South Park - W.T.F.: Running Diary/Review

Posted by Porfirio Diaz on 10.22.2009

South Park + wrestling = comedy gold? Yes.

It took them a while but the South Park boys finally get to explore the world of professional wrestling, specifically the WWE. I saw the episode and at the last minute decided that a running diary was in due order.

So here it is: South Park Season 13, Episode 10 – W.T.F. Running Diary!

9:04 P.M. (PT): It’s John Cena! It’s The Edge! Oh no, wait. His name is still Edge. Is the media outside of wrestling still referring to him as The Edge. I think I heard Stephen Colbert refer to him as The Edge the other day, but I don’t remember. He could have been talking about the guitarist from U2 instead. Well if Edge ever gets caught using steroids again, we’ll know.

Hey look, a wrestling crowd full of rednecks. That’s what Trey and Matt thinks of you wrestling fans! If you’re offended, then they’ve both done their jobs. Bravo.

Is that Cartman wearing a “Get the F Out” shirt? Vintage t-shirt! The only other t-shirt that I can recognize besides the generic "WWE" slogan t-shirts is Jimmy’s DX shirt. Cripples love DX too.

“He took his jawb!” That will never get old.

A couple of signs I saw from the crowd:

- John Cena is da Bomb!!
- Cena’s Lil’ Marine!!!
- John Cena da sh*t 4 life
- “Do it Raw!”

Do it Raw? Is that fan actually cheering for the wrestling show and not the wrestlers themselves? Let's go wrestling show, you can do it! My mind is blown. Either way, any chance one of you guys can make a sign like that for an upcoming WWE event? Like…“Do it Bragging Rights!” or "I believe in you Friday Night Smackdown!"

Judging from the rest of the signs, I’m guessing there are a lot more fictional John Cena adult fans than there are real ones.

9:05: – So the boys see the event and find their new calling of the month: wrestling. They love it so much that they sign up for wrestling class at school. Unfortunately, they signed up for “wrasling” instead of “wrestling”.

Wrestling singlet! That brings back memories from my amateur wrestling career in high school…my very short amateur wrestling career in high school.

Two things that I loved from this scene: the fact that Kenny’s helmet still covered most of his face and Cartman’s wrestling name, “Rad Russian”. Is it too late to trademark that name?

9:06: – Oh boy, here come the gay jokes. I admit that I laughed at Cartman getting down on his hands and knees while Butters takes his position from behind him.

Okay, there is just no way to describe that last scene without it sounding gay! South Park sure wasted no time proving that point. Oh well, that's amateur wrasling for ye. I know that all too well.

9:07: – So the boys ditch the “child molester” to form their own wrestling federation: Wrestling Takedown Federation.

W.T.F. Get it?

The way that Butters handled himself as a referee made him more competent than most real referees.

9:08: – The boys practice their “wrestling” on each other. It’s nothing but them standing around yelling intimidating and insulting promos at each other while featuring the occasional chair shot and head slap.

So it is like professional wrestling after all.

The promos consist of wild accusations about their opponents. It’s nothing crazy: one of them slept with their girlfriend, one made fun of their crippled mom, and one served in the Vietnam War only to get no respect from the Rad Russian(tm). It’s the basic typical wrestling storyline. Naturally, the rednecks eat this all up as real people having real issues. Soon enough, the crowd treats this as if they were watching a real life soap opera performance.

Shhh!

9:09: Out of all the characters, my favorite has to be Kenny’s character, “El Pollo Loco!”. Tastefully racist character or a tribute/parody to Rey Mysterio? Nevertheless, that is one of the funniest moments in this episode so far.

So Token is like Kofi Kingston. Great, now whenever I look at Kofi, I’ll going to think Token. Thank you South Park for helping me become more insensitive to Black people.

9:09: –“Let me tell you something, let me tell you something!” – Vicky Guerrero Bad Irene, aka Cartman in drag and she’s addicted to abortions! “I’ve had so many abortions that I got addicted to them”. Oh lovely. I died laughing.

Is it me or does “Stan the Man” look like Stone Cold Steve Austin with a Ricky Steamboat bandanna?

I don’t know if Trey and Matt purposely included these little wrestling “winks” in there but it’s all pretty surreal so far. If so, kudos to them for doing their research.

9:10: Hey, Kyle does a dropkick. So that’s four wrestling moves that I’ve counted so far: a head slap, a clothesline, a dropkick, and a chair shot. 10 minutes in and that's more than what you see during the first 30 minutes of an average Raw show. There's more wrestling within the first 10 minutes of a show whose point is that wrestling nothing but one big male opera performance than what you see during the first 30 minutes of an average Raw event that's actually a wrestling show. Well it's not like it's a big secret or anything.

By this point, you've probably figured out the premise of the episode by now. Wrestling = theater show. Less about physical athleticism and more about story telling...like being addicted to abortions.

9:11: – Ah, here's the “wresting isn’t real” piece, represented by the boy's former wrasling coach.

9:12: – “Mister, you better take your gay porn and well right out of this bar”.

So the set has expanded to become more theatrical. Even Stevie Wonder sees where this is going.

