In honor of the current WGA strike, the boys from Talking Simpsons help us tackle a South Park episode mocking the previous strike in 07-08. We wade through a painful dearth of jokes and mind-altering note-for-note renditions of viral videos to see how foolish anyone would have to be to strike for "internet money" If you liked this episode, consider supporting our show for only $5/month and get two bonus episodes a week delivered straight to your podcast app or browser. Sign up at http://patreon.com/miniondeathcult
The liberals are destroying California, and conservative humor gone awry... Conservative humor gone awry is going to fascistphonia today.
So stay tuned, we're going to take a few pictures of the desert and how their policies are actually messing it up.
It's not beautiful when you go across that border.
Stay tuned guys, we'll show you exactly what it looks like when you're in the storm deserts.
All there in Barbados, stay tuned.
All right.
I'm Alexander Edward.
And I'm Tony Boswell.
And we are Minion Death Cult.
The world is ending.
Those silly strikers are responsible, and we're documenting it.
What's up, everybody?
Welcome to the show.
It's your bonus episode for the week.
And a bonus one it is, in all senses of the word, because we have some great guests here from the Talking Simpsons podcast, the What a Cartoon podcast, and the Retronauts Gaming podcast.
We have Bob Mackie and Henry Gilbert.
How are you guys doing?
Hey everybody, happy to be back.
Yay, it's Henry Gilbert.
Thanks for having us on.
Yeah, absolutely.
You were, of course, your first appearance, everybody must remember, was the Talkin' Tuttle Twins episode, the libertarian answer to the magic school bus cartoon.
Go ahead and listen to that episode if you haven't heard it already.
Just what a wonderful time speculating about the main characters, Abuela's War Crimes, possibly, that she alludes to.
Something about Allende.
I can't exactly remember.
I'm going to have to go back and listen to that.
But yeah, thank you for joining us.
We are talking South Park today.
Uh, we brought the cartoon experts on to talk about, uh, another cartoon that I don't think we've ever like addressed specifically on the show.
It just, you know, kind of comes up, uh, obliquely.
And those started the show in like, you know, what, 2019, 2018.
So there really should be no reason to have to talk about South Park.
Um, but here we are.
Yeah.
What's your guys' relationship with... Well, okay, let me say this.
The reason we're talking about South Park is there's an infamous episode of South Park called Canada on Strike, making fun of the idea of anyone, anywhere doing a strike, apparently.
And this is a direct shot across the bow at the Writers Guild Strike from that year, 2008? 2007?
07 to 08.
Okay.
Yeah.
It was 100 days across the end of 07 into 2008.
Yeah.
And I had been thinking about this episode for like a year or so.
And then I saw Henry, I saw you, you tweeted specifically about this episode and about the difference between how Matt Stone and Trey Parker responded to a writer's strike and how Seth MacFarlane, also notorious cartoonist, how he responded to the strike, which from what your tweet read was pretty supportive.
Yeah, no, I was thinking about it because there was a headline in the news that Seth MacFarlane, along with the other showrunners of his shows that he works on, Family Guy and American Dad, that there's a thing in the current WGA strike with pencils down is that the The companies are trying to get showrunners to still like oversee the completed shows to to or get them to completion.
And they say that's not writing.
And it's up to some showrunners have kind of taken a cowardly route and said, like, well, it's not really writing.
I got to finish it.
But meanwhile, Seth MacFarlane and using his kind of power actually is like, no, I'm not going to show run these until we get the deal.
Like I'm stopping production on this.
And it's something you can do now again.
If you were to ask me, in totality, what I think is a funnier show, I think South Park's a better show than Ridley Kai.
And there's certainly things about Seth MacFarlane that annoy me about him as just a person, but I gotta say, when it comes to the union stuff, he is eight billion times better at it than Matt and Trey.
Yeah, I have to say, Henry, as someone who based his personality on hating Family Guy in the early aughts, I'm starting to think Family Guy is better.
It might be.
It might be.
My opinion is they try a lot harder.
And episodes like this really prove it.
That's true.
Yes.
Well, I think South Park would be better if they would, you know, expand the universe like much like Family Guy has.
See, because Family Guy, you can't just talk about Family Guy.
We have to talk about everything that spawned off of Family Guy, like, you know, American Dad in Cleveland.
So those are just all kinds of fantastic, very humorous, extremely funny, just good, good stuff.
Well, there's jobs.
Those are jobs.
They've created a lot of jobs with those shows is the good thing.
And South Park's only really done South Park.
And then like Team America.
Oh, basketball, too.
Oh, basketball.
Yeah.
There was there was That's My Bush, too.
Oh, God, that's they employed six episodes worth of sitcom people.
Marsha Wallace got a paycheck.
I'm sure, though, that was not WGA either.
It couldn't have been.
They did That's My Bush.
That was them.
That was them.
Yeah.
They funny story.
They thought that they were going to They sold that show to Comedy Central before the 2000 election and they thought it was going to be about the Gore family and so when Bush quote-unquote won then they're like well shit they they because They would say we're going to get a lot into their politics, I'm sure, but they didn't want to make they were more excited about making a show, making fun of Al Gore than they were about making a show, making fun of George Bush.
Yeah.
Wow.
I'm shocked.
And we were we were deeming about this, Henry.
And it's it is so funny, like what South Park's legacy is.
And, you know, we'll get into this as we go through this episode.
But yeah, the idea that they felt the need to apologize for making fun of global warming, like, oh, yeah, actually, it wasn't a complete joke and we're all probably going to die pretty miserable deaths at the hands of the environment.
Sorry about that, everybody.
Like, I don't know.
I don't know what you expected, man.
It only took him 20 years to apologize for Man, Bear, Pig.
And about four episodes on the same subject, maybe five.
Which, yeah, when they were doing it, even in 2004, I was like, I remember they did it in like an O2 or even like maybe 2000 episode.
We're like, I don't know, guys, about this global warming thing.
But by 2004, I was like, come on, you can't still be pretending on this one.
Yeah, I don't know.
My relationship with South Park is, I thought it was extremely funny when I was very young.
You know, like when the first season came out, I was probably like 10 or something like that.
I thought it was very funny.
Kyle's Mom is a Bitch, sung by Cartman, is like the first internet comedy video I remember seeing.
I don't know, I watched it for a bit and then I definitely checked out at some point when it was just like, it was like, South Park takes on the iPad.
South Park takes on FaceTime, the concept of FaceTime.
Like, I don't know, I really lost interest in the show and then around the Trump election, I think it was, I went back and it was like, The safe space era of South Park.
I was just like, none of this shit is funny at all, man.
I get this comedy from Facebook.
Straight from Facebook.
Like, what do I need Trey Parker and Matt Stone for?
Yeah, I was a day one viewer.
It came out when I was 15, so it was a perfect time for me.
I saw the movie in theaters, and to make a long story short, I watched it up until around this time period.
And as I got older, I had more life experience, I saw more places, I met different kinds of people.
I saw more South Park episodes and I started to think, these guys are kind of full of shit.
Certain episodes made me think, I don't really agree with this, but I guess it was funny.
But then episodes like this just really set me off, especially with certain circumstances that were happening in my life.
When this episode aired, I was a grad student and the first thing that we did as grad students is like, welcome to graduate school.
Now please sign this paper saying you won't unionize because we legally can't stop you unless you agree that you won't.
And I thought I started thinking about unions a lot.
And it was this and the WGA strike that made me really turn on South Park.
I don't think I really watched it that long after this episode.
What's your relationship with South Park, Tony?
Let's say what's funny about that is like I was similar I think I was like 13 when it came out and I remember just liking it.
It was funny.
It was edgy.
It felt like I remember enjoying it.
I remember enjoying the songs.
The salted chocolate ball song was funny.
I was a big chef fan.
I thought it was cool that As far as I was concerned, if Isaac Hayes actually did the voice, that means it's like, oh, this must be, like, also okay and mature for some reason in my head.
But I also remember, like, my mom, like, not wanting me to watch it.
And I saw my mom today on the same day that I watched an episode for the first time in maybe 15 years.
And I told her, I was like, I watched South Park today.
And she's like, well?
And I was like, I think I really loved it because you didn't want me to.
Because I did not enjoy what I watched today.
It was like just not, it was just not funny.
I was trying to think of, oh sorry.
She was so proud.
She was just so proud.
She's like, I told you.
I told you.
I'm like, I think we didn't like it for different reasons though.
But whatever.
She still won.
I was trying to think of like the episodes that I actually did like and the only one that I mean I liked the movie a lot I loved the movie when it came out but as far as like I think Butters episodes I liked like I liked Butters very own episode and
I was thinking back of the plot of that and I was like, oh, it's just a bunch of like awful shit happening around Butters that he's either too naive or like too positive and like, you know, happy-go-lucky to really land as hard as it should with him.
And just that, that dynamic was funny, but it's also like purely shock value, right?
It's like his, his dad is like getting fucked at a bathhouse while he's in the next room over or something.
And that's, that's the joke.
