Goobacks

"Goobacks"

"Goobacks" (originally titled "Wetbacks from the Future") is an episode of Comedy Central's South Park. It was originally broadcast on April 28, 2004.

Plot

Early in the morning, a mysterious, almost alien man appears in South Park, entering from some kind of portal. Unfamiliar with his surroundings, he is hit lightly by a car.

A while later, the boys offer to shovel the snow off a woman's driveway. The boys work hard while Cartman sits around on the woman's doorstep, gossiping with someone on his mobile phone. Kyle objects to his laziness and, after an argument, hits him with his shovel. The woman invites the boys in to tend to Cartman's bleeding head. Inside, they see a report on CNN about the mysterious arrival, who has apparently come from over a thousand years in the future. Later in the newscast, it is reported that the time-traveler is looking for work because of the overpopulation of his time, and that the money that he earns in this one will be enough to feed his family in 3045. His time portal is said to follow "Terminator rules," as it is a one-way portal.

The next day, the boys return to offer snow-shoveling again, but find that newly arrived time-immigrants have shoveled all driveways on the street for very low pay. Apparently, the first immigrant's venture has improved his family's fortunes in the future, encouraging more immigrants to come through the portal. CNN explains the future Americans are a "hairless, uniform mix of all races" with the same skin color. Their language is a guttural mixture of "all world languages."

Various unions of local blue-collar workers soon hold a meeting to discuss their concern regarding the immigrants. The foreman, construction worker Darryl Withers, complains that they have "worked long and hard" to get their pay high enough to "make a decent living," but now are being outcompeted by the time-immigrants who are willing to work for much lower wages. Other workers voice their own complaints, each time finishing off with an exclamation of "Dey took our jobs!" The other men agree and repeat and mangle this slogan throughout the episode (it is also occasionally referenced in future episodes). The chants begin to sound like the now infamous "Dey tuk er jeobs!" chant. It eventually becomes completely unintelligible, including the example "Durka Dur!"

Stan returns home from this rally to find his parents have hired a time-immigrant as a housekeeper for 10¢ an hour. Stan calls the people from the future "goobacks," a pejorative term referring to the goo on their bodies, which is a side-effect of time-traveling. Stan's parents are shocked with what he is saying. "They're only taking the small menial jobs that nobody else really wants to do," says Randy, lecturing that it is wrong to judge immigrants because they came from conditions which are lousy as compared to the present day.

As more and more immigrants from the future continue to arrive, Withers appears on The O'Reilly Factor as a "Pissed-Off White Trash Redneck Conservative" opposite an "Aging Hippie Liberal Douche." After some more "They took our jobs!" cries, the liberal says, "Your ancestors came to America as immigrants. What right do you have to turn these people away?" All that Withers can say in response is, once again, "dey turk errr jeobs!", with some support from two audience members.

Life in South Park is accommodating itself to the immigrants to the point where Mr Garrison must teach in both current English and the future language and gooback teens, cruise around in a futuristic lowrider. The boys go to a fast-food restaurant where the staff is made up entirely of immigrants. Stan becomes upset when both the cashier and the manager cannot understand him and yells, "No, not a chicken sandwich! I want a goddamn cheeseburger and some goddamn fries, you fucking Goobacks!" Stan's parents just so happen to walk in as Stan begins this tirade. When they hear him, they become angry at him for being a "timecist".

Meanwhile, Withers holds another rally, reading that the local congressman has adjudged that the "solution of shooting everyone who crosses the time border is inhumane". Withers decides that the group has to "stop the future from happening". Soon a suggestion is made that everyone get into a pile and "get gay". Withers likes the idea, convincing the unemployed men that this is the only way to stop the men and women from the future from coming: homosexual couples cannot spawn descendants. The protesters start to take off their clothes and get in a pile in front of an immigrant section of town called Little Future. (This is the most explicit part of the episode; it is heavily edited in syndication as a result.)

Randy arrives at work, having brought in a grounded Stan to sit in his office as punishment. He finds, however, that a future immigrant who knows geology and will work for less money has taken his job and descends to the same anger as the other men whose jobs were taken: "Dey turk mah jerrrb!", a sentiment which Stan readily echoes. Randy soon joins the pile of writhing manflesh, and interviews for a CNN reporter covering the protest. As the microphone is turned in Stan's direction, the boy, disturbed by the protest, notes that it is wrong to call the immigrants "goobacks" because "they're no different from us" and says that he understands that the time-people live in poverty and that they are just trying to get by, but realizes that poor societies often hurt other societies, instead of helping them. He suggests that the people of the present should try to make the future better so the immigrants will not need to come. The men in the pile realize that he is right.

The present-day people start to plant trees, recycle, give to the poor, use less polluting energy and in general clean up, all to a jolly environmental song. The immigrants disappear as the work continues. Stan suddenly stops, however, when he realizes that "this is gay"; Kyle agrees that "this is really gay"; Cartman says that it is gayer than when the men were in a pile having sex. Stan apologises: "Everyone back in the pile!" The men rush away with the last naked straggler yelling the now completely unintelligible "Derka der!".