong as previous seasons, but an improvement over "Sexual Healing". The site praised the emphasis on Butters and the pop culture references to The Catcher in the Rye, John Lennon, Sarah Jessica Parker and "the useless Kardashian Klan". The A.V. Club writer Sean O'Neal said he "chuckled a few times", but found the vomit jokes acted like a substitute for "actual dialogue". However, O'Neal praised the satire of people looking too deeply into the meaning of meaningless art, and how easily that theme can be applied to South Park itself. Not all reviews were entirely positive. Ramsey Isler of IGN
said Butters was "awesome, as usual", and thought the jokes about the Kardashians were funny, but that the positive elements of the episode were "not enough to balance out the failures". He particularly criticized the Sarah Jessica Parker jokes as "flat and random", and the constant vomiting as "just one long-running 'joke' that was just plain awful".
The day after "The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs" aired, members of the Kardashian family responded positively to their portrayal and on-screen deaths. On her blog, Kim Kardashian wrote that the family found the episode very funny and were honored to be featured in the episode. She wrote, "We were all dying when we saw this clip from South Park that aired last night... literally, LOL. They killed us all!!!" She also wrote, "I managed to survive the longest... of course!" Kourtney Kardashian joked on her Twitter
page, "How rude! Southpark!!", Khloé Kardashian wrote she did not know about her appearance on the show until she suddenly received numerous messages on her Twitter page. Khloé also said she found the scene funny, and laughed at how unattractively she and her sisters were portrayed, although she said the Bruce Jenner cartoon looked very realistic. She wrote, "Even though we all weren't portrayed as the most attractive South Park characters, I was still so flattered since I love that show haha."
set and two-disc Blu-Ray
set in the United States on April 26, 2011.
South Park (season 14)
The fourteenth season of South Park, an American animated television comedy series, originally aired in the United States on Comedy Central between March 17 and November 17, 2010. The season was headed by the series creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, who served as executive producers along with...
of the American 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...
, and the 197th overall episode of the series. It originally aired on Comedy Central
Comedy Central
Comedy Central is an American cable television and satellite television channel that carries comedy programming, both original and syndicated....
in the United States on March 24, 2010. In the episode, the South Park boys write a vulgar book with the sole intention of getting it banned. When Stan's parents discover the manuscript, the boys accuse Butters
Butters Stotch
Leopold "Butters" Stotch is a fictional character in the animated television series South Park. He is voiced by series co-creator Matt Stone and loosely based on co-producer Eric Stough. He is a fourth-grade student who commonly has extraordinary experiences not typical of conventional small-town...
of writing it, then are enraged when it is hailed as a literary masterpiece.
The episode was written and directed by series co-creator Trey Parker
Trey Parker
Trey Parker is an American animator, screenwriter, director, producer, voice artist, musician and actor, best known for being the co-creator of the television series South Park along with his creative partner and best friend Matt Stone.Parker started his film career in 1992, making a holiday short...
, and was rated TV-MA L in the United States. It serves as a satire of pop culture criticism
Popular culture studies
Popular culture studies is the academic discipline studying popular culture from a critical theory perspective. It is generally considered as a combination of communication studies and cultural studies....
, and mocks people who find hidden messages in works where there are none. The episode includes other themes, including the lack of interest in reading among American youths, and mocks the idea that a book alone causes people to commit violent crimes.