Yeah, I, uh, as I was a day one viewer too, and I, at first I, as a simple kid, well, like in the first season, when they did episodes that were like, Hey, don't hate somebody for being gay.
I was like, Oh, cool.
That's good that they did that.
Like every big gay out teaches in that.
But just on that topic alone, within four seasons, I feel like it's even the third season.
They do an episode of basically That's about Big Gay Al is barred from being a Boy Scout leader, and they come out on the side of like, well, a private organization can't deny him being it if they want!
It's a real courageous take, man.
Yeah, it was like a why do you want to be a Boy Scout if they don't like you?
That was kind of like the point, right?
Yeah, that sucked.
I love it when a resolution is like, well, who has the power in this situation?
Obviously, they're right.
No, I mean, the episode ending of South Park that really sums up to me their politics is It's the episode about goobacks.
It was their one about illegal, undocumented immigration.
But it's people from the future who are coming in and they took our job.
That's where the famous they took my job meme comes from.
And at the end of the day, they clearly begrudgingly agree of like, yeah, you know, it sucks for the people who come in here and maybe we should just make the future better.
And so they clean up the environment to try to make the future better.
But when they do it for like just a two minute montage, then they say like, nah, you know, this is gay.
I don't want to do this anymore.
And they just stopped doing it.
Like, so caring is gay.
Don't bother doing it.
Wasn't it like they were, I remember this episode, wasn't it like they were fucking each other?
Like, like they were, they were forcibly having gay sex.
Yes, all the redneck guys were fucking each other to try to scare off the future people, but that was all just to set up that, they would say at the end of the episode, caring for the environment is gayer than a giant pile of men fucking each other.
Oh, haha, do you get it?
That's funny.
That's gay, and I'm gay.
I think that's gay, and I'm gay.
That's really gay, if you're caring about the earth.
They also did an entire episode trying to say, and I'm gay I can say this, they did an entire episode trying to reclaim the word fag as not a slur against gay people and that it should be cool to say.
They were calling Harley riders the slur, right?
Yes.
Which is funny.
That's an overlap between our episode on Interview with the Antichrist, where somebody sits down with the Antichrist, who's explaining to them like all the bad things that led to his rise.
And one of them was people on their Harley bikes being loud, being loud and waking up old people and disturbing their slumber.
I think even if you don't think about the messages, and it's hard not to with a thing like South Park, one of the things that made me stop being interested was it wasn't that funny anymore, and it was getting kind of repetitive.
I mean, Henry and I do Talking Simpsons, and I think we like The Simpsons because it just has so many different kinds of jokes, and it's always making new ones.
It's inventing new types of jokes.
With South Park, and this episode is a very clear example of that.
This episode is bleak, man.
Yeah.
And I feel like they decide like, okay, we found our joke for the episode and they do it three or four times.
And I swear to God, it has to be 25% of the script at least.
And they kept doing this over and over because they just want to generate catchphrases essentially.
And it just got boring.
Like I, this is the first time I watched an episode in probably 15 years, like you, Tony.
And I was getting bored with a 20 minute episode of South Park.
Yeah.
Because it was like, I'm not your guy, buddy.
I'm not your buddy, friend.
And then just like the episode ends with about 90 seconds of that.
And just like it's all because they base the show around this cult of personality of writing it in two days.
And I don't think that's admirable at all.
This episode's like this really show like you have a poorly thought argument that does not hold up to any scrutiny.
And it's not funny.
There's one joke in this episode.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Unfortunately for them, I have I had never heard that joke in its proper context.
I'd only heard it from the least funny people bartending for like seven years.
So I've only heard it from the worst people doing that joke for an hour at a time before I actually saw it in its natural state.
And I was like, holy shit, this is what it's from?
Well, yeah, when I saw it, because I remember that I remember this.
I don't remember the strike politics that well from this episode because they're really not kind of non-existent.
But I do remember that.
I'm not your buddy guy.
I'm not your guy friend or whatever he said, whatever the chain is.
And I remember thinking it was funny at the time.
Mildly funny.
And then watching it again, I was like, wait, are they reusing this?
Because it doesn't feel good.
It doesn't feel fresh.
And, you know, obviously we've, we've heard it, like Tony said, from the least funny people in the world over and over, but it doesn't have that, I don't know, even, it doesn't even seem like a joke.
It just seems like a thing Canadians would say in their universe.
Yeah, usually with a running joke like this, each time you would see it again, they would add something or subvert it or make it even bigger, but this time it's just like, no, we thought it was funny that they talk like this, so let's just do it again.
We need to eat up another minute of this script.
Yeah.
You know, I think South Park is at its best when, yeah, like you said, the Butters episodes are also like, I remember loving like the Towelie episodes because they were just like ridiculous.
And also I think because they those are ones because he's a guest voice in it.
Vernon Chapman, who's co-creator of Wonder Shows, and I think he kind of levels up a little more in it.
I didn't know that.
I didn't know that's who he was.
Yeah, that's great.
Yeah.
I didn't even smoke weed at the time.
And I love those episodes.
No, but those were, like, my favorite.
But yeah, the more I engage with their politics, like, and it's easy to, you know, some of their... I think they have an easy target in rich Hollywood liberals.
Like, those people are annoying, and I get it.
Like, and, you know, their mocking of, say, Alec Baldwin only feels, like, more deserved every day.
But still, it's like, Eventually they are like, they're rich guys.
Like they're as rich.
That's the thing.
They are as rich now.
They, they, one of their first big targets was Barbra Streisand.
Again, super out of touch, mega rich lady.
They are richer than she is now, like than she has ever been.
They, they are worth more than they, and I don't think they understand that that makes them out of touch and they, uh, are, they miss things.
Yeah.
Yeah, I'm surprised that they have not received the same backlash as someone like J.K.
Rowling, who definitely deserves it, because all of their bullshit is in the text.
It's not things they've said on the record to newspapers or whatever.
All of their anti-trans crap is sprinkled throughout episodes, including one really recent one.
And I'm honestly surprised that we're not seeing the same anger towards them as we see every day on Twitter about J.K.
Rowling.
Again, deserved, but there are other targets too.
Yeah.
I think for that, I think J.K.
Rowling's turn, if it ever was a turn, is far more recent.
I do remember during, like, the PC Principal and Safe Space and all that, I remember a bunch of people being like, what the fuck is this, like, bog standard Republican, you know, Fox News bullshit?
And I remember there being a backlash.
I think a lot of people just already stopped watching them at that point.
Mm-hmm.
I was gonna say, that's what's interesting to me, is that it's so successful now, because I think all of us had a similar experience when we were young.
And when you're young, you're not as funny yet.
You're like, you're funny, but you're not as funny yet.
You don't really understand what's funny exactly.
And then what happens, I think, I got older and I gathered some politics and I became kind of funny, and I had friends that were funnier than that joke.
And so it instantly just wasn't holding up.
Again, it's that thing where your least favorite person, the least funny person you know, has a great Cartman voice.
Who's still there?
Who's still watching it?
The last thing I'll say about their politics before we jump into this episode is I think the most charitable thing you can say about them is they're they have like a Midas touch for conservatism and like right-wing memes even if that's not their Angle or their, their, you know, even if that isn't the front of their mind, this stuff, when they do like take these right wing points, they stick.
I mean, um, the Al Gore meme, that was like, that was a meme for a very long time.
Uh, you still see stunning and brave.
You still see stunning and brave jokes now, like what?
10, 15 years after they were making fun of, uh, smelling their own farts thing.
Yeah, and America, fuck yeah, is about 20 years old at this point, and you see that used sincerely in so many places.
Exactly.
They're like a Rosetta Stone for accidentally creating a worse right-wing generation of people.
The one other episode that's very like I went back to the pre I was looking through the seasons to try and see like which ones I remembered and where I stopped watching and the season right before this is the one that's what day of the dead but for homeless people.
I can't.
Yeah, I can't remember what's it's what the name of it's like a homeless apocalypse or something.
Yeah, that is a shot.
I mean, to watch it now, especially like I mean, more than it was it was upsetting then.
But I mean, now more than ever, we're talking about the unhoused and how the world America treats them like disposable.
Nothing.
It's horrible.
And then they do an episode about how like, no, it's the same as being home.
If you're homeless, you're a zombie.
And and yeah, they in that episode, they have like one woman stand up and say all these things of like they're not zombies.
They're people.
We need to help them.
But, but it's just a joke that somebody would say that and then everybody else just goes like, yeah, yeah.
But anyway, they're, they're zombies.
Was that around the same time?
Cause I was just talking about this yesterday for some reason.
Was that around the same time as like the bath salt incidents?
Was that part of the joke?
No, not that I could see.
No, the joke is that they're the walking dead.
They're just shuffling around and they're saying change instead of brains.
They're begging for, they're saying change.
Oh, that sucks.
The woman stands up in that meeting and says, like, they're human beings.
They're no different than you or me.
And then I think Stan, Stan's dad or cut Randy is like, oh, then they've they've stolen our DNA or they're assimilating our DNA, which is like the joke kind of is like, wouldn't it be funny if people reacted to the homeless crisis like it were a disaster movie?
