Die Hippie, Die

"Die Hippie, Die"

"Die Hippie, Die" is episode 902 of Comedy Central's South Park. It originally aired on March 16, 2005.

Plot summary

Cartman runs a "pest control" service to try and rid the town of hippies, a foe he has feared and hated for most of the series, mainly because, according to Cartman, "all they do is smoke pot and smell bad." Having studied hippies in his quest to eradicate them, Cartman deduces that the hippies are about to start a music festival in South Park. His attempts to warn the town council are futile, and he is arrested soon afterwards for imprisoning 63 captured hippies in his basement.

The town of South Park is soon invaded by the largest population of hippies in the history of man, and the music festival threatens to destroy the town. They manage to convert Stan, Kyle and Kenny to their cause with talks of corporate evils, and the trio get caught up in the massive hippie crowd, who spend their time listening to jam band music and doing drugs.

Cartman pleads with the mayor to stop the festival, but it turns out that the mayor was the one who permitted the music festival in the first place. After seeing the chaos that the hippies are creating, however, the mayor is ridden with guilt and shoots herself in the head (she survives and appears later in the strategy room when Cartman is enacting his plan). The rest of the town then pleads with Cartman to rid the town of the hippies. Cartman eventually agrees to help, but only after Randy promises to offer a Tonka radio controlled bulldozer, as well as Kyle's mother assuring that Kyle would never have one, and instead have to watch Cartman having fun with the bulldozer.

Meanwhile, Stan, Kyle, and Kenny realize that the hippies are doing nothing to oppose the corporations that they have demonized and that their idea of a perfect society is the same as the currently existing one. They try to leave but the crowd is 7 miles in radius and Stan's efforts to talk sense into the hippies only make matters worse. In the end, Cartman, with the help of a scientist (Randy Marsh), an engineer (Linda Stotch), and "a black man to sacrifice himself in case anything goes wrong" (Chef), builds a giant drill (a reference to the movie The Core) — the "Hippie Digger" — to bore through the hippie crowd (effectively killing the hippies getting in its way). His plan is to upload a Slayer CD, because "hippies can't stand death metal". The plan works and the hippie crowd starts to disperse, saving South Park. Stan sees Randy and they end up hugging each other, knowing that they're safe. Cartman (holding a dagger) spots Kyle, who tells him that he, Stan, and Kenny are not going to be hippies anymore, not wanting to be killed. Cartman says to Kyle that he doesn't want to do that, saying that he's got bigger plans for Kyle. Kyle is then forced to watch Cartman having fun with his Tonka bulldozer in the school parking lot. The episode ends.

Trivia

• When Cartman plays the Slayer song - Raining Blood - it is seen he has other music on his computer like "Muhhrrtallicaz - Ride The Thunder" and "Motorface - Death From Behind" which are obviously spoofs of Metallica's Ride the Lightning and Motörhead's Shoot You in the Back, other famous metal bands.
• Cartman referred to Slayer as a death metal band saying "hippies can't stand death metal". Slayer, who had a major influence on death metal, are not considered death metal but thrash metal.
• Originally, this episode was meant to be a parody of A&E's Dog the Bounty Hunter, but the creators decided that not enough people had seen the show to understand the references. The parody of the show was later implemented into the season 10 episode, Miss Teacher Bangs a Boy.
• This episode marks the last time Isaac Hayes recorded new dialogue for his character Chef, before Hayes quit the show in March 2006.

Cultural references

• The term "little Eichmanns," which the neo-hippies often use in the episode, is a reference to the controversy over a Ward Churchill article titled Some People Push Back. In the piece, Churchill referred to the people who worked at the World Trade Center in New York City as "little Eichmanns." Even though the piece was over three years old, it was just being discovered and discussed by the mainstream media shortly before this episode aired. Churchill was a professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, which is near South Park and is where the show's co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone first met.
• The scenes involving the plan constructed by Cartman to use a drill to reach the center of the music festival is a parody on the film style of the Bruckheimer/Bay producer/director team, including The Core and Armageddon.
  • having to drill to save the town (world)
  • the mayor (government) wanting to nuke as soon as the drilling was put to a halt
  • Chef (Lev) climbing outside the Drill (Virgil) to restore power as well as the music and the astronaut suits.
• Cartman's hippie-busting gear resembles the gear worn by the characters in Ghostbusters. Also the plot structure is similar as both the Ghostbusters and Cartman go to the Mayor for help and plead that the city is in danger.
• When Stan is playing his guitar, he sings the chorus to the song "Signs" by Five Man Electrical Band, a song that was more recently covered by Tesla.
• The drill machine featured in the episode bears strong resemblance to the Gotengo warship from the Japanese movies Atragon, The War in Space, and Godzilla: Final Wars.
• The red car driven by the "college know-it-all" hippies closely resembles the facelifted 6th generation Honda Accord.
  • The car has a Darwin fish on it, as well as a Colorado Buffaloes sticker.
• Kyle wears a Che Guevara t-shirt.
• The scene where Cartman warns the City Council of the incoming danger of the hippies is a spoof of The Day After Tomorrow, which South Park parodied more heavily in the episode "Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow".
• Stan delivering his message of disapproval on stage is probably a parody of the Abbie Hoffman incident during the 1969 Woodstock.
• The song that Cartman plays is Slayer's "Raining Blood", from their album Reign in Blood.
• One hippie wears a t-shirt that says "Fish," in a logo and style resembling that of the jam band Phish, considered highly popular among hippies. Also, the band that first takes the stage closely resembles Phish.
• When Mayor McDaniels commits suicide, the pan of the camera is an ode to American Beauty.