The novel The Catcher in the Rye
The Catcher in the Rye
The Catcher in the Rye is a 1951 novel by J. D. Salinger. Originally published for adults, it has since become popular with adolescent readers for its themes of teenage confusion, angst, alienation, language, and rebellion. It has been translated into almost all of the world's major...
by J. D. Salinger
J. D. Salinger
Jerome David Salinger was an American author, best known for his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, as well as his reclusive nature. His last original published work was in 1965; he gave his last interview in 1980....
plays a major part in the episode, as the South Park boys are inspired to write their own book when they feel Salinger's book does not live up to its controversial reputation. The episode also mocks actress Sarah Jessica Parker
Sarah Jessica Parker
Sarah Jessica Parker is an American film, television, and theater actress and producer.She is best known for her leading role as Carrie Bradshaw on the HBO television series Sex and the City , for which she won four Golden Globe Awards, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, and two Emmy Awards...
and the Kardashian family from the reality series Keeping Up with the Kardashians
Keeping Up with the Kardashians
Keeping Up with the Kardashians is an American reality television series that airs on E!. The series premiered in October 2007. It focuses on the personal and professional lives of the members of the Kardashian and Jenner family. There will be a 7th Season to premiere in 2012.As of September 2011,...
, who are murdered by a crazed reader of Butters' second book.
"The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs" received generally positive reviews, with many commentators praising the episode's themes of the over-analysis into works of culture, although some said the vomiting jokes were too old and grew redundant. According to Nielsen Media Research
Nielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
, the episode was seen by 3.24 million viewers. After the episode aired, Kim
Kim Kardashian
Kimberly Noel "Kim" Kardashian is an American socialite, television personality, model, actress and businesswoman. She is known for the E! reality series that she shares with her family—Keeping Up with the Kardashians, and its spin-offs including Kourtney and Kim Take New York...
, Kourtney
Kourtney Kardashian
Kourtney Mary Kardashian is an American businesswoman, socialite, model, actress and reality television personality who gained fame as a cast member of Keeping Up with the Kardashians, Kourtney and Kim Take New York, and Kourtney and Khloé Take Miami.She is the oldest child of Kris Jenner and...
and Khloé Kardashian
Khloe Kardashian
Khloé Kardashian Odom is an American businesswoman, television personality, radio host, socialite, and model...
praised their portrayal and on-screen deaths.
Plot
The students at South Park Elementary are assigned to read The Catcher in the RyeThe Catcher in the Rye
The Catcher in the Rye is a 1951 novel by J. D. Salinger. Originally published for adults, it has since become popular with adolescent readers for its themes of teenage confusion, angst, alienation, language, and rebellion. It has been translated into almost all of the world's major...
, and grow excited when Mr. Garrison
Herbert Garrison
Mr. Herbert Garrison is a recurring character in the American animated television series South Park. He is voiced by Trey Parker. For the first eight seasons of the series, the character was known as Mr. Garrison but underwent sex reassignment surgery in the season 9 episode "Mr. Garrison's Fancy...
tells them that the book has caused so much controversy, it has been banned from public schools in the past. However, after reading the book, 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...
, Kyle
Kyle Broflovski
Kyle Broflovski is a fictional character in the animated television series South Park. He is voiced by co-creator Matt Stone. Kyle is one of the show's four central characters, along with his friends Stan Marsh, Kenny McCormick, and Eric Cartman...
, Cartman
Eric Cartman
Eric Theodore Cartman is a fictional character in the American animated television series South Park. One of four main characters, along with Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, and Kenny McCormick, he is generally referred to within the series by his last name...
, and Kenny
Kenny McCormick
Kenneth "Kenny" McCormick is a fictional character in the animated television series South Park. He is one of the four central characters along with his friends Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, and Eric Cartman. His oft-muffled and indiscernible speech—the result of his parka hood covering his...
are angry to find the content completely inoffensive, and feel the school has "tricked" them into reading. They decide to write their own offensive novel, The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs, with the intention of disgusting as many people as possible and getting the book banned. Later, Stan's parents find the first draft and read it. They find it so disgusting that they repeatedly vomit while reading. However, they both consider it the best book they have ever read. Fearful they will get into trouble for the book's content, Stan and the boys tell Butters
Butters Stotch
Leopold "Butters" Stotch is a fictional character in the animated television series South Park. He is voiced by series co-creator Matt Stone and loosely based on co-producer Eric Stough. He is a fourth-grade student who commonly has extraordinary experiences not typical of conventional small-town...
he actually wrote the book. Butters believes them because ever since reading The Catcher in the Rye, he has been entering into altered states of consciousness
Altered state of consciousness
An altered state of consciousness , also named altered state of mind, is any condition which is significantly different from a normal waking beta wave state. The expression was used as early as 1966 by Arnold M. Ludwig and brought into common usage from 1969 by Charles Tart: it describes induced...