There were some scientists to be like, we can't figure out these numbers or where they're coming from or what the contagion is.
But that is how we treat homeless people.
I don't like that.
Like that is what the right wing view on homeless people now is that San Francisco is full of the walking dead.
That L.A.
is full of the like, that's just that's just Republicanism.
That's just right wing stuff.
You know, I can't describe too much.
I don't know how much I can say they do it on purpose or what.
But like, because I do think they are.
I think partially they love saying they're punk rock and everything, which is great hearing from somebody who's worth like $800 million.
But I do think part of that spirit is that they want to be their contrarian to a point, and that includes especially when they're surrounded by, in liberal Hollywood, people who say you should care about homeless people.
That just then makes them go like, no, then you shouldn't actually.
I think you shouldn't.
When you push it that at all, like, well, but why not?
There's not much to it.
Like in this episode as well, when you, they, they're, I think they're just against the WGA in this episode because they heard everybody else telling them, shouldn't you be pro the WGA?
And then they're like, well, fuck you for telling us we should be like, that's, I think that's a lot of their spirit.
Yeah, I think that they what they do is like they come up with a single idea.
They don't think it out very well.
And then they write 22 minutes about it, which only like I don't know, because there's a way to poke fun at an overwhelming homeless population.
There's a way to make that funny, or even if not, I can see some edgelord being like, wow, there are a bunch of zombies out there and chuckling to himself and moving on with his life or whatever.
But when you sit down and write a whole 22 minute long episode about it, it's like, I think you've painted yourself into a corner where you just seem like a huge asshole.
Yeah, at least with this episode, though, they're pretty up front with how every South Park at this point is a poorly thought out allegory.
When the Canadian guy has to think of what WGA stands for, he misses every letter.
And it's like, yeah, you're just admitting up front.
And I appreciate that.
It's a poorly thought out analogy.
Thanks for letting me know up front.
All right, so we start off on this episode.
This is Canada on Strike.
We thought it would be fun to revisit this in the face of the current WGA strike, which we all support.
They're at school, they're at a school assembly, and the teacher, principal, wheels out a TV to celebrate Canada Appreciation Day.
And they're watching a video from the World Canadian Bureau.
And, um, it's Steven Abootman is like the president of the world Canadian Bureau.
Um, which I guess is, you know, supposed to be a joke.
I mean, that's, that's like mild, mildly funny joke that it's a world Canadian Bureau.
Um, they talk funny.
That's funny.
Steven Abootman.
Right.
Um, but it's not, it's not even like a pun, like about men.
Yeah.
Uh, yeah, and he says, Oh, uh, you know what Canada's known for?
And, uh, Cartman says, gayness.
They're all the kids laugh.
Um, and then he says, he says, what is Canada do?
And then some other kid says nothing.
And you know, they all just, they all just make fun of them.
And, uh, Canada appreciation day has not received the, uh, respect or the excitement that Canada thought it would.
So, Stephen Abootman decides to go on strike for more respect and more money and we get sort of a really pale flashback to the South Park movie where they do a Canada on strike song and dance number.
Oh yeah.
That kind of caught me off guard because I was like, Oh shit, they did do that like a lot.
They did do like songs.
Um, and I was like, Oh, they're going to do a whole song.
They did a whole, whole ass song.
Yeah, I think they were like, Hey, we got this one musical bit, like Canada on strike.
Like, cause then they, they build the first act around that.
I mean, to, to equate the WGA with Canadians means that they're like, yeah, you're stupid.
Like we make fun of you.
Like we don't care about you.
Yeah.
We don't care about you.
And also you think definitely their feeling is you have too much self-importance.
Like they equate a lot of negativity to Well, it's a general, this is something I see in so many conservative spaces online of like, nobody cares about something for real.
Like nobody, everybody cares about things only for selfish reasons.
So of course, Canada only cares about going on strike because they didn't feel respected.
There's no like that, that's to them why the WGA won on strike too.
Because the creators don't work very hard on their own show, they're wondering, why?
Why do you want more money?
This is so easy.
Just come up with one joke repeated five times.
Right.
And, you know, have the character swear a few times and you've got South Park.
Yeah.
So they just yeah, they tell the world that they're on strike.
They tell whatever Delhi, whatever like assortment of world powers this is.
One of the countries in this meeting is is just Africa.
Yeah.
There's France, there's Spain, there's Germany, and then there's Africa.
But it's not, there's no lampshade on it.
I think it was an accident.
I don't know if this was intentional because it's just off to the corner of the screen.
You just see Africa and a guy sitting behind the nameplate.
I would believe that if you were to ask them if Africa is a country, they would just say yes.
I do think they do think that, yeah, that's it.
They're not being clever here.
Well, we know if they wanted it to be a joke, it'd be right in the center of the screen, and they'd be pointing at it, because they're like, that's the joke, guys!
Like everything else in this.
I'm surprised they put him in a suit.
I'm honestly surprised they put that guy in a suit.
Yeah.
Or not like a gaudy suit.
This is about a decade removed from their Starvin' Marvin episode.
Yeah.
That's what I remember.
Wild.
No, this meeting, I mean, this is where the analogy really falls.
They could do something about Canada being on strike, but I think they ask themselves, well, what actually, how do you follow with that metaphor?
And so it's them, Canada's asking the other governments for more money, which to flatten out what the WGA was asking for, I mean, In 2007, they did want more money because they were being grossly underpaid for many things, but they seem to think that asking for more money is wrong to do?
Well, it is if you're like, if you don't produce anything of value, then why should you get?
You would naturally have more money if you were actually valuable.
If you're like, Canada, which I'm just, you know, as a South Park fan, I'm just assuming does nothing, is of little value to the world.
Why would they deserve more money?
And it's not just more money, it's internet money.
That is what Canada is asking for, and that's kind of the crux of this episode.
The supposed absurdity that anyone could ever make money on the internet.
That any money would ever be made on the internet.
Yeah, what really riled me up around the time this episode aired is that shortly before this episode aired, I couldn't find a news story about it because Trey and Matt sell their show every five years for $500 million.
That was one of the first times they sold their show to be put on the internet at SouthParkStudios.com before streaming was a big deal.
Tens of millions of dollars of real internet money.
I think the number was 250 million dollars I'm pretty sure back then and since then I think it's been sold at least two or three more times to different streaming networks And they are are they billionaires Henry they have today.
They're not they are very close.
They are teetering I mean You know, Trey Parker's gone through a divorce, I think, or two, so maybe that's keeping him under the billionaire level.
But I think they made a $900 million deal with Paramount for more South Park stuff.
What a wild number.
And that's just the Paramount stuff.
What an absolutely absurd number.
Well, and so this is the secret.
Yeah.
Like Bob said, they, they give them credit as businessmen.
They identified before Comedy Central that owning the streaming rights to South Park would be worth a lot of money.
They didn't, uh, Comedy Central gave it away.
I'm sure Viacom Completely regrets giving them any stake in the streaming rights to South Park, but they did.
But that makes it a hundred times more annoying to see them make fun of the WGA wanting internet money.
Right.
Like it's a ridiculous made up concept when they just like when they're making this episode are getting increasingly richer from internet money that all other writers should be getting.
Right, because one of the big points of that WGA strike was things like Netflix and streaming rights and royalties from streaming.
There's a message at the end of this episode, and I guess we can address that claim right on.
Why, why would you not, you know, why would you not want to look ahead?
Like, isn't, isn't that what a successful organization does is they look to the future, even if there's not like millions of dollars to be made in streaming for each individual writer in 2007, like people can see where things are headed.
And that's why in this current WGA strike, AI writing is on the table.
AI writing is a huge because, no, there aren't any AI writers currently.
But you bet your fucking ass there will be if they don't stop it in the strike, you know, in this new contract.
So that's what Internet dollars means here in this episode.
Go ahead, Matt.
Sorry, I was looking at dates on this.
And it's very funny that the point of the episode is like, who could say how much money is on the Internet when literally the previous month is when the South Park, Studios deal happened and they created their own streaming site just for one series.
Insane.
So they knew where it was going.
They were one of the first people to do it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Fuck off forever.
If they were to write this episode now, the disingenuous joke they'd be, say, like Canada would say, we don't want robots writing TV shows.
And then they'd say, well, robots are never going to write TV shows.
What are you talking about?
You don't know international finance, stupid.
And then they sign a billion dollar deal to have robots write the next 30 seasons of the show.
From what I understand, like the Wikipedia on this episode, it says, you know, Trey Parker and Matt Stone are not members of any unions and they negotiated internet profit sharing before it became an issue with the WGA.
They also remain consistent in their dislike of Hollywood creative elites.
That includes actors and writers, although they are both.
So what I was kind of from a little blurb is kind of like, They just felt like they were better than the writers and actors because they're not elitist.
Because we're the guys who make South Park.
We're not elitist.
We make South Park.
We talk about putting things in your butt.
That's not elitist.
But also, they had just gotten their deal.
And so they were already negotiating stuff like that before it was even on the table.
