Imaginationland

"Imaginationland"

"Imaginationland", or Kyle Sucks Cartman's Balls (as it appears on DVD), is episode 1110 (#163) of Comedy Central's South Park. It premiered on October 17, 2007. It is the first episode in a three-part story arc.

Plot

The episode begins in the forest, with Cartman directing the other boys in searching for a leprechaun. Cartman claims to have seen it in the woods for 3 days in a row, and a skeptical Kyle is there, having made a bet that if Cartman can prove leprechauns exist, Kyle will suck his balls, but if not, Cartman will owe Kyle $10. Suddenly, a leprechaun is spotted. The boys, now shocked by this, chase it down, and catch it in a trap. The leprechaun warns of an impending terrorist attack before vanishing. Cartman, triumphant, declares that Kyle must now suck his balls, but Kyle initially refuses, saying why would a leprechaun be warning of a terrorist attack and that there has to be an logical explanation for this.

The next day, as Kyle is conversing with Stan, Kenny, Jimmy and Butters, a strange man suddenly appears, asking them if they have seen the leprechaun. When Kyle argues that leprechauns are just imaginary, the man tells him that just because something is imaginary doesn't mean it isn't real. He then invites the boys for a ride in his magical "Imagination Flying Machine", while he serenades them with "The Imagination Song" (consisting simply of the word 'imagination' sung repetitively in various tonal inflection). They arrive in a bizarre place called Imaginationland, where all the beings created by human imagination reside, and the man turns out to be the Mayor of this land. The imaginary creatures are all fascinated by the presence of the "creators," and ask them about the leprechaun. At that moment a band of Muslim terrorists suddenly appear and set off a series of bombs, which kill hundreds of the imaginary creatures and destroy most of the city as Stan stares into the mayhem (as Captain Miller did in the Omaha Beach Scene in Saving Private Ryan). The boys flee on the back of an imaginary Dragon, which flies them to safety. Butters, however, is left behind at the last minute and he and the surviving imaginary characters are held hostage by the terrorists.

The next morning, Kyle wakes up in his bed, and is at first sure the whole thing must have been a dream—until he calls Stan, and discovers that he had the exact same dream. They also discover that Butters is missing, much to his parents' shock. Meanwhile, Cartman, angry that Kyle has refused to fulfill his part of their agreement, sues Kyle in court, where the judge, seeing the written contract the two made and the evidence put up by Cartman, orders Kyle to suck Cartman's balls within 24 hours or he will be arrested for contempt.

Meanwhile, the United States Department of Defense has learned about the attack on Imaginationland. They receive a video from the terrorists, showing that they have the survivors of the attack, including Butters, hostage. Butters reads a note from the terrorists at gunpoint, and cries out to Stan and Kyle as the video ends. Unsure of how to counter the terrorists, they turn to Hollywood film makers, hoping that they can use their creativity to get ideas. After being disappointed by several directors, including M. Night Shyamalan (who only provides plot twists) and Michael Bay (who suggests special effects), the advice of Mel Gibson is sought. He suggests that they examine the video the terrorists sent, and determine if there is anyone in it that somehow doesn't fit. The officials at the Pentagon immediately perform a background check on the video and realize that Butters is not an imaginary character. The general orders his men to locate both Stan and Kyle.

In Imaginationland, the terrorists take one of the creatures, "Rockety Rocket", and begin to modify him, planning to use him to blow up "the Barrier" - the wall that separates the good and evil halves of Imaginationland. The imaginary creatures urge Butters to stop the terrorists. Butters urges them not to do it, arguing it won't make them "feel any better" and that they should learn to live in peace with other people. The terrorists refused to do so, launched the rocket at the Barrier anyway, and the barrier begins to collapse.

Cartman, meanwhile, dons a Sultan's robe and throws a huge party, during which the other kids are supposed to watch Kyle come over and suck his balls. Kyle has resigned himself to the task, and is about to walk into Cartman's house with Stan when members of the military arrive and take them away for questioning about Imaginationland. Cartman, furious at being foiled, quickly leaves and hitchhikes with a trucker (who is concerned for his safety) to Washington, D.C. to force Kyle to fulfill his obligation. He ends the episode tracing his finger lustfully across a photo of Kyle.

Production

Production for the episode began in July, 2007, nearly three months before the final airing, which is very uncharacteristic of South Park, in which most episodes are produced in one week or less. This is because the original intention was to make the story into a feature-length film, however, for unknown reasons this did not come about, and it ended up as a unprecedented television trilogy. According to the source "It's a shame [that it did not end up as a movie] because we rendered some of the shots in 4K and it would look amazing on a big screen." The three episodes were later put together with additional unseen footage and rendered completely uncensored to create a second (Straight-To-DVD) South Park movie. The movie was released Tuesday, March 11, 2008. For the release of the movie, however, South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker denied this statment, saying that they "only thought about making it into a movie." Later, however, it was announced that "Imaginationland: the movie" will be available for free in summer 2008. [1]

Reception

The episode was both a critical and commercial success. It drew in over 3.4 million viewers and was the most watched program in all of television for Wednesday night among Men between ages 18-24 and 34-49 and ranked #1 in cable among Persons 18-49.

On the critical side, IGN gave the episode a rating of 9.1/10 and praised it for being "smart, inventive and provides a number of moments that'll stick with you long after it's over." 411Mania also gave the show a positive review, calling it "a great episode", praising it as an improvement over what the site perceived to be two weak episodes, and awarding it 7/10. TV Squad also gave a positive review saying that "They're still on a roll with another great episode."

See also

• Pantheistic solipsism
• South Park

External links

• Summary at TV.com
• Episode highlights from Comedy Central