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"Cartman Gets an Anal Probe" is the first episode of the American animated television series South Park. It was originally broadcast on Comedy Central in the United States on August 13, 1997. The episode introduces child protagonists Eric Cartman, Kyle Broflovski, Stan Marsh and Kenny McCormick, who attempt to rescue Kyle's younger brother Ike from abduction by aliens. At the time of the writing of the episode, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone did not yet have a series contract with Comedy Central, and Parker later commented that they felt "pressure" to live up to the internet shorts that first made them popular. Short on money, the duo animated the episode using cut paper stop motion techniques. As such, "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe" remains the only South Park episode animated without the use of computer technology. When the episode was first broadcast in Canada, "objectionable" material was cut; it was later restored in subsequent showings. Initial reviews of the episode were generally negative; critics singled out the gratuitous obscenity of the show for particular scorn and compared South Park unfavorably with what they felt were the more complex and nuanced The Simpsons and Beavis and Butthead.