, that make him want to kill John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
, even though Lennon is already dead.
Butters confesses to writing the novel himself. However, Stan and the boys are furious to learn that not only do the South Park adults love the book, a publisher has agreed to sign Butters for a book deal. The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs becomes a huge success, and everybody who reads it vomits profusely, but declares it a masterpiece nonetheless. As Butters becomes a literary icon, the four boys unsuccessfully campaign to have the book banned. They are angered to find readers interpreting passages from the novel as allegories for contentious political issues, even though the boys never intended to convey such messages. Since the book made many references to the unattractiveness of actress Sarah Jessica Parker
Sarah Jessica Parker
Sarah Jessica Parker is an American film, television, and theater actress and producer.She is best known for her leading role as Carrie Bradshaw on the HBO television series Sex and the City , for which she won four Golden Globe Awards, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, and two Emmy Awards...
, Cartman and Kenny plan to get her killed, believing the negative publicity will cause the book to be banned. They dress Parker as a moose
Moose
The moose or Eurasian elk is the largest extant species in the deer family. Moose are distinguished by the palmate antlers of the males; other members of the family have antlers with a dendritic configuration...
, then lead her into the woods during hunting season.
Butters writes his own novel, The Poop That Took a Pee, which consists solely of simple descriptions of scatological
Scatology
In medicine and biology, scatology or coprology is the study of feces.Scatological studies allow one to determine a wide range of biological information about a creature, including its diet , healthiness, and diseases such as tapeworms. The word derives from the Greek σκώρ In medicine and biology,...
acts. The four boys are convinced the book will be a disaster and expose Butters as a fraud over the first book. However, much to their surprise, readers actually find it an ever better, more profound book, and continue reading their own allegorical messages into the text. After finishing the book, one crazed reader storms on to the set of reality television series Keeping Up with the Kardashians
Keeping Up with the Kardashians
Keeping Up with the Kardashians is an American reality television series that airs on E!. The series premiered in October 2007. It focuses on the personal and professional lives of the members of the Kardashian and Jenner family. There will be a 7th Season to premiere in 2012.As of September 2011,...
and murders the entire Kardashian family with a pump-action shotgun. Both The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs and The Poop That Took a Pee are banned as a result, and Butters is horrified because he considered Kim Kardashian
Kim Kardashian
Kimberly Noel "Kim" Kardashian is an American socialite, television personality, model, actress and businesswoman. She is known for the E! reality series that she shares with her family—Keeping Up with the Kardashians, and its spin-offs including Kourtney and Kim Take New York...
"the most beautiful woman in the world". Stan and Kyle suggest that instead of reading books and possibly discovering the wrong message in them, people should simply watch television instead. Cartman also claims Sarah Jessica Parker has also been killed because Butters accidentally dressed her in a moose costume while sleepwalking, although Butters says he does not care because she was ugly.
Production and theme
Trey Parker
Trey Parker is an American animator, screenwriter, director, producer, voice artist, musician and actor, best known for being the co-creator of the television series South Park along with his creative partner and best friend Matt Stone.Parker started his film career in 1992, making a holiday short...
, and was rated TV-MA L in the United States. It originally aired on Comedy Central
Comedy Central
Comedy Central is an American cable television and satellite television channel that carries comedy programming, both original and syndicated....
in the United States on March 24, 2010. The episode serves primarily as a satire of pop culture criticism
Popular culture studies
Popular culture studies is the academic discipline studying popular culture from a critical theory perspective. It is generally considered as a combination of communication studies and cultural studies....
