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Volcano (South Park)

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"Volcano (South Park)"

"Volcano" is the third episode of the first season of the animated television series South Park. It originally aired on Comedy Central in the United States on August 20, 1997. In the episode, the four main characters, Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny, go on a hunting trip with Stan's uncle Jimbo and his war buddy Ned, where Stan is frustrated by his inability to shoot a living creature and Cartman tries to scare the hunting party with tales of a creature named Scuzzlebutt. Meanwhile, the group is unaware a nearby volcano is about to erupt.

Written and directed by series co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the episode was rated TV-M in the United States. The episode was inspired by the 1997 disaster films Volcano and Dante's Peak, which Parker and Stone strongly disliked. The plot was also based on the large amount of hunting Parker and Stone witnessed while growing up in Colorado; Stan's hesitation about the sport mirrored Parker's real-life feelings about hunting. Parker and Stone felt the early animation of the series had strongly improved with the "Volcano" episode, and they were particularly pleased with the lava, which was made on a computer to resemble orange construction paper.

"Volcano" received generally positive reviews and was nominated for a 1997 Environmental Media Award. "Volcano" and the episodes "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe" and "Weight Gain 4000" received an average 1.4 Nielsen Rating, which translates to slightly more than 1 million viewers. The episode marked the first appearances of recurring characters Ned Gerblansky and Randy Marsh. The latter, the town geologist, is established as Stan's father in later episodes. The episode was the first of two appearances for Scuzzlebutt, who became a popular minor character and was in the mobile video game, South Park 10: The Game. The episode also parodied the Duck and Cover educational videos from the 1950s and 1960s, which advised people to hide under tables in the event of a nuclear weapon attack.

Plot

Stan's Uncle Jimbo and his war buddy Ned take Stan, Kenny, Kyle, and Cartman on a hunting trip in the mountains. As they arrive, Jimbo explains to the boys how they should hunt. When they see a creature they shoot it, after yelling "It's coming right for us!" (in order to exploit the loophole that they can kill any animal in self-defense). Stan proves to not have the proper temperament to enjoy hunting, and finds himself unable to shoot a living target. Jimbo is impressed with Kenny, who, unlike to Stan, is able to shoot animals.

Meanwhile, South Park geologist Randy discovers that the mountain, on which the boys are hunting, is a volcano that is about to erupt. He reports his findings to the Mayor, who directs one of her aides to make appropriate decisions about the crisis.

During the hunting trip, Jimbo proclaims Kenny as his honorary nephew, which upsets Stan. When the night falls, Cartman tells the story of Scuzzlebutt, a mutant creature that has a piece of celery in place of one of its hands, and Patrick Duffy for a leg, with the boys in considerable doubt. Cartman then decides to dress up as the creature the next morning in order to convince and scare them. When, the next morning, he has disappeared, the others set out to find him. The boys then see Cartman in disguise as Scuzzlebutt, trying to scare them. Mistaking Cartman for Scuzzlebut, the others start shooting at him. When they catch up with Cartman at the base of the mountain, Stan tries to shoot him Jimbo in order to redeem himself in his uncle's eyes. However, he is unable to do so and gives Cartman enough time to escape and take his costume off.

At a lower elevation, some of the South Park residents dig a trench, under Randy's guidance, to divert the lava away from the town. As they do this, they are shown an education film called Lava and You, which assumes that if a person ducks and covers if threatened by lava, it would pass harmlessly over the would-be victim.

Suddenly, the volcano erupts, and the hunting group tries to flee only to find themselves trapped on the other side of the trench. The real Scuzzlebutt then appears, and weaves a wicker basket, in which he carries the hunting party to safety. Jimbo apologizes to the boys about their seemingly imminent deaths. The lava then flows through the trench and, due to the geologist's miscalculation, destroys Denver. However, in a misguided attempt to prove he can kill something and impress his uncle, Stan kills Scuzzlebutt. Unfortunately for Stan, Jimbo is less than impressed, telling Stan that he will always be his nephew, but that "some things you do kill and some you don't." Ned states that he understands the folly of guns, and drops his rifle, which fires, killing Kenny. Stan doesn't understand, since Jimbo tried to kill Scuzzlebutt earlier in the episode. The boys decide that hunting is stupid and go home to watch cartoons.

Production

South Park co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone wrote and directed "Volcano".