And so they were just like, you know, what's what they call it?
Pettie.
Couch quarterbacking.
Oh, yeah.
Sunday morning.
And just kind of like being like, look at you losers, not getting what you should have got.
You guys should have got what you should have got.
And apparently in one of the commentaries, it says during the making of one of the episodes, they were talking about how they were upset that they worked instead of joining the strike for making these few episodes.
Like, these guys suck.
These guys suck so bad.
They equate the strike as taking it easy.
They're like, I wish we could have gone on strike to get off work.
Like, yeah, that's what a strike... I mean, again, they're anti-union Gen Xers.
They don't think like... I'm not shocked at that, but it's still upsetting to read.
I mean, yeah, but that all comes through this episode.
Yeah, sorry we couldn't take a break like you guys.
We had to copy and paste the titles of the most viral YouTube videos this year.
Yeah.
I think their point is you don't strike, you make a network's most popular show for 10 years, then you go and tell your boss what you're worth and he'll give you a great deal.
That's how it works.
It's just about conversations.
The door's always open.
So yeah, Steven Abootman, he is, he says, I'm the leader of the WGA, the World Canadian Bureau.
Again, just incredibly lazy writing.
He says, you know, we want more money, just more money.
You know, Canada doesn't get enough money.
Other countries have lots of money.
We want some of that money.
How about the internet?
The internet makes lots of money.
So give us some of that money.
Yeah, give us internet money.
This is the writing on the show.
It's just, isn't it funny that there would ever be money on the Internet?
And then, of course, the response is, you know, this is fucking Trey Parker himself.
Mr. Abootman, you seem to not understand how global economics works.
Yeah.
And that's the premise of this episode, is that you're a you're a fucking idiot if you think there's money on the Internet.
Yeah, they won't give him more money.
OK, so they're going to continue the strike.
And this is when Kyle's younger brother, who is an adopted Canadian Ike, I think his name is, he starts, he's a little toddler kid, very cute little kid.
I think he's voiced by an actual kid.
Yeah, it's a rotating group of kids.
They get like a new kid every like six years just to say, say stuff for Ike.
Uh, he is he is picketing out front of his own house saying honk if you support Canada, you know, he's got a little sign that says honk if you support Canada.
And that's when a progressive couple drives by and they slow down and they say things like we're progressive.
We're supporting you, literally.
They say, we're progressive.
We're supporting unions.
And look, look at me honk.
I am honking the horn.
That's right.
We're a very progressive couple.
That's our good deed for the day.
Now I can make love to your anus without angering God.
And they drive off.
Um, and maybe that, that joke would have like made me laugh when I was younger or something.
Oh yeah, they said anus.
You would have, you'd have died when you were 12.
Well, and make, and make love to your anus is, it's kind of a ringing phrase.
I do like that, but like angering God, like if they're progressive, wouldn't they not believe in God?
It just, it doesn't make any sense.
It doesn't make sense.
They should be godless and having anal all the time.
No, I hate this.
If there was a joke in this that made me the most mad watching, I think it was really this one because clearly they were, this is that stuff I was talking about that Matt and Trey think nobody cares about something for real.
So they're like, well, if you ever heard people honking in support of the, the strike, the, the writers on the picket line, they were just doing it for like, they don't, they didn't have the word virtue signaling back then, but this is what they're saying.
Like it, it is that.
And with your recital of the joke, Alex, it also made me think this joke took fucking forever and it wasn't funny.
It just took so long.
I thought they were going to, like the way it was set up, I thought they were going to, there was going to be a turn.
They were like peel out on his face or something, but it was just, no, it was this very still, obviously stilted conversation.
Um, The thing about like, okay, I could see, oh, you honked for a sign.
Oh, cool.
Yeah.
You're really changing the world.
You honked.
Great.
You know, I, I mean, there, there, there's like, there is something that's not like, that's not direct action or whatever.
That's not material support, but in an actual strike, you're not standing out front of your own house.
You're standing out front of the business that you're striking and the honks are to let the business owner know that people support your cause more than theirs.
That's like that's there's there's an actual reason for it.
And I mean, I'm not I'm not surprised they're so detached from that idea that that it wouldn't occur to them.
Well, they, I mean, they don't know why people strike or why they do it, where they do it or any of those things.
They just, again, they, they, they are equating the WGA strike with a completely like vacuous, uh, thing done for one guy's self-esteem and done pointlessly and needlessly.
Like they, they don't, they, If they treated the WGA like they did something as part of a plan or a reasoned strategy for their union action, that would give the WGA too much credit and respect.
That's not the point of this episode at all.
So cut to the kids where they're watching TV.
They're watching Terrence and Philip, their favorite TV show, who are both Canadian.
And oh no, it's a rerun because Canada's on strike again.
And like the only way that Canada is depicted being on strike is Terrence and Philip are doing reruns and the rest of them are laying on the ground starving like that.
They won't even work their local domestic jobs in Canada.
To teach America a lesson.
Again, that's the absurdity of unionism, folks.
This scene with the kids being bored with the reruns seems to work against their point in that they're saying, oh, the strikers have leverage.
Oh, no.
Yeah.
At this point, I thought it might have been like a pro union episode.
I wasn't sure.
I thought it was like making fun of people who like only honk and like don't get out in the streets.
I thought that's what they're doing because it's like, oh, and they're showing like, oh, we do need the writers.
The writers are important.
They're important if you're a little baby who cares about TV.
I mean, an adult. - Yeah, well quality stuff like Terrence and Phillip too.
- An adult would simply make their own show to watch. - That turns so fast, like thinking it's Pro-Union.
- The show that they're watching, the episode that they're watching, that they already, they know by heart, is "I Fart Huckabees." And it's about one of Terrence or Phillip, one of them gets an electric car, but then it also runs on natural gas.
And then one of them farts, and that's the natural gas that it runs on.
And it's funny that this is a joke making fun of reruns because isn't this just a rehash of the Smug episode where all the electric car drivers are farting and smelling their own farts?
Yes.
Yeah.
I mean, yeah, actually, yeah, that is what I didn't even connect it with that.
But yeah, it is.
I think they're I mean, them listlessly watching TV and going like another rerun.
I think that's the most they felt that Matt and Trey as viewers felt about the writer's strike.
They're just like, Man, there's not a new season of Office yet or 30 Rock went shorter or something else like that.
That was all they felt of it.
Because again, they're very they don't employ anybody in WGA.
They are not WGA.
I think when I said if I wondered if they were still not WGA to this day, somebody on who replied to me on Twitter saying, like, if you search on the WGA website, no, they are not.
The only thing they ever produced that is registered on WGA's website is the movie, the 1999 Bigger Longer.
That movie.
Nothing, nothing else.
So yeah, I think they, to just be so on the outside and again, I think in the next scene, they make fun of you for not like, they act like if you don't care, it's not like you shouldn't make fun of it.
As well, like they're mad at you for making fun of it, too.
In this same scene, we also get a Family Guy diss because the kids are upset at the rerun that they've seen a billion times.
So they changed the channel to Family Guy.
And I think the joke is something like Peter saying, oh, this is just like that time I had lunch with Aldous Huxley or whatever.
It's just some cut.
It's Paul McCartney in the La Cucaracha.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
This is just like when I performed La Cucaracha for Paul McCartney or whatever.
It's going to be one of their classic cutaway gags and Cartman interrupts and says, we're not resorting to that, which almost the funniest episode joke in the episode.
Yeah.
Which is just them rehashing there from two years before they're mocking a family guy.
It's just a new version of that joke.
But that was the last time I really loved South Park was when they were taking such a hard stance against Family Guy and I was a real Family Guy hater then.
Clearly now I've turned because Seth MacFarlane is using his immense wealth better than they are.
But yeah, the joke as they did on the show is, Family Guy is just written by a band of tees who just free-associate words together, and so La Cucaracha with Paul McCartney, a similar type of gag.
Sure, yeah.
Terrence and Phillip, they're at, you know, they're in Canada.
They're at the picket line.
It doesn't really say where they're picketing or why they've chosen that location or whatever, but they need to leave the picket line because one of them is diabetic and they need to, you know, go get insulin or whatever or food or something.
And Mr. Abootman calls them rats, tells them they can't leave the picket line and chastises them in front of everybody.
He says, you think strikes are a joke?
And then a guy pops in from the side, and this guy, this frickin' guy, he's wearing, like, a knit cap?
It's a knit cap, and it's got a ball on the top of it, and it's got, like, strings on the side, and this guy has the audacity to say, yeah, it's not a joke, and you're looking at this guy with his hat, and you're like, obviously you're a joke, because you got a hat on, pal.
Look at that silly hat.
Listen, hold on.
This, this show is going to take a lot of, this episode of South Park takes a lot of shots at Canada.
So in order to like give them the respect they deserve, he is wearing a toque.
This is a toque he's wearing.
Um, that is the word we're going to use, uh, for, for the, for the, the knitted cap.
Um, I just want to get that out there because again, I don't actually think Canadians, um, have like unhinged faces.