. Although the South Park boys wrote The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs simply to shock and offend people, readers delve too deeply into the meaning behind the book, finding hidden allegories and symbolism that the actual authors insist are not present. People with conflicting philosophies, including liberals
Liberalism in the United States
Liberalism in the United States is a broad political philosophy centered on the unalienable rights of the individual. The fundamental liberal ideals of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion for all belief systems, and the separation of church and state, right to due process...
and conservatives, and pro-choice
Pro-choice
Support for the legalization of abortion is centered around the pro-choice movement, a sociopolitical movement supporting the ethical view that a woman should have the legal right to elective abortion, meaning the right to terminate her pregnancy....
and pro-life advocates, attempt to claim that the same work conveys and validates their own ideology. The script serves as a criticism of people who take such works of pop culture too seriously. Although this is demonstrated specifically through literary criticism
Literary criticism
Literary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals...
in the episode, the theme can be extended to film criticism
Film criticism
Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films, individually and collectively. In general, this can be divided into journalistic criticism that appears regularly in newspapers, and other popular, mass-media outlets and academic criticism by film scholars that is informed by film theory and...
and television criticism
Television criticism
Television criticism is the act of writing or speaking about television programming with a view to evaluating its worth, meaning and other aspects....
as well. The episode suggests people are so desperate for inspiration, they are willing to impose their hopes and dreams into works of art, even if they completely lack those qualities. Some commentators thought South Park creators Parker and Matt Stone
Matt Stone
Matthew Richard "Matt" Stone is an American screenwriter, producer, voice artist, musician and actor, best known for being the co-creator of South Park along with creative partner and best friend, Trey Parker....
were implicitly mocking the amount of analysis into deeper meaning South Park itself often receives in its reviews. Others have suggested this over-analysis is a reference to the amount of adult themes identified in the Harry Potter
Harry Potter
Harry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels written by the British author J. K. Rowling. The books chronicle the adventures of the adolescent wizard Harry Potter and his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry...
and Twilight young adult novel series.
"The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerBalls" portrays young children as almost entirely uninterested in reading. The South Park boys only exhibit excitement for their reading assignment based on the promise of offensive and controversial material in the book. Rather than finding any merit in the book, the boys are angry when they find the material inoffensive, prompting Cartman to declare he has been "tricked" into reading an entire book. Through the rise and fall of Butters' career as an author, the episode also demonstrates the perils of literary success and hoaxes. The episode also mocks the idea that a book can be identified as the sole causation for a reader to commit violent crimes, particularly through Butters' reaction to The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs. Butters experiences blackouts after reading The Catcher in the Rye and plans to kill both John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
and Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
, until he disappointedly learns they are already dead.
Cultural references
The Catcher in the Rye, the 1951 novel about teenage confusion and alienation by J.D. Salinger, plays a large part in "The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs". The episode references the controversial reception the book has received over the years for its risqué elements and vulgar language. Mr. Garrison tells the students the book has only recently been lifted from the South Park Elementary's banned books list, a reference to past censorship the book has received in public schools. The episode also refers to the alleged role The Catcher in the Rye played in inspiring Mark David ChapmanMark David Chapman
Mark David Chapman is an American prison inmate who murdered former Beatles member John Lennon on December 8, 1980. He committed the crime as Lennon and Yoko Ono were outside of The Dakota apartment building in New York City. Chapman aimed five shots at Lennon, hitting him four times in his back...
to shoot and kill musician John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
, and John Hinckley, Jr.
John Hinckley, Jr.