"Volcano" was written and directed by series co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. It first aired on Comedy Central in the United States on August 27, 1997.[1] The episode was inspired by volcano related Hollywood disaster films, such as Dante's Peak (1997) and Volcano (1997), which came out around the time they were writing the script; Parker and Stone considered them two of the worst films ever made. Stone said, "If you watch this episode and then go watch Volcano, this makes more sense than Volcano does."[2] Debbie Liebling, who served as a South Park producer at the time of the episode's broadcast, said the volcano erupting in South Park helped establish the setting as a place where "anything can happen".[3] Although Stone and Parker acknowledged a volcano could not actually erupt in this Colorado town, since there are no active volcanoes in the state, they felt they were entitled to create the episode anyway because the Volcano film was featured in Los Angeles, and Stone felt, "If they could do it, we could." Similarly, the duo acknowledge the tunnel built in the episode would not really divert the lava, but they felt it could be included because Parker said, "Any movie today, that's basically how dumb they are." The plot was also inspired by the large amount of hunting Parker and Stone saw around them while growing up in Colorado. Neither of the two hunted themselves, and Parker said Stan's hesitation about hunting was based largely on himself and his father, who hated the idea of killing an animal even though Parker's grandfather, like Jimbo, was very enthusiastic about the sport. Parker said he feels many of the first season episodes considered taboo in 1997 would have been considered less controversial five years later, but that "Volcano" is an exception. He said the episode, which involved children drinking beer and threatening each other at gunpoint during hunting trips, which Parker said he did not believe Comedy Central would allow following the Columbine High School massacre in 1999. Parker said, "Back then, it was just sort of funny, kids pointing guns at each other, and it's just not so funny now."[2]

The animators of the show spent the first four episodes of South Park trying to get the characters animated the way they wanted.[4] By "Volcano", Parker and Stone felt the textures of the episode were improved as well as the lines around the eyes of the characters. While the series pilot "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe" was animated with construction paper, "Volcano" was made using a computer. Nevertheless, Parker and Stone wanted the show to maintain its crude paper look; for example, they specifically asked for the night sky to look like a black piece of paper with holes cut into it for stars, just as it literally was in the pilot episode. Stone and Parker were especially proud of the animation of the lava, which they said took them hours to perfect, although they acknowledged it ended up simply resembling orange construction paper. The lava balls coming out of the volcano were directly inspired by the 1997 Volcano film.[2] Parker and Stone came up with the character of Scuzzlebutt during a random conversation with Comedy Central executive Debbie Liebling. While meeting with her, they simply started drawing the character, and decided to add a celery hand and Patrick Duffy leg for no particular reason.[2] Scuzzlebutt appeared in only one other episode. "City on the Edge of Forever" from the second season.[5] The fact that Scuzzlebutt turned out to be a real character rather than a ridiculous story by Cartman was the first of a common characteristic of the Cartman character, in which Cartman says outrageous and completely unrealistic things that turn out to be true. Stone commented, "He's right more often than he's wrong."[2]

The "Volcano" episode was in production when the pilot episode first aired on August 13, 1997. Comedy Central executives did not object to most of the content of the episode, but felt the scene in which Kyle farted while talking to Stan should have been removed because nothing happened after the fart, and they felt it was not funny. Parker and Stone, however, insisted it stay in the episode, and they said the lack of any reaction whatsoever to the fart was what made it funny. During close-ups of Cartman's face while telling the story of Scuzzlebutt around the campfire, the flames from the fire stop moving. Parker and Stone noticed the consistency error after the episode was filmed, but they did not have enough time to go back and fix it before the broadcast date, so it was left in. A cat featured in the background of one of the outdoor scenes was designed to look exactly like Parker's real-life cat, Jake. The scene in which Ned catches fire was based on Parker's real-life experience during a Colorado camping trip where he tried to do an "Indian Fire Trick", in which one pours gasoline onto a fire to create large flames. Although he said nobody caught fire, Parker said the trick misfired and he nearly burned down the forest. After finishing the episode, Parker and Stone realized "Volcano" was about two minutes shorter than the time length required for the episode. In order to add time to the episode, Parker and Stone added the scene with Ned singing the song "Kumbaya" around the fire, as well as the long freeze-frame on a shocked Chef and Mayor McDaniels reacting to the news of the volcano's imminent eruption.[2]

