Lice Capades

"Lice Capades" is episode 1103 of Comedy Central's animated comedy series South Park. It originally aired on March 21, 2007.

Synopsis

Template:Spoiler Mrs. Garrison announces to the class that everyone will be checked for head lice, an act which Cartman says is unnecessary as Kenny, being poor, is the only one who could have lice. During the check however Clyde discovers that he has lice, much to his horror. The nurse gives him a note and he goes to the doctor to get a special shampoo to deal with the problem. In an attempt to "comfort" Clyde, the doctor explains that lice frequently find new hosts by attaching their larvae to flies' legs, thus spreading to foreign bodies without actually traveling themselves. This, of course, only succeeds in adding to Clyde's humiliation, who would rather admit to having AIDS than having lice.

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Cartman about to conduct a test to see who in the class has head lice.

Meanwhile, from on top of Clyde's head, the episode follows a subplot involving one of Clyde's lice; a louse named Travis. Travis has a wife named Kelly and a larva baby. During Clyde's examination, Travis witnesses the nurse parting Clyde's hair, and sees her eye gazing at him. Already suspicious about what has been happening, Travis goes back to his village and tells the head lice (including the Vice President louse) that their world has become conscious of them, and that their involvement has led it to want to get rid of them. He is laughed at and ostracized. Later he tells his wife that he wants to name their daughter "Hope." Suddenly, it begins to rain at an unusual time (Clyde taking a shower) and Travis, sensing danger, takes his wife and daughter and runs to safety. Suddenly, as the other lice are playing in the rain, a green slime (the shampoo) comes and begins to kill them all. Travis and Kelly, along with Hope, climb a nearby tree (a hair strand) as do some other lice and are saved; nevertheless countless others are killed. Soon afterwards, a huge wind (Clyde using the hairdryer) begins, which blows Kelly and many of the other survivors away, though Travis and his daughter survive.

The next day in class the children wish to know if anyone was found to have any lice. Mrs. Garrison tells them someone in the class had lice but will not reveal who, because of the potential embarrassment. The kids become upset, and want to know who it is so they can avoid them and make fun of them.

Back on Clyde's head, the few survivors of the disaster (including Travis and the Vice President) gather and Travis tells them that they must flee the world (Clyde's head) for another one, and to do so they must go the "Forbidden Zone" (The back of Clyde's neck.) This is the only place where they have a chance to spot another world. Only two lice agree to follow him, a female and the Vice President. However the Vice President has a gun and plans to kill Travis.

After a series of accusations and conspiracies, Cartman eventually devises a test to tell who had head lice, by taking a sample of everyone's blood and heating it, claiming the remaining lice saliva will make the blood jump. Kyle says that he merely stole the idea from The Thing and that it will not work. However, all the boys agree to go through with it (including Kyle, so as not to be accused) as well as Clyde, who is still terrified that he will be discovered. However, when Cartman heats Kenny's blood, it splashes upward all over him and Kenny flees in terror.

The boys manage to track Kenny down to the park, where they intend to punish him for having lice; by giving him a "sock bath." Each boy is prepared with a bar of soap inside a sock, causing the viewer to imagine that the boys intend to pummel Kenny with the soap bars as occurred in the movie Full Metal Jacket. They tell Clyde to come, but before he does, he calls Mrs. Garrison to warn her of Kenny's danger. On Clyde's body, the three lice manage to get to the "Forbidden Zone" but the Vice President soon kills the female louse and then shoots Travis in his knees explaining that he plans to be the leader of the remaining lice and cannot have Travis around. He further mocks Travis by saying that the world is not alive and shoots the "ground" to prove his point. Clyde feels this and then proceeds to scratch the back of his neck. He then picks up the Vice President and flicks him off into the snow.

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Angelina Jolie as she appeared at the end of the episode.

At Kenny's "sock bath" (which turns out to be scrubbing him with soap and then drying him with socks) Kyle says that he cannot go through with it and admits that he was the person who had lice. Stan, surprised, says that this isn't true and he was the one with lice. Even Cartman admits that he had lice and was just trying to frame Kenny. Mrs. Garrison shows up and angrily tells them that everyone in the class had lice, because they spread fast. After coming to terms with this, the kids proceed with Kenny's punishment, not because he had lice, but because he was lying about it. It is ironic, because until that moment everyone of them, afraid of admitting, was basically lying about it.

As the episode ends, Travis is almost dead and sees an apparition of his dead wife in the sky. It turns out to be a fly, and Travis grabs on to it, still holding Hope. The fly finally lands on another body and Travis is welcomed by larger, red-colored lice (revealed to be crabs moments later, which are a type of lice) who live there, and is told they have lived in peace for "generations." The episode's ending reveals that this place is in fact Angelina Jolie's pubic hair. Template:Endspoiler

Trivia

• A promotion image for the episode shows Cartman wearing his normal clothing while holding a blow torch. In the actual episode, while performing a test for lice, Cartman wears a jacket similar to the one worn by the character R.J. MacReady in The Thing.
• In the first airing of this episode, Clyde's last name is Harris, though in previous episodes, it was Donovan. Furthermore, it had originally been "Goodman" in early South Park merchandise. When this episode re-aired two days later, his last name was corrected to "Donovan".
• The scene where Travis is carried off by the fly is a direct parody, of the scene in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, where Frodo and Sam are carried off Mount Doom by the Eagles, which in turn resembles a scene in the film Mad Max 2, in which the character of Mel Gibson is rescued by the Gyro Captain.
• Craig's hair is black in this episode. His hair was a light brown color in "The Losing Edge" and black in the episode "South Park Is Gay!" though he may have dyed it in the latter.
• The music that plays when Travis is rescued by the fly is the Pie Jesu from Faure's Requiem, performed by the Oxford Camerata.
• The Forbidden Zone is a reference to Planet of the Apes where a similar desolate area exists beyond a civilization.
• Travis' attempt to warn his fellow lice is a parody of The Day After Tomorrow, where he warns about "the world" turning on them and being ignored (much like Dennis Quaid's character in the film. Both characters, ironically, warn the "vice president" only to be ignored and then be responsible afterwards).
• An older louse tells Travis they can't evacuate because "tomorrow is the Gootack festival", and they stand to lose a lot of money. This is a loose reference to a scene from Jaws where Mayor Vaughn tells Chief Brody they cannot close the beaches because it is the Fourth of July, where the city makes most of its money.

External Links

• "Lice Capades" at South Park Studios
• Teaser for "Lice Capades" (quicktime)

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