Um, and I just want to give a respect by saying toque.
Maybe maybe having seen too many like manic pixie dream girls ruined this joke for me.
I just I want to fuck the person wearing that hat now.
See, now this I mean, this gag here, though, does feel like a thing management would write as well, because they're like, you know, if you want to picket line and you have like, you know, special health needs, they're going to call you a rat for even leaving.
They're not.
It's so absurd.
Yeah.
I have a feeling on the current picket lines for the WGA, if somebody needs to leave for a health related reason, they're not called a rat for leaving.
No, no.
I mean, in this in this version, nobody knows why they're there.
Nobody really wants to be there.
No one's helping each other.
I mean, we're seeing it now.
And with the 2008 strike, people show up with food.
You're not going to starve to death on strike.
You can go back to your home when you're done striking and then come back the next day.
You take shifts.
There are strike shifts.
It's literally like your new job.
That's what it is.
If you were able to work a job before, you can do your picketing.
It's just so funny to be like, yeah, you know who, uh, who actually, uh, what, what sort of people are, you know, detrimental to your health and, uh, they won't let you leave, uh, if you have an emergency or they won't let you leave to get the medication you need.
Yeah.
Unions.
That's, that's, those are the people who do that.
Like what the fuck?
No, I mean.
Yeah, yeah, no, I think too, like they, they're trying to say that like, Oh, nobody else in Canada, they're forced to do it.
As in to say the rest of the WGA wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't for just a couple guys at the top.
Like, I mean, the, and that comes You know, I'm hearing all these stories about the current strike from comedy podcasts, and people are talking about how they're all working together, they're all taking classes.
So many are learning much more about union action than they ever knew before.
For one thing, I heard a comedian who I've never really talked about union stuff before say on a podcast how they took a class in how to guard these exits, because there's specific exits that You know, if they stand in a certain place, if they have a line, Teamsters won't cross it.
And so they, but they're not allowed to have a line at one type of exit because it's supposed to only be for like deliveries and not for Teamsters to go through.
But if they secretly go through the line in Teamsters or some, or management uses it that way, you have to stand guard and watch it.
And so I'm hearing these two comedians talk about how like they're all doing shifts to stand guard on this exit.
To make sure that they can.
And I was like, this is the type of planning and community work that's happening that this episode does not understand even slightly about what it's about.
It is.
It's like such a Gen X misanthropy because the underlying sentiment is like, who would help anyone for any reason?
Why?
Who cares?
Yeah, the picket line serves a real purpose.
It's like an actual contractual thing.
I'm a Teamster.
which I can't remember which union it is, the healthcare workers union up here in Seattle.
Swedish, the hospital network, they fucking own half of the real estate in Seattle.
When they pick it, that's how I know that they're on strike.
And that's how I know to honor their strike.
And one time I was delivering a building next to a building that they were striking.
And one of them ran over, one of them ran over and she was like, oh, we're actually striking this building too.
And I was like say no more.
All right.
See you later But yeah, what you're talking about is a neutral gate.
It's supposed to be, you know apart from that Yeah, and you got him you got to watch him to make sure they don't abuse the neutral gate I Yeah, but all that stuff you just said, that sounds like moon language to Matt and Trey.
They wouldn't think that anybody would do that.
In their version of the story, you would be, as a team, you'd be like, I'm just trying to do my job, lady.
Why are you getting in the way of this, man?
Right.
And the idea that real quick, the idea as this episode goes on, it's clear that they want to blame the president of this of Canada, the president of the whatever it's called, World Canadian Bureau, as the the agitator, the one who's forcing everybody else to strike.
Like you said, in reality, it's quite the it's not only is it not accurate, your union has to vote to strike typically.
Not only that, Often the union leadership will overrule membership's decision to strike and to fight harder on issues.
That's what happened with us and the Teamsters four years ago.
We had a contract rammed through that we did.
We voted down.
We authorized a strike and leadership overruled our vote and and refused and passed the contract anyway.
So it's just it's it's maddening on on several levels.
Alex is a teamster and he gets a lot of credit.
I just want people to know that I'm in Southern California and this weekend I did do my part and I did smoke a blunt and buy a drink for several people who are in the WGA.
So I'm out here doing my part.
I'm smoking with them.
You know, we're doing it.
So it's not just, he's not the only one.
It's no, it's cool.
Being a Teamster is so cool because I don't have to do anything.
I just say, Hey, solidarity from a Teamster.
That means something.
All right.
You go be loud.
Here's some loud.
You know, rewatching this, I thought targeting the president of the WGA is such an odd move because I think only comedy nerds know who that is.
I know it was Patrick Verone because he was a Futurama writer.
Nobody was in the press saying, fuck Patrick Verone, get back to work.
Nobody knew his name except for comedy weirdos So I like I feel like I couldn't actually name the WGA West president now But back then I knew but like nobody that is not a name that's being passed around That's not the point and it's weird that they're really focusing like oh, no It's just this one guy and his crazy ideas because they can't imagine like people actually working together to do something It has to be one jerk at the top.
Yeah, I Yeah, that somebody would have been, I don't know, elected to that position for a reason.
Like, if you were to ask me who is the head of the Writers Guild, I would be like, I don't know, probably a nice dork.
He is a nice dork.
Um, okay.
So, uh, yeah, we get the family guy diss.
Uh, Terrence and Phillip, uh, needed to leave the picket line and, uh, the president chastises them.
Uh, but he's excited because they get a call from the U.S.
Uh, Stephen Abbottman gets a call from the U.S.
Uh, but it turns out to be Kyle and the kids, you know, saying they want to end the strike, but there's, you know, the miscommunication leads, uh, Stephen Abbottman to think that, The U.S.
is going to give them money, but it's just the kids.
So the kids have to think about how to get internet money.
And how are we going to get internet money to send it to Canada to end the strike?
Hard cut to Butters recreating the what what in the butt viral video from 2006 or something.
Uh, I, I don't, I don't know if people remember this.
It was just, it's like a song where he says, what, what in the butt.
So classic.
But it's, it's just butters recreating each scene.
And I got to say, this is the most family guy shit ever.
Like, you just had a scene trying to dunk on Family Guy.
What if Peter Griffin performed for Paul McCartney and did La Cucaracha?
I don't know.
At least that's an original idea.
Like, at least that's something.
Like, you're doing a scene.
Like, I mean, isn't there a joke where Peter Griffin does, like, my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard?
Like, that's all you're doing here.
It could have even done, like, a Just something that would have been viral, right?
So they could have even done like a, I would have taken a jackass montage, you know, where they just like, I don't know, being like, just throwing them in a grocery cart and kicking them in the balls.
That would have had the same like, you know, function idea, but it would have been funnier.
But this is like a direct, um, just copy of it.
It's really, it's interesting.
Yeah, I mean, the joke manatees, as they were, would find new joke balls to float up to the surface.
These guys are just like, hey, that groundhog turning around, you thought it was funny, let's do it three times on our show.
The Star Wars kid who was cyberbullied, wouldn't it be funny if he was here doing the exact same thing?
We could make it.
I just, yeah, like, write, actually write jokes.
Don't just include other content in your episode and present it as your own thing.
It's so funny because you could ease, this would be, like, actually funny.
If it was the original South Park animation trying to do a groundhog turning around shocked and it just looked like shit, that would be that would be funny.
But because the animation has advanced so much, it's like an even more detailed version of the groundhog turning around.
Yeah the the what what in the butt I mean it just is they just take the song which was hey that's a fun song but I but yeah they're just like wouldn't it be funny to have butters in it because everybody calls butters gay all the time so they make him sing about putting stuff in his butt and you want to do me in my butt in my butt but it is I mean it's a catchy song but I not also I think they
I believe I read that on the same wiki page too about how they got the, I think the writer of What What In The Butt sued them over it.
And their response was like, we gave you exposure.
This made people even more aware of it.
I mean, I don't know if that should be copyright infringement.
I think you should be able to like parody whatever you want, uh, in, in your own creative writing.
Um, but it wasn't funny.
It wasn't, it wasn't even a parody.
It was just redoing it.
Yeah.
Also, as we alluded to in this universe, we are going to, we are going to meet other viral characters.
So if those viral characters exist in this universe, wouldn't this original one exist in this universe too?
Yeah, we didn't hear from him.
Do Butters in-universe steal from What in the Butt then?
Yeah, I think they can at least steal who Butters.
It's kind of like Marty McFly inventing rock and roll happening in front of us.
Yeah, so the Canadians, they're not doing too well.
They're, again, just like laying on the ground on the steps of, I don't know, the Canadian capital or wherever it is.
And they're watching the news and they're like, soon the news is going to they've got to cover our strike because people care about this.
We're so important.
They have to cover it.
But instead, the news just covers Butters video.
And I don't know if this I don't know if I'm reading too too much into this, but like the idea that.
It seems to be a joke, like, no, the news doesn't fucking care about your petulant little strike.
You're not important.
Your lack of labor is isn't doing anything.
And it's like, no, the reason the news doesn't cover the strike cover strikes is the exact opposite is because they don't want anybody else to get ideas.