In addition to Scuzzlebutt, "Volcano" included the first appearances of recurring characters Randy Marsh and Ned Gerblanski. In this first appearance, Randy is identified only as the South Park geologist,[2] and it is only in the episode "An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig" that he is first introduced as Stan's father.[2][6] Parker, who provides the voice of Randy Marsh, said the design, voice and personality of the character are based on his real-life father, who works as a geologist for the United States Geological Survey. Parker said his father is very laid back in real life and Randy's relaxed reaction to learning of the volcano, where he sips his coffee, is "about how my dad would react to anything". The look of the Ned character was based on a drawing Parker made in high school, although the character did not originally have a voice box. The voice was inspired by a waitress who worked at a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Boulder, Colorado, where Parker and Stone would visit while attending the University of Colorado. The duo said they would go to the restaurant just to hear her voice, but that it was so low they would lose their appetite when she took their orders. Stone and Parker had trouble creating the right voice for the character; they tried putting the microphone directly on their throat, and also bought an actual voice box, but ultimately decided that the best way to provide the character's voice was with natural voice simulation.[2]

"Volcano" was released, alongside five other episodes, in a three-VHS set on May 5, 1998, marking the first time South Park was made available on video. The episode was released on the "Volume I" video, along with "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe"; other featured episodes included "An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig", "Death", "Weight Gain 4000" and "Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride".[7] "South Park: The Complete First Season", a DVD boxset featuring all thirteen episodes, including "Volcano", was released on November 12, 2002.[8] Parker and Stone recorded commentary track for each episode, but they were not included with the DVDs due to "standards" issues with some of the statements; Parker and Stone refused to allow the tracks to be edited and censored, so they were released in a CD completely separately from the DVDs.[4][9]

Cultural impact and references

The "Duck and Cover" videos featured in "Volcano" were inspired by actual "Duck and Cover" videos from the 1950s and 1960s, in which children were instructed to hide under tables or lean against walls in the case of a nuclear weapon attack;[2][10] Parker and Stone, like many critics of the videos, felt the methods were painfully simplistic and would not actually help in the case of such an attack. Jimbo and Ned are described as veterans of the Vietnam War, a combat between North Vietnam and South Vietnam that lasted from 1959 to 1975; Cartman, who is far too young to have participated in the war, claims to have flashbacks to his experiences in that war. Patrick Duffy, the American television actor best known for his roles in the shows Dallas and Step By Step, appears in the episode as the living leg of Scuzzlebutt. Matt Stone said there was no particular reason Duffy was chosen as the leg except that he is such a nondescript actor: "He's just super bland. Like, how could you possibly be a fan of Patrick Duffy?"[2] The moment Scuzzlebutt puts a star on top of a tree is a reference to a similar scene in the 1964 television special, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, in which the Abominable Snow Monster places a Christmas star atop a large tree. Mount Evanston, the fictional mountain in "Volcano", was named after the real Mount Evans in the Front Range region of the Rocky Mountains in Clear Creek County, Colorado; the Nichols Canyon in the episode was named after Kirt Nichols, a friend of Trey Parker.[2] Jimbo blames the Democratic Party for passing laws that he feels are overly restrictive on hunters and gun owners.[10] Upon learning children are in danger due to the volcano, Mayor McDaniels seeks publicity for herself by contacting the television news magazine programs Entertainment Tonight[11] and Inside Edition.[12]

Several lines of dialogue from "Volcano" became especially popular among South Park fans, including "It's coming right for us!" by Jimbo,[10][13] and the two Cartman lines, "Democrats piss me off!"[14] and "Cartoons Kick Ass!", all of which were featured on T-shirts.[15] Despite the relatively small role Scuzzlebutt played in the series, he nevertheless became a popular minor South Park character.[16] He was included in the South Park video game South Park 10: The Game.[17] The song "Hot Lava", sung by the Chef in the episode, was featured on the 1998 soundtrack, Chef Aid: The South Park Album.[18]

Reception

The South Park episodes "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe", "Weight Gain 4000" and "Volcano" received an average 1.4 Nielsen Rating, translating to slightly more than 1 million viewers, which was considered high for a cable program in the United States at the time.[19] The Environmental Media Association nominated the episode for an Environmental Media Award in the "TV Episodic Comedy" category.[20] However, the eventual recipient of the award was The Simpsons,[21] for the episode "Old Man and the Lisa".[22]