9:16: – So the school fires the wrestling coach because:

1) Wrestling consists too much adult subject matter

2) Gay porn on iPhone, which of course isn't really gay porn. If it was, I would be feeling really ashamed of myself right now.

Did you check out the smaller highlight on the newspaper? "Boy lost in balloon". Hah! Another demonstration of how the South Park creators can quickly plug in current events into their shows.

9:18: – Wow, Vince McMahon – guest star. I wonder how he’ll look and sound. If it’s anything like John Cena and Edge’s voice, then we’re in for a treat.

9:19: - "Stop Running Juggernaut!" Okay, forgot the first sign from earlier. This is the best sign ever! I normally hate signs at any sporting events but that needs to be on television. What are the chances of it being shown during a WWE event now? 60% chance? 90%? Help me out here people.

- "He don’t run from fights, just from responsibility". The funny continues.

9:20: – Token, Butters, Jimmy can’t wrestle for crap. Politics! I must say that the wrestling clichés have been pretty witty for the most part.

9:22: – "Boy Balloon Hoax" is the payoff from their previous newspaper joke. Nice job.

Now the wrestling coach is pissed off and he wants revenge! You know he’s seriously when he gets into his wrestling stance. Don’t blink or you’ll miss a picture of Rulon Gardner in the background, the Olympic wrestler who upset previously 13-year unbeaten Russian Alexander Karelin. Hey I wonder if that’s where Cartman got his inspiration from.

9:23: – There’s Vince McMahon! Oh my gawd, oh my gawd, oh my gawd.

9:25: – I can’t follow these storylines anymore. They’re too insane and complex.

[Insert own joke here]

9:26: – Seems like one of Cartman's errr...Bad Irene's aborted babies is alive and is out for revenge ("Get back in the trash can where you belong"). Of course the only way to settle this is in a wrestling ring. It’s always in a wrestling ring.

Man, Trey and Matt are not giving any leeway to amateur wrestling not being homosexual. Teh gay. My senior year of high school is forever tainted with guilt and denial.

Vince McMahon with opera glasses FTW!

9:27: – The rocket turns into a dud...that is until Kenny holds it and takes him to the sky where the rock ignites into firework show. Some things never change.

9:28: – Crowd booing real "wrasling"! They want real "wrestling"!

They took his job! Tuk er jeobs! They took his dawg! Tak tic derg!! They broke his jaw! Yup, never old.

9:30: – Suitable ending. The boys complain to each other and really start wrestling each other. In a twist of irony, the crowd completely turns on them (FAKE!) and leaves.

Cartman: "Oh don't start with me, Kenny!" I thought Kenny died. Either it's a huge goof or the South Park guys also wanted to express the inconsistent nature normally found in wrestling nowadays by having Kenny's voice be heard at the end. Continuity is raring found in wrestling anymore. Maybe Trey and Matt wanted to express their displeasure on wrestling's instability of putting together a consistent string of stories together.

Naahhh, it's a goof. They're not that clever...are they?


Review:

So what did everyone learn from this episode? Well nothing that everybody already knew: wrestling = silly male theater. This episode didn’t bring anything new in that regard. It’s already been told a million times. You can only beat that dead horse for so long before moving on. They even had to recycle a few jokes from previous episodes to fill up time. The message was there but most of it already knew it before the episode started.

With that said, this was South Park's first satirical shot at wresting and it was all very funny. The premise of starting up a professional wrestling probably could have been a little better, but the writing and jokes was top notch. Watching Kenny come out as “El Pollo Loco” was hilarious and quickly became the highlight of this season for me. Other good laughs include Cartman’s abortion addiction, Vince McMahon busting out the opera glasses, and the wrestling coach’s method of restraining the security guard. They didn’t even try to make it look as non “teh gay” as possible, did they? They’re not super "rolling on the floor" hilarious but they are enough small jokes sprinkled throughout the episode to make it worthwhile.

Did anyone else catch the differences between “wrestling” and “wrasling”? I loved how the wrestling coach would refer to “wrestling” as fake and “wrasling” as real, when people have always critical of it being the other way around. South Park’s version of “wrestling” is more dramatic theater than sport whereas “wrasling” is drowned in a sea of homoerotic overtones. Funny how Greco-Roman wrestling is considered “ghey” when it’s a lot closer to ultimate fighter than “fake” wrestling will ever be. Plus there’s no makeup or costumes or waxing involved. So it does feature the occasional grope and unsettling positions. And professional wrestling doesn’t?

I liked this episode but I imagine there are those of you that hated it or were offended by it due to wrestling being the subject matter of this particular episode. First off all, South Park offends everyone and everything. If they didn’t offend you, then they weren’t doing their jobs. Second, this is more a satirical representation of wrestling than an actual representation in general. It’s made by freaking South Park, what did you expect?

The 411: South Park - W.T.F. is a memorable episode that will last among wrestling fans for a long time. Even for non-wrestling fans out there, the episode's satirical riff on wrestling is still pretty darn funny. The writing is very well written and the jokes are very amusing. The premise may not be anything new and they could have cut out some parts but when Cartman is running around saying he's addicted to abortions, does the faults even matter? It's not the funniest South Park episode this season, but I believe it's still worth your TV viewing time.

Final Score:  8.5   [ Very Good ]