They don't want other people.
So it's just like.
They're on your side.
That's why they don't cover the strike is because, I mean, I guess they agree.
You know they agree with you.
You just maybe don't know the exact reason.
Well, in the news bureaus for major networks like NBC and ABC, they are much more under control of management.
Like, they're not going to talk bad about, like, for instance, they just did the upfronts for a lot of the networks presenting, like, here's upcoming TV shows, which obviously is difficult to do when most actors are also respecting the picket line.
So what do they do?
They get the news hosts to do it.
And they have the hosts of whatever their morning news shows are say, and here's what the upcoming TV shows are.
That's because when they fall under news, they just cross a line.
They wouldn't think of not going to it because they also tell themselves they're very important journalists.
Uh, but, but yeah, this, I mean, this stance too, is like them saying, Oh, the self-important WGA, they think there'll be mentioned on the news all the night time.
But we were all alive in 07, 08, like there was, they were constantly talking about like, yeah, this TV show is still not back yet because of the strike.
Like it was, people talked about it all the time.
Terrence and Philip, they want to give up the strike because everyone's dying of starvation.
But yeah, Stephen Abbutman is like, he doesn't want to look stupid.
He doesn't want to have been wrong about the strike, so he refuses.
And then I think more news, another news story, they finally do cover the strike, but only to say that Danish people are, quote, flooding into the U.S.
to replace Canadians.
And it's it's could be like, you know, it's obviously a reference to undocumented immigrants taking the place of American workers and just scabs in general and how like, yeah, this is what happens if you decide to stop working.
Somebody else will do it, you know, but it.
It's kind of funny the idea that, oh, Danish people trying to slide in to replace Canadians, except there's like no examples of how they're similar or what they would be doing.
The only reference or metaphor is that, oh, nobody knows where Denmark is, so we're like the Canada of Europe.
It's like, well, everybody knows where Canada is.
They're the neighbors to the north, man.
What are you talking about?
Yeah.
I do like any opportunity to take shots at what are usually white people.
I'm good for that.
I'm into that.
But I do think that if you were to do some sort of comparison, it's that American audacity.
I'm pretty sure that the Danes have it.
Better in a lot of ways than we might have it here.
Um, judging by the surrounding countries and how they operate, you know, they might even have things like maternity leave, you know, things like that.
Like I, I, I'm, I'm, I'm making a pretty big guess here, but I, I think that's pretty, um, I mean, if you look at Denmark, it says like, why is, why is Denmark quality of life so high as like the leading things, you know?
So, uh, but so I, I do, I do, again, I, I like they're making fun of white people.
That's funny.
Every time.
I just wish they would've done a better job at it.
Go harder.
Yeah.
Or at least been a little more self-aware.
This this thing about hiring foreign labor, cheap foreign labor, is like a through line in the episode of, OK, you want money, genius?
We don't have any.
Where are you going to get it from?
And that's why the union leader has to make up like, oh, the Internet.
Let's get on the Internet.
But we know like we know where the money is.
The CEOs are making outsized salaries.
They're underpaying almost everybody.
Especially people like in the Animation Guild.
We know there is money and things like this make me think, did a manager write this?
Because I've been in meetings before I started being self-employed and you would hear, Oh, you know what?
We'd really love to do that, but we just can't this quarter.
And clearly they can't because then the next week you see a Christmas party with pole dancers and you realize like, Oh, you could have put this thing in the break room.
You could have paid for my train ride here every week, but you just didn't want to.
Well, and it's so I know that like part of union negotiation, part of like a Writers Guild contract, there's there's like a minimum wage.
There's there's an acceptable wage.
There's wages determining on like, you know, how many episodes you're going to do or how long the season's going to run.
But there's also a thing called percentages.
And so when you're negotiating for like streaming revenue, you're not going to.
Especially at this time, you're not negotiating for, what is Netflix going to pay me when I develop a show?
Because Netflix wasn't making their own content back then.
What you're talking about when you're talking about Coming to a deal with Internet companies is a percentage.
You're not saying, give me all the money.
And the YouTube is like, we don't have any money or we only have a little bit of money.
It's like, OK, give me this percent of that little bit of money.
That is the negotiation that would have been taking place.
And, you know, dumbing it down like this is really the only way to make their point at all salient.
Okay.
So the kids visit the kids, uh, the, you know, the, the viral video they made with butters is a success, even though it's a fucking shot for shot recreation of another video that everybody was likely extremely sick of at this point.
Oh yeah.
Totally.
I didn't think about that part about how like relevant it would have been when it came out.
It would, cause like right now it was, I did get a little, I did have a fun little nostalgia with this at that moment and more about talk about it.
It did feel a little nostalgic, but it's because I'm so removed from it.
The kids then, you know, they have this successful video and they want to get their money, so they visit the Department of Internet Money, which is like a DMV, but it's D-I-M, which intrepid viewers will notice spells dim.
Uh, so they sit down in the waiting room to get their internet money and, uh, Tay Zonday is, uh, sitting, the Chocolate Rain guy is, uh, sitting next to them and he just stares blankly at them and says, Chocolate Rain in a deep voice.
And I'm thinking, damn, it's crazy how they can make these episodes in just one week.
How do they do it?
Yeah, they're all doing some epic memeing in this little scene here.
Can you imagine?
I just had this funny idea.
Can you imagine if that Tay Zonday guy said chocolate rain?
Can you imagine that shit?
It would be so wild.
Okay, when he walks into, there's a, there's a character, there's another black character in there who has like a sweatband on.
Uh-huh.
And it, it, is that supposed, is his, is just his Ray?
Uh-huh.
Who is that supposed to be?
Well, my guess was it's Ray J. I thought so too.
Trying to get money from his Kim Kardashian video.
Except Ray J doesn't look anything like that.
He never had hair like that or anything like that.
So I do think it is just like they had to put Ray on there because they don't really know what Ray J looks like.
I think that is just a racist caricature of what's supposed to be Ray J. Because yeah, that was 2007.
I mean, this is, I mean, this whole waiting room, it is a, you know, a time capsule of early internet or aughts, you know, era memes before.
I mean, this is before YouTube's, you know, was really paying out people big for views and, and you, and you couldn't get the, I mean, you were probably seeing stuff shared around in real players, so there was no way to attach advertising or associated links on it.
We're pre-Mr. Beast.
Pre Chewbacca mode.
Oh God.
Yeah.
No, the Mr. Beast is just like, he owns everything now.
He would be in here if that was a thing.
But see, with those guys, they actually can be rich now.
So they can't, this joke now is like, oh, these, the point they're trying to make is that all these people are famous and you've all heard of them, but they must not make any money because there's no money on the internet as the WGA should realize.
Yeah, Tron guy is there.
The guy who was dancing while sitting at a desk.
That guy is there.
The Star Wars kid is there.
The sneezing panda is there.
The dramatic look gopher.
They're all there and they're all doing your favorite bits.
The guy dancing at his desk and singing that song is dancing at his desk and singing that song.
The Star Wars kid, you bet your ass he's twirling that baton.
The sneezing panda, she freaking sneezes!
The dramatic look gopher, like you said, Bob, does the dramatic look like three or four times.
And these are the jokes.
They all do their bits multiple times.
The Chris Crocker character says, leave X alone, leave Y alone.
They couldn't just, they couldn't be lazy enough to just do it once.
There's like a three-peat with each character, I feel.
Do you think they're going to acknowledge the egg on their face for making fun of Chris Crocker because a lot of people owe Chris Crocker an apology?
Because it turns out they were on to something and he did need to be left alone?
Yeah, that's true.
History has vindicated Chris Crocker.
I mean, yeah, a lot of the, honestly, a lot of the last decade has been finding out like, oh, it was like hell to be a lot of these people.
Like, like Star Wars kid went through a whole lot of shit.
Tazonday went through a lot of shit, like Chris Crocker, like then that.
And when you just become like a joke to everybody online and you, so you're famous without having money, like, and now, uh, I'm, me and Bob have talked about this a few times, but I'm still, you're starting to see the stories come out of, um, Like YouTube kids who are now like getting into like 18, 19, that they can actually talk to the press and, you know, divorce their families who made them like YouTube toy box openers or whatever.
It just, it sounds awful.
Like they, their parents tell them like, oh, you want to stop doing the videos?
Well, okay.
But you know, mommy and daddy will have to move to a smaller house, you know, if that's what you want to do.
Jesus Christ.
It's why Hollywood actors need unions now.
But it's YouTube, so it's not the same.
No, I mean, it's YouTube.
When you say that, it even shows like, oh, what would happen if there were no unions in these entertainment industries?
Only like 10 times extreme exploitation.
Yeah, that's why YouTube was like, OK, no more prank families.
We know it's exploitation.
We can't put this on anymore.
Um, so as much as I hate the, the anti-union stuff, the like real dumb, dumb headed, wrong headed union stuff in here, by far the bleakest part is the viral video references.
Um, it's, it's so fuck, it's unholy.
