South Park: Tonsil Trouble (season premiere)

For the record, the "P" is for Penn, as in University of Pennsylvania (the Ivy League school in Philly). Tom Hanks' character in Philadelphia went there for undergrad and law school, and he wears the hat of his alma mater.

I heard Cartman says the words "Even Stevens" which makes me thing "Hmmm..this episode script must have been sitting on the shelf since like 2000 or something"

I agree that it was a weak episode. It felt a bit unfocused and really never caught the usual South Park tone or energy.

My guess is that it was a rush job and that Trey never really got caught with a great idea. He kind of liked this one but didn't love it. Almost like he was probably working harder on something else at the time.

No big deal. South Park has episodes like this, although usually they don't focus around the boys, or the boys as much. Just low energy and low passion. Still entertaining.

Cartman is emulating Tom Hanks from Philadelphia the movie.

the proper term for miraculous events neatly tying up a seemingly unsolvable situation is called "deus ex machina".

and you call yourself a writer!

I don't get it. Why was the episode weak?

It was repetitive, that's all. I think we're getting used to very critical use of sarcasm by Matt and Trey that's all but still this episode was nowhere as weak as the ongoing "Brian loves Lois" BS episodes on "Family Guy" for instance. And the HIV-positive jokes were pushed to the limit so that Kyle could beat Eric later on when he can't stop that nonsense which was great too.

Anyway... when the Tsunami in Asia hit I gave money to the local AIDS benefit to give to people to Africa. In some countries 25% of the adult population is infected which dwarfs the 275,000 people who died in the Tsunami. The difference? Tourists died in the tsunami.

Wow, Kyle sure did look like an asshole in this episode.

Just 24 hours ago I thought that South Park wouldn't be returning until the summer (I thought I read that on Wiki), so I was pleasantly surprised to see a new episode out this morning.

"I'm/We're not just sure, I'm/we're HIV-positive" is the funniest line I've heard in a while and Kyle getting pissed off about AIDS not being funny was, along with Cartman giving him the disease, the high point of the episode for me. I just couldn't stop laughing during that bit, AIDS sure is funny...

Great episode. Yeah, the ending wasn't the strongest in the history of the show, but I can live with it.

-The hat with the P is a reference to Tom Hanks in Philidelphia.

-The money cure like what everyone else said was saying that the rich can live their lives perfectly with the disease by throwing their money around for treatment. The poor villages in Africa however are screwed.

-I'm am more than sure about these 2 things. I'm HIV positive. It was a good episode and not a weak ending Brad, stop being so HIV negative!

Honestly, I wasn't all that happy with this episode, it didn't really do it for me. I loved the beginning where Cartman has AIDS and Kyle laughs at it, and loved how Cartman injected Kyle, but the rest of the story was a little uncomfortable for me and didn't make me laugh that much. Especially the whole "It isn't funny" part, which felt more like Family Guy than South Park. It could have also been a commentary on the recent Las Vegas clinic problem where they gave people Hepatitis, but it didn't cause the normal South Park panic. All in all, I am happy to have South Park back, but hope the episodes are better than this one, which only had two or three laugh out loud moments for me.

I agree. I think the point was that Magic Johnson continues to live because he has the money to pay for necessary treatment. Because he and other wealthy people can survive with HIV/AIDS, the media just kind of ignores it. Afterall, a disease is only as important as its impact on celebrities (sarcasm intended). Anyways, it was a very interesting message and with some great jokes. "Are you sure?" "I'm HIV positive."