John Warnock Hinckley, Jr., attempted to assassinate U.S. President Ronald Reagan in Washington, D.C., on March 30, 1981, as the culmination of an effort to impress teen actress Jodie Foster. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity and has remained under institutional psychiatric care since...
to attempt to assassinate
Reagan assassination attempt
The Reagan assassination attempt occurred on Monday, March 30, 1981, just 69 days into the presidency of Ronald Reagan. While leaving a speaking engagement at the Washington Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C., President Reagan and three others were shot and wounded by John Hinckley, Jr...
former U.S. President Ronald Reagan. Lennon, a former member of The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
and long-time peace activist, is referred to by Cartman as "the king of hippies". Butters and the eventual murderer rail against 'phonies' in the same manner as Holden Caulfield
Holden Caulfield
Holden Caulfield is the 16-to-17 years old protagonist of author J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. He is universally recognized for his resistance to growing older and desire to protect childhood innocence...
in Salinger's book. "The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs" aired two months after the death of author J.D. Salinger, and just weeks after letters by J.D. Salinger went on display at The Morgan Library & Museum in New York City.
The episode also prominently features members of the Kardashian family, who are the focus of the E!
E!
E! Entertainment Television is an American basic cable and satellite television network, owned by NBCUniversal. It features entertainment-related programming, reality television, feature films and occasionally series and specials unrelated to the entertainment industry.E! has an audience reach of...
reality series Keeping Up with the Kardashians
Keeping Up with the Kardashians
Keeping Up with the Kardashians is an American reality television series that airs on E!. The series premiered in October 2007. It focuses on the personal and professional lives of the members of the Kardashian and Jenner family. There will be a 7th Season to premiere in 2012.As of September 2011,...
. Kris Jenner
Kris Jenner
Kristen Mary "Kris" Jenner is an American television personality, socialite and businesswoman. She also is the manager for all of her family members, including Kim Kardashian, Kourtney Kardashian and Khloé Kardashian...
, her husband Bruce Jenner
Bruce Jenner
William Bruce Jenner is a former U.S. track and field athlete, motivational speaker, socialite and television personality. He won the gold medal for decathlon in the Montreal 1976 Summer Olympics....
and her daughters Kim
Kim Kardashian
Kimberly Noel "Kim" Kardashian is an American socialite, television personality, model, actress and businesswoman. She is known for the E! reality series that she shares with her family—Keeping Up with the Kardashians, and its spin-offs including Kourtney and Kim Take New York...
, Kourtney
Kourtney Kardashian
Kourtney Mary Kardashian is an American businesswoman, socialite, model, actress and reality television personality who gained fame as a cast member of Keeping Up with the Kardashians, Kourtney and Kim Take New York, and Kourtney and Khloé Take Miami.She is the oldest child of Kris Jenner and...
and Khloé
Khloe Kardashian
Khloé Kardashian Odom is an American businesswoman, television personality, radio host, socialite, and model...
are all portrayed in the episode. Sarah Jessica Parker, an actress who has been mocked on South Park before, is also lampooned in the story. Both the Kardashians and the Parkers are portrayed as particularly unattractive throughout the episode, and the Kardashians are portrayed as spoiled and irritating. Actor Matthew Broderick
Matthew Broderick
Matthew Broderick is an American film and stage actor who, among other roles, played the title character in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Adult Simba in The Lion King film series, and Leo Bloom in the film and Broadway productions of The Producers.He has won two Tony Awards, one in 1983 for his...
, Sarah Jessica Parker's real-life husband, is also featured in "The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs".
During one scene, Butters appears on Today, a morning talk show on NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
(referred to as HBC in the episode, but with NBC's peacock logo), to promote his book. Television host Matt Lauer
Matt Lauer
Matthew Todd "Matt" Lauer . is an American television journalist best known as the host of NBC's The Today Show since 1997. He was previously a news anchor in New York and a local talk-show host in Boston, Philadelphia, Providence and Richmond...
is featured in the scene, during which he vomits for a particularly long time in response to some of the more vulgar passages in The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs. Morgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman is an American actor, film director, aviator and narrator. He is noted for his reserved demeanor and authoritative speaking voice. Freeman has received Academy Award nominations for his performances in Street Smart, Driving Miss Daisy, The Shawshank Redemption and Invictus and won...
