Cartmanland

"Cartmanland" is the sixth episode of the fifth season of the animated television series South Park, and the 71st episode of the series overall. "Cartmanland" originally aired in the United States on July 25, 2001 on Comedy Central.

Plot

Cartman's grandmother dies and to the family's shock, Cartman inherits her life savings of one million dollars (since she assumed the rest of the family would just spend it all on crack). Going against all advice to invest the money, Cartman instead spends the money on his lifelong dream of owning the local amusement park called North Park Funland. The owner Frank Fun is reluctant to sell, knowing that his park has been a financial failure, but Cartman assures him that he doesn't intend to operate the park as a business, but rather he wants the park so that he could be the only one allowed in it (and to avoid the drudgery of long amusement park lines). Feeling guilt-free, Mr. Fun agrees to sell. The park is renamed Cartmanland and it's making Cartman the happiest he's ever been.

Meanwhile, upon learning of Cartman's good fortune, Kyle begins to question his own faith in God (for allowing someone as horrible as Cartman to be so fortunate), which is worsened by the discovery that he has a hemorrhoid. At Stan's house, Stan and Kyle see a commercial for Cartmanland, where Cartman gloats about how no one can enter his park, especially them. They become very determined to sneak into the park, but Kyle pops his hemorrhoid while trying to climb over the fence, and they are caught by Cartman, who sent them away.

Cartman hires a security guard to ensure that no one else tries to trespass into the park. Having spent all of his money, Cartman tries to pay the guard with free rides, but the guard will not work unless he is given a cash salary and suggests to Cartman that if he lets two people into the park per day, the admission money could be used to pay for his employment. Reluctantly, he starts letting in customers but one of the rides malfunctions and Cartman realizes he must let in more people to hire a maintenance person. Despite letting a few more people into the park, Cartman still forbids Stan to enter after catching him through his disguise and has his security guard escort him away.

Having infected his hemorrhoid, Kyle is stuck at the hospital unable to defecate or it could worsen his condition. Upset by this trangression of events, Kyle finally lost his faith in God, much to his parents and Stan's dismay. Even the doctor is stating that the hemorrhoid has spread to Kyle's lungs, and although the body could naturally fight the infection, Kyle is losing his will to live. His parents come by hoping to cheer him up by reading to him the story of Job from the Bible as it relates to Kyle's situation. Kyle is mortified by the story (his parents having failed to mention how Job's unwavering faith is repaid with more wealth and family than he had before) not being able to understand why God would do horrible things to a person just to win a bet with Satan.

More expenses for Cartmanland begin to pile up for maintenance, refreshments, and utilities forcing Cartman to let even more people into the park until attendance goes up in the thousands turning the park into a success. Business experts mistake Cartman's "you can't come" technique as a successful marketing ploy that helped to turn around the once struggling park. Upon learning this through the television, Kyle begins to fall flat-line. With Cartmanland now filled with people and lines becoming longer than ever, Cartman's enjoyment begins to wane and he screams in anger. Upon visiting the park, Mr. Fun is amazed by the Cartman's success, but Cartman demands his money back. After Cartman gives the park back to Mr. Fun, the IRS comes to collect a $500,000 penalty fee from Cartman because he did not keep any tax records while he was operating the park. The other half of the money is taken as part of a lawsuit by Kenny's parents since Kenny died on one of the roller coasters. Cartman has lost his entire $1 million and is now $13,000 in debt to the IRS and realizes he must get the park back in order to get the money, but Mr. Fun refuses to sell it back to him.

Upon hearing about the events, Stan hurries to the hospital as Kyle is now on the verge of dying. He pleads with the doctor to take Kyle out of the hospital to show him what is happening to Cartman. They arrive at the park to find Cartman throwing rocks at the walls in anger over having lost his fortune before being maced by the security guard he originally hired. Seeing Cartman's misery causes Kyle's hemorrhoid to miraculously shrink away and he makes a full recovery as he watches Cartman cry after having been pepper sprayed by his former security guard, and his faith in God is now restored.

Production

In the DVD commentary to this episode^[1] Parker and Stone highlight it as another example (after "Scott Tenorman Must Die") of the show's change in style towards simpler ideas which consisted only of an A-Plot, with no subplot, and "not try[ing] to do too many things at once". Parker mentions that they almost did not make the episode as they did not believe that there was enough going on in the episode, that it was too "basic and easy". Parker also said they were concerned that the story of Cartman inheriting a million dollars and buying a theme park was cliché. However, as it was the middle of the run and they had no other stories ready for production, they decided to run with the idea. Parker said he realised while they were making the episode that "as long as you have the basic easy cliché thing as the overall thing, then you can get into the scenes and have a lot of fun with scenes and get original in there."

Both this episode and "Scott Tenorman Must Die" appear on The Cult of Cartman DVD.

See also

• Theodicy

References

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Cartmanland

• "Cartmanland" Episode guide at South Park Studios
• "Cartmanland" Full episode at South Park Studios
• "Cartmanland" at the Internet Movie Database
• "Cartmanland" at TV.com