Cherokee Hair Tampons

From South Park Archives

South Park episode
“Cherokee Hair Tampons”
Episode no.	Season 4 Episode 6
Original airdate	June 28th, 2000
Episode chronology ← Previous Next → "Cartman Joins NAMBLA" "Chef Goes Nanners"
South Park - Season 4 April 2000 - December 2000
The Tooth Fairy Tats 2000 Cartman's Silly Hate Crime 2000 Quintuplets 2000 Timmy 2000 Cartman Joins NAMBLA Cherokee Hair Tampons Chef Goes Nanners Something You Can Do with Your Finger Do the Handicapped Go to Hell? Probably Fourth Grade Trapper Keeper Helen Keller! The Musical Pip Fat Camp The Wacky Molestation Adventure A Very Crappy Christmas
List of all South Park episodes

"Cherokee Hair Tampons" is episode 54 of the Comedy Central series South Park. It originally aired on June 28, 2000.

[edit] Plot

A substitute teacher has come to class after Mr. Garrison is fired for having charges against him soliciting sex from a minor (Cartman, from Cartman Joins NAMBLA). Stan, Cartman, and Kenny jerk around with him, each one pretending to be the other. Cartman laughs so hard after this that he squirts milk out of his nose when he laughs too hard, even when he isn't drinking any. Kyle is not there because he is suffering from kidney failure, and the teacher gives the class an assignment to make Kyle a get-well card (Butters ends up becoming that card).

Stan visits his Kyle, and Sharon suggests that Sheila try the New Age healing to cure Kyle. They go to the store of “Miss Information“, the new mystical woman in town, who tells them that Kyle’s illness is being caused by “mysterious toxins” in his system. She then prescribes a series of herbal medicines to help him. Though they actually make his condition even worse off, she convinces the customers that they are gradually healing him in a non-immediately apparent way. Soon the whole town becomes enamoured with her remedies and buy such nostrums as "Cherokee hair tampons" from two supposed Native Americans (played by and modelled after guest stars Cheech and Chong). Later, when they are seen, they look more Mexican than they do Native American.

In the subplot, Mr. Garrison, after having been fired from the school, takes up a new career as a romance novelist. He writes a novel entitled “The Valley of Penises”, and goes to “Harequin Romance” (a takeoff of Harlequin Romance) to get it published. It turns out that the book uses the word “penis” 6,083 times, making it one of the gayest books ever written - to Mr. Garrison’s chagrin. However, he manages to persuade the publisher that his target audience is women, and it's only natural that they would be interested in descriptions of penises (as opposed to female anatomy), securing himself a publishing deal.

Stan, not trusting Miss Information’s medicines, goes to inquire Dr. Doctor over the matter. The doctor tells him that Kyle will die unless someone else who has the AB negative blood type donates him one of their kidneys. It turns out the only other person in town who has this blood type is… Cartman. While Stan tries to convince the public that Miss Information’s medicines and healing techniques are not really affective - to which she insists that Dr. Doctor is only after money, unlike herself. She’s all about using natural remedies, even though she charges $100.00 minimum per item - he also tries to get Cartman to donate one of his kidneys. Since this is Kyle who’s life is at stake, Cartman refuses - unless he is paid ten million dollars for it. Even when Stan, Kenny, Butters and Timmy sneak into Cartman’s house and try to remove one of his kidneys themselves, it turns out to be a futile effort, as Cartman, not taking any chances, is wearing a “Kidney Blocker 2000”.

After seeing Kyle, who by now is on the verge of death as a result of Miss Information's ineffective treatments, the “Native Americans'” conscience gets the better of them, and they finally spill the beans to Mrs. Broflovski and the rest of their customers, saying that Kyle really needs to see a doctor about his condition, and also revealing that Miss Information is a total fraud. They aren’t even Native Americans - they’re Mexicans, but were told to pretend to be Native Americans because Miss Information thought no-one would want to buy medicine from Mexicans. Everyone, especially the women who bought the Cherokee Hair Tampons, is horrified by this revelation, and they promptly beat Miss Information to death. Meanwhile, Stan comes up with a plan to trick Cartman into donating his kidney to Kyle.

When Cartman awakens the next day, he finds that his Kidney Blocker has been destroyed, and there’s a thick red liquid all over his bed. He heads over to Stan’s house, retrieves his kidney, and marches over to the hospital, demanding that they return the kidney to it’s rightful place. However, Liane had actually opened the blocker, and put ketchup in his bed to trick him into thinking they’d removed his kidney. Cartman then signs a release form, which actually permits Kyle to take his kidney. It is never revealed where the kidney which Cartman took from Stan came from, but it can be assumed Dr. Doctor gave it to him. Kyle makes a quick recovery, and Mr. Garrison gives him a copy of his newly published novel as a gift.

Though Cartman is initially angry at being tricked into losing his kidney (especially since it saved Kyles life), when Kyle laughs and squirts milk out of his nose, Cartman laughs, stating "You got the crappy kidney," to Kyle.

[edit] Kenny's Death

He is crushed by a piano as he is walking away from Stan, who has just offended him by his crying over Kyle's impending death (most likely because nobody cares about the death of Kenny, with the possible exception of Cartman and Kelly Nelson.)

[edit] Trivia

• In the Comedy Central promos for this episode, Cartman says that he plans on making Britney Spears his love slave with the ten million he gets for Kyle's kidney. In the actual episode, Cartman says that what he intends to do with the money isn't an issue (because all that matters is that Stan gets the money before Kyle dies).
• When Cartman refuses to donate a kidney to Kyle, he sings "no" to the tune of "Comedy Tonight" from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.
• This episode marks the second appearance of Cartman's pet pig Fluffy. The only other time Fluffy appeared was in the season 1 episode "An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig"
• Right before Kenny dies he says a few lines to Stan in anger. Though the lines are muffled as always they can be made out to be "You don't seem to care when I Die" and a variation of Cartman's line "That’s it I have had enough of this bullshit! Screw you! I'm going home!" He also does the hand gestures Cartman does and walks away to his death while Stan just cries over Kyle, putting some truth into his first line.

Preceded by: "Cartman Joins NAMBLA"

South Park episodes

Followed by: "Chef Goes Nanners"