, an actor widely known for his powerful voice, conducts a reading in the episode of Butters' second book, The Poop That Took a Pee. Trey Parker provided the voice of Freeman in "The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs". During one scene, Butters' father can be seen reading a newspaper with a front page story about a historic health care bill passing, a reference to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is a United States federal statute signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010. The law is the principal health care reform legislation of the 111th United States Congress...
, which was passed and signed the same week the South Park episode first aired.
Reception
In its original American broadcast on March 24, 2010, "The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs" was watched by 3.24 million viewers, according to the Nielsen Media ResearchNielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
, making it the most watched cable television show of the night. The episode received an overall 1.9 rating/3 share. Among viewers between ages 18 and 49, it received a 1.8 rating/5 share, and among male viewers between 18 and 34, it received a 3.5 rating/12 share. As a result of the episode, the phrase "Scrotie McBoogerballs" was the top trending topic for March 25 on the social networking and microblogging website Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
.
"The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs" received generally positive reviews. Carlos Delgado of iF Magazine called the episode a potential classic and a "phenomenal follow up showing" to the season premiere "Sexual Healing
Sexual Healing (South Park)
"Sexual Healing" is the fourteenth season premiere of the American animated television series South Park, and the 196th overall episode of the series. It originally aired on Comedy Central in the United States on March 17, 2010, and on Comedy Central UK on March 19, 2010. The title of the episode...
", which he did not enjoy. Delgado said the script was intelligent and praised the theme of over-analyzing art. He also praised the vomiting jokes, and said he could not remember the last time he laughed so hard during a South Park episode. Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
television columnist Ken Tucker said it was better than the season premiere, which he also praised. Tucker particularly enjoyed the satire of pop culture criticism, and wrote, "I'd compare the Scrotie episode to the work of Rabelais, Henry Miller, and Dennis Cooper, but then I'd be part of the boys' satire, wouldn't I?"
TV Fanatic said the episode was not as strong as previous seasons, but an improvement over "Sexual Healing". The site praised the emphasis on Butters and the pop culture references to The Catcher in the Rye, John Lennon, Sarah Jessica Parker and "the useless Kardashian Klan". The A.V. Club writer Sean O'Neal said he "chuckled a few times", but found the vomit jokes acted like a substitute for "actual dialogue". However, O'Neal praised the satire of people looking too deeply into the meaning of meaningless art, and how easily that theme can be applied to South Park itself. Not all reviews were entirely positive. Ramsey Isler of IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
said Butters was "awesome, as usual", and thought the jokes about the Kardashians were funny, but that the positive elements of the episode were "not enough to balance out the failures". He particularly criticized the Sarah Jessica Parker jokes as "flat and random", and the constant vomiting as "just one long-running 'joke' that was just plain awful".
The day after "The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs" aired, members of the Kardashian family responded positively to their portrayal and on-screen deaths. On her blog, Kim Kardashian wrote that the family found the episode very funny and were honored to be featured in the episode. She wrote, "We were all dying when we saw this clip from South Park that aired last night... literally, LOL. They killed us all!!!" She also wrote, "I managed to survive the longest... of course!" Kourtney Kardashian joked on her Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
page, "How rude! Southpark!!", Khloé Kardashian wrote she did not know about her appearance on the show until she suddenly received numerous messages on her Twitter page. Khloé also said she found the scene funny, and laughed at how unattractively she and her sisters were portrayed, although she said the Bruce Jenner cartoon looked very realistic. She wrote, "Even though we all weren't portrayed as the most attractive South Park characters, I was still so flattered since I love that show haha."
Home release
"The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs", along with the thirteen other episodes from South Parks fourteenth season, were released on a three-disc DVDDVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
set and two-disc Blu-Ray
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
set in the United States on April 26, 2011.
External links
- "The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs" Full episode at South Park Studios
- "The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs" Episode guide at South Park Studios