USA Today critic Matt Roush praised the episode, especially the Duck and Cover videos.[12] The Advertiser called the episode "outrageously lewd" and "hysterically funny".[23] The Washington Post critic Tom Shales considered the episode funnier than its precedent "Weight Gain 4000".[24] Peter Hawes of The Sunday Star-Times in Auckland, New Zealand, said the episode was funny and intelligent. He said of the episode, "Once again, the US national psyche is imperishably captured by a crude cartoon."[10] He liked the way adults were portrayed as less sensible than the children, and he particularly enjoyed the "Duck and Cover" videos: "It is terrifyingly funny, for it is a word-for-word recreation of the insane Atom-bomb Safety film, created and distributed in 1952 by the US government, who never for a second thought it would work."[10] The Daily Record of Glasgow, Scotland, praised the episode and described it as "hardcore humour": "Love it or loathe it, you can't ignore the adult animation series whose bite is worse than its bark."[25]

References

  1. ^ Weinstock, Jeff Andrew (2008). Taking South Park Seriously. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press. p. 231. ISBN 0791475662.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Parker, Trey; Stone, Matt (2002). South Park - The Complete First Season: Audio Commentary for Volcano (CD). Sunset Strategic Marketing; Comedy Central.
  3. ^ Danielsen, Shane (1997-12-29). "Thats not all, folks". The Australian. p. 14.
  4. ^ a b Pratt, Douglas (2005). Doug Pratt's DVD: Movies, Television, Music, Art, Adult, and More!. UNET 2 Corporation. p. 1123. ISBN 1932916016.
  5. ^ Stone, Matt; Parker, Trey; Pimental, Nancy M. (1998-06-17). "City on the Edge of Forever". South Park. Season 2. Episode 7. Comedy Central. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |episodelink= ignored (|episode-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help)
  6. ^ Stone, Matt; Parker, Trey; Sterling, Dan (1997-09-10). "An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig". South Park. Season 1. Episode 5. Comedy Central. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |episodelink= ignored (|episode-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help)
  7. ^ "Comedy Central's South Park – Three Collectible Videos Available For The First Time With Made-For-Video Footage Featuring Creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone". Business Wire. Burbank, California. 1998-03-26.
  8. ^ Lawson, Terry (2002-11-12). "4-disc "Rings" could take up a whole weekend". Detroit Free Press. Detroit, Michigan.
  9. ^ Owen, Rob (2002-11-22). ""South Park" warped and worthy". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. p. 39.
  10. ^ a b c d e Hawes, Peter (1999-07-18). "In which I finally discovered the Park". The Sunday Star-Times. Auckland, New Zealand. p. F7.
  11. ^ Grennan, Karin (1998-02-13). "Going down to "South Park": The most talked about 30 minutes on television are also the most offensive. But fans like it that way". Ventura County Star. Ventura County, California. p. TO18.
  12. ^ a b Roush, Matt (1997-08-20). "Critic's Corner". USA Today. p. 10D.
  13. ^ Lethbridge, Maria (2000-03-26). "Dozy Parkers scuh a scream; Video view; Film". News of the World. Wapping, London.
  14. ^ Lowry, Brian (2004-10-18). "Par's attack of the Puppet People". Variety. p. 32.
  15. ^ Martin, Helen (2001-06-25). "Why I back Jack's uniform approach". Edinburgh Evening News. Edinburgh, Scotland. p. 13.
  16. ^ Casimir, Jon (1998-07-25). "Kidnapped". The Sydney Morning Herald. Sydney, Australia. p. 4.
  17. ^ "Comedy Central Mobile and RealNetworks Launch South Park 10: The Game". Associated Press Financial Wire. 2007-03-28.
  18. ^ Vognar, Chris (1998-02-01). "Brats entertainment; South Park' creators potty hardy on Comedy Central show". The Dallas Morning News. Pasadena, California. p. 1C.
  19. ^ Johnson-Woods, Toni (2007). Blame Canada!: South Park and Popular Culture. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group. pp. 6–8. ISBN 0826417302.
  20. ^ Minge, Jim (1997-10-09). "Was Slow Service an Anomaly, or a Problem Unaddressed?". Omaha World Herald. p. 49.
  21. ^ Harris, Dana (1997-11-04). "EMA honors for Home, Travolta". The Hollywood Reporter.
  22. ^ Martinez, Judy (1997-09-30). "Environmental Media Award Nominations In; Home Improvement Singled Out". City News Service.
  23. ^ "Adult cartoon with attitude". The Advertiser. 1997-12-31.
  24. ^ Shales, Tom (1997-08-13). "South Park Falls Flatulent". The Washington Post. p. C10.
  25. ^ "Babes need laughs, not good looks; Yesterday's view - Babes in the Wood, ITV". Daily Record. Glasgow, Scotland. 1998-07-24. p. 38.
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