It's just like, you're just, it's, you're just watching something you've already seen on YouTube a million times.
Uh, Performed right in front of your face, but in the South Park style, but the tone is the same.
There's no additional joke.
Really fucked up.
And then finally, later it devolves into like a battle royale between all all the all the viral stars.
So now it is a family guy sketch.
Before, when it was just them saying their catchphrase, that's like pretty sub-family guy humor.
Yeah.
But when they all start murdering each other, now you're at like robot chicken.
Now you're cooking.
Yeah, I mean, how is Peter Griffin visiting Paul McCartney any worse than Cartman and the gang watching the Tron guy get killed by Chris Crocker or whatever happens?
Yeah.
Well, what I love that happens is everybody there is like an autonomous person, but for some reason Tay Zonday, who is drawn as a 40 year old man, Who, you know, is a light-skinned dude.
Tay Zonday pulls out a Glock and starts, like, everyone starts fighting and for some reason he's the only one that has, like, a gun and is shooting people.
And it's just so... And he says... Yeah, they make him do, like, a gangster thing.
Yeah, he says, you know, uh, time for some, uh, get ready for some chocolate pain, bitch.
That's what he says.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The way she's bitch is, yeah.
I think the joke, the joke is that he, he is like the most alpha out of all of them.
And because he's black, the way that they describe that as making him a gangster.
Yeah.
Cause he, he has like, they, they all get into an argument over who has the most, who's like the biggest theoretical millionaire.
Like that's, that's the joke.
Um, okay.
So We go back to Canada, and a bootman is not going to call off the strike, even if it means everybody dies.
Oh, he's on the phone with the kids, and he's like, you need to give me that money.
You know how foolish I'll look if I call off the strike?
Once again, it's got to be about an individual person.
There's got to be an individual behind this collective action, right?
There's got to be some trick that an individual is pulling, because that's how I view the world.
They get 100 million theoretical dollars for their butters.
What in the butt video?
They go up to Canada to give it to him.
And he's like, theoretical dollars.
I can't use this.
And he's like, this is fake money.
Who would ever go on strike for fake money?
What an idiot.
I'm such a moron, but I don't want anybody to find out.
You know, I can't admit that I've fucked up in front of everybody.
So then the kids.
Oh, yeah, go ahead.
No, yeah.
Again, this is the real stance of, like, unions aren't a collective action.
They're people being held hostage by their bosses who make them do things.
And everybody suffers but them.
And also, they don't even care.
Like, the selfish boss will let everybody die rather than admit they made a mistake, which, like, I guess they're saying, like, oh, they'll let everybody lose their jobs.
They won't let people keep their jobs because they're so selfish trying to make a point about Internet money that they don't even understand.
Yeah, it's all about ego.
Like that's that's that is how they view the world through this like individualistic lens of ego.
And so that's how they're interpreting an entire like labor forces movement.
Yeah.
So Kyle gets on the phone with the whatever these world leaders who are still refusing to negotiate with Canada.
They just want to know if they can use Canada's land once once they're all dead or something like that.
Kyle, I think it is, gets on the phone with him and they're like, he's like, listen, you got to you got to just give like a token, a token win for this guy so that he can call off the strike and we can get new episodes of Terrence and Philip.
So they agree to give out Bennigan's coupons and a single gumball to each Canadian citizen.
And, you know, the abutment is trying to present this to Canada's if it's a huge win and his lackeys, you know, his You know how union presidents always have two sycophantic assistants always next to them?
Like, what is this character?
But yeah, they're the ones who are like, oh, great, great.
You know, they try to start the applause and everybody's like, OK, I guess whatever.
Cut back to America.
The boys arrive back, you know, at home and they tell Ike that the strike is over.
And he hands him a gumball and a gift certificate to Bennigans.
And then Kyle delivers his classic moral lesson at the end of every episode that I think he gives.
And I wrote it down here.
It's really long, so it took me like And he says it really fucking fast, so you can't even make out all the words, so I had to put captions on.
He says, I learned something today.
I thought we could make money on the Internet.
While the Internet is new and exciting for creative people, it hasn't matured as a distribution mechanism to the extent that one should trade real and immediate income opportunities for income for the promise of future online revenue.
It will be a few years before digital distribution of media can be monitored to an extent that necessitates content producers to forego their fair value in more traditional media.
That's wrong.
Like that is literally wrong.
Like they, they should have gotten more income for the promise of future online revenue because that's all, everything is a streamer now.
Yeah.
And again, the previous month they established the website that had every episode to date on it with ads attached because people were torrenting it because the internet was a thriving place for media exchange and they found an opportunity, which they are denying exists.
No, and I mean, this is something I've heard come up a lot with the current WGA thing, which is this is me as a friendly source listening to the actual members of the guild.
But like they were a big part of the 08, 07, 08 strike was trying to figure out how like they were getting screwed over on DVD royalties.
They wanted to sort that out.
And there were stuff like the office webisode.
So they were trying to figure out more of like, so what is Internet content?
But they didn't, they regretted not going harder because that's how they end up with things of how, if you notice how Netflix markets something as, Oh, it's a new season of 10 episodes, but really it was one season of 40 episodes.
They then cut up into 10 episodes chunks.
So that way they don't have to give people raises that are built upon seasons or Or they say, oh, we don't meet the minimum for this talk show for WGA because technically this is only 11 episodes and the next season is also only 11 episodes.
WGA regrets not thinking that management wouldn't find every underhanded trick possible to circumvent all the rules of it.
And that's why they're trying to cover up those loopholes and anticipate the next AI-related loopholes.
Yeah, you have to start somewhere.
And it's like, a contract lasts, what, four years?
Do you think there aren't going to be any developments in internet distribution technology in four years?
Oh, let's just give YouTube, Netflix, let's just give them the rights to all of our work for right now and then see what happens later.
Like, are you fucking kidding me?
No, I don't know.
People people aren't watching South Park to get their like critical working class politics or whatever.
They're not thinking too hard about this.
But if they did, it would be like, hmm, that doesn't make a lot of sense.
Yeah, and Henry totally is correct about this because it's all about thinking ahead.
When the strike ended in February of 2008, we were still like five years from the first real effort to make original streaming series.
I think like Orange is the New Black was the first time people were like, Oh my God, they made a series just for me on the streaming thing I subscribe to.
I think things were done before that, but I think 10 years ago was the first time that was put in stone.
This will be the future.
These streaming series will be the future.
Here's the inauguration of this jail show.
And more wrestling development.
And more, yeah.
If I could make just a quick comparison to how The Simpsons deals with this, even in a way like, you know, The Simpsons is real.
They do like to both sides things.
Like, when they show the Teamsters, it's a great joke, but Homer has a joke like, ooh, so lazy and surly.
Like, they joke that Teamsters don't do much.
But, in the classic strike episode against Mr. Burns in Season 4, in the dental plan, The other side of it is Mr. Burns, like as evil a rich man as there could be.
But meanwhile, in this episode, the representatives that they're asking for more money from, they are a benevolent, like just collection of countries, a global cadre, a global cadre, if you will, who we all associate with good deeds and good faith bargaining.
And in that Simpsons episode with the union, when Homer is asking for a better deal, that's when the ceiling splits open above Mr. Burns and he's showered with riches and a crown drops on his head.
He's like, oh, this whole place is falling apart.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You can I mean, make all the teamsters jokes you want.
I'm fine with that as long as like the over overall thrust is that, you know, billionaires are bad, that bosses are bad, which the Simpsons is never really shied away from, except for that Elon Musk episode.
Well, we don't let's just talk about the first dozen years.
Yeah.
OK, so the final scene, I think it's the final scene.
They are having a strike victory party, but only Steven Abootman and his lackeys are celebrating.
There's actually a procession of people in the background leaving roses at a memorial wall with dozens dead from the strike, which, you know, in out of context is funny, I think.
Yeah, I think just because it's absurd.
It's like a good job.
I think it's funny because it would be absurd to think that, you know, people would die from like a writer's strike or whatever.
But I but that's like the message of the episode is that the president is willing to let the members die for this strike.
Yeah, I think that I also I hate that Terrence and Philip are the Matt and Trey surrogates.
They always have been.
They represent them in the show as much as every character is their surrogate if they're right.
Any person who says something that's right in the world of South Park is their surrogate.
Yeah.
But Terrence and Phillip are the two creators of a show that are just like them.
And they show up with a calculator and be like, um, guys, I did the math.
You actually lost more money than you got off of this.
And just like, man, we're fucking dicks.
Like just to show up like, and again, it's like you, you lost more money by not working then, which that's all that it's about to them.
They're like, oh, well, if you took out a calculator, it's not about a goal you're working towards.
Making maybe a sacrifice of money at certain points to try and get gains for the future?
No, they just want to show up like smug dicks to be like, uh, guys, the calculator says you wasted your time by caring about something.
Yeah, you threw a tantrum, so we gave you a piece of candy, literally.
I love it.
It's like, hey, isn't this strike we made up to make fun of strikers, wasn't it bad and ineffective?
Oh, it was actually.
You're totally right.
Oh, you call it striking?
I call it dropping the bag.
Yeah.
But Stephen Abootman's response to that is, no, but don't you see, we did it for future Canadians.
We did it so people will respect Canadians and they have to like do a bait and switch from a money to respect here because they didn't get any money.
So they're pretending that it's for respect.
But the idea of striking for future generations of workers is 100% accurate.
Like I have the benefits that I do right now because of people who struck back in 1997 because of Teamsters who struck back then, you know, benefits that they wouldn't necessarily see for part time that they didn't see when they were part time employees that part time employees now have.
Like that's, it's a real thing.
And again, it goes back to like, imagine if somebody did something for somebody else that didn't benefit them and how hard that is for certain people to wrap their minds around.
And this is, uh, so they're, but you know, hey, these Canadians, they're no idiots.
So they take the president, uh, and they set him adrift on an ice flow.
Yeah.
And this is where we get, uh, I'm not your buddy guy.
I'm not your guy.
One last time.
One last time.
Yeah.
And we didn't, we didn't acknowledge every time I have, but it happened like, I think three solid times in the episode, right?
Yeah.
And then, I mean, not to just jump to the end, but then over the credits, you have them doing the butters.
Well, what in the butt again?
Because I guess we only did a joke once.
Fuck.
OK, we got to do it again.
We got to replay it.
Well, also, it counts as content that plays after a commercial, I think.
So it lets them do advertising bad to make to make Comedy Central more money on this non-union show as like WG.
It's it's I mean, it's still a thing in Animation, adult animation, it's often a fight to get it in WGA as well.
Like, but again, it's like, I know why it's hard to, for some people to care as much about this.
I mean, it's not, you know, is it, we're talking about like some people, some Hollywood writers are rich.
Like, so it is when you see them on the picket line, they got to go boy, poor, poor Neil Gaiman on the picket line.
I bet it's hard for him, but These guys are clear, like even Al Jean, who is a mega Simpsons rich guy, he was on the pick and line day one in New York City and putting his voice there like, no, this is we got rich in the 90s.
You guys don't get to get rich now because they changed the deal.
And we want you guys to be able to get rich.
Yeah, and it's it's it might be hard for like a lay person to identify with, you know, a striking writer or something, you know, for the reasons you just stated, you know, either cultural reasons or, you know, not quite class reasons, but at least like wealth discrepancy reasons.
But it's clear, like the reason that Trey Parker and Matt Stone don't care is for class reasons.
Yeah.
These are people who have essentially, I mean, they don't necessarily, they don't own Comedy Central, but they, you know, probably, I think to some degree own their own studio that is then negotiating with Comedy Central.
They have their means of production.
They are the bosses.
So why would they care?
You know?
And this isn't like, I mean, if you take away what, I mean, most of my criticisms here have been just on the writing itself.
Like I don't fault Matt Stone and Trey Parker for having their own class interest in the fore of their mind when they write these episodes because that's how it works.
That's how class politics works.
We just express self-interest to some degree and their self-interest doesn't align with Most other people's self-interest.
So the thought of solidarity, the thought of banding together as a union, it doesn't occur to them.
In fact, it's repulsive to them because it's the opposite of what they want and what they need.
All right, I guess that'll do it for us.
Any other final thoughts on this episode or their relationship to the strike?
Well, I think it's, uh, I do think it's too bad that they, I think that this taught a lot of people a bad lesson about the WGA.
Like as we, as we talked about how viral and people who are not funny, repeat South Park jokes a bunch and at bars, I do think like, You know, this burrows into people's brains.
They think like, oh, strikes.
They're stupid.
Like when Canada went on strike, like they.
So I do think it poisons the well a little.
I think people can learn different things that they can't just be programmed by South Park to never change their minds.
But what it adds to the conversation is more negativity.
I feel like that it I've I had friends who were big South Park viewers and they said, like, I don't know why I never.
I don't know why I would ever need a union for any good.
Why?
What?
It doesn't do anything.
So I think there is a generation of people that had to be like unlearn South Park things in a lot of ways.
Absolutely.
Yeah, so that's the long that's the long shadow.
Unfortunately, this episode in particular, but in general, South Park's political beliefs have cast on 30 years, almost 30 years of American young men in particular.
Yeah.
Only 14 episodes per season, which was kind of, I'm like, wait, these are only 22 minutes and there's only like 10 to 14 episodes per season.
Uh, I don't know.
I was going to say that if they want to complain about writers, uh, at this point in their lives, they need to work harder because I'm seeing latest episodes have six seasons per year and then like 10 per year for the last decade.
Guys, come on, work a little harder.
Yeah.
Sorry.
Go ahead.
Bob though.
I interrupted you.
Oh no, that was it.
That was okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
With this episode, it's almost like South Park has become the annoying fan who just regurgitates a funny thing they saw, which is it's exactly what they're doing with these viral videos.
Just they are in the bar, you know, pretending to do the lightsaber kid bit.
Now that's some of the most creatively bankrupt thing in the entire episode, for sure, of just showing you clips from memes and reanimating it.
That's the lowest of the low from this one.
Scum.
It's fucking heinous.
I do wish that all those people got paid off that, and we just know they didn't.
That would have been the only cool thing to come out of this.
It sucks that they really just showed kind of how greedy the whole thing is.
Hopefully people can see the episode for that.
What was stopping Man Trey from sending each of the people they parody in this $10,000?
Invite them to the studio.
Let them watch you.
Let them watch the geniuses at work, you know?
It's not anything, but um, but no, no, not for them.
Well, that's the episode, folks.
Thank you so much for supporting the show.
Thank you to Bob Mackie and Henry Gilbert for joining us again today.
Why don't you guys plug plug your shows?
We have been I have been on the Talking Simpsons podcast.
That is the episode is The Lastest Gun in the West.
The episode with a old Western movie star moves in or I don't know.
He's already he's already there.
I think he just lives in the rich people's side of Springfield.
Bart gets a new hero in him.
I am on that episode of Talking Simpsons.
Make sure you go ahead and listen to that one.
But where can people find the show in general?
Our home base is patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons.
The podcast is wherever you find podcasts, but if you want all the Patreon stuff and advanced access, it's at our Patreon.
And we cover all kinds of stuff on there for the past six whole years.
Things like Futurama and King of the Hill.
We've got new episodes about those every month.
In the past, we've covered Batman, the Animated Series, Mission Hill, and The Critic.
Yeah, we love to podcast about cartoons in extreme detail.
Yeah, yeah.
You can look for that on Talking Simpsons, wherever you find podcasts.
And also, yeah, our side podcast, too, of What a Cartoon, where we cover lots of other animated series, super in-depth.
And we cover animated movies for What a Cartoon movie.
It's all patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons.
And yes, we thank you so much for having us on.
We got to have both of you guys on in the future for sure.
Yes, please.
Yeah, you guys covered, uh, the South Park movie on your Patreon.
So we did.
It was a real, uh, time capsule for, we both saw it in theaters in 1999 and it is the, the, they do in that one, they really do get stuff right because it is about them and how culture reacted to their show.
Like, yeah.
Despite what we have said on this podcast, we love that movie still.
We thought it was very funny.
It's a good musical.
They are good at writing musicals.
I would say, especially the richer they get, just unplug from politics, guys.
Stop trying to comment on that.
Just have stupid fun with talking towels and butters saying he's gay.
Man, that moment in the movie where all the different songs that have been performed throughout the movie come together and are being laid over each other.
Uh, and you're hearing them all at the same time and they're all in this, you know, in the same key and they all make sense.
Mind blowing experience for like a whatever, 13 year old or how, you know, 12 year old.
Yeah, it's a great, it's a great song.
I listen to that soundtrack still sometimes.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, thanks for supporting the show.
Check out Talking Simpsons and we'll talk to you again soon.
Bye.
Peace.
Are you confused about the economy?
Well, have no fear.
I'm going to explain the American economy right now.
Here's the dirty secret.
Your labor's too expensive.
Wall Street wants you spending money, but they never want to pay you.
In your life, cash and credit, They are very different things, but you credit someone else's cash once it leaves your name.
This is why money is debt, and your debt is good for Wall Street prosperity and economic growth.
Since the 1970s, there's consumers getting credit without wages increasing.
So when they talk about the housing crisis, they never say we need to lower housing prices.
We need better devices to afford high prices, meaning higher debt, lower interest, because you're underpaid to begin with.
That's the cycle we're in.
We don't understand, so all we can do is question.
Mama, you gotta meet Make me understand all the numbers.
Why daddy's on a welfare plan.
Turning 30, 40, 50.
Gotta move in with my parents.
And the stocks go up, but the jobs disappear.
Yeah mama, you gotta make me understand all the numbers.
Got a plan turning 30, 40, 50.
Gotta move in with my parents.
And the stocks go up, but the jobs disappear.
Because wages bail and crew for 40 years.
When you have high stuff, they delay the cost of ownership.
You can't afford it, so they make it to depend on in the small transactions, which is like renting.
You pay more for printer ink than you do for gold.
