Helen Keller! The Musical
From South Park Archives
| South Park episode | |
|---|---|
| “Hellen Keller! The Musical” | |
 | |
| Episode no. | Season 4 Episode 14 |
| Original airdate | November 22, 2000 |
| South Park - Season 4 April 2000 - December 2000 | |
| |
| List of all South Park episodes | |
"Helen Keller! The Musical" is episode 61 of South Park. It originally aired on November 22, 2000.
Contents |
[edit] Synopsis
The 4th grade starts a musical about Helen Keller, and Butters warns the 4th grade that the kindergarten has an amazing play. So the 4th grade must outdo the kindergarteners. They must pull out all stops and bend over backwards to make the ultimate end all-extravaganza. They need a live turkey for the play and Cartman sends Kyle and Timmy to buy one, but they wind up buying a crippled one 'cause Timmy likes it. Cartman wants the turkey dead, Timmy wants it to stay and the theater professionals Cartman hired for the play want it gone. At the end of it all, someone is dead. There are a lot of deaths. In the end, the beautiful turkey that had replaced Gobbles (the handicapped turkey) was shot by Ned, Jimbo, and others who accidentally shot Timmy in the arm beforehand when Timmy had searched the streets for Gobbles, Gobbles jumped through the flaming hoop of fire, and the play ends well. It also reveals that the kindergarteners' play was rather poor, taking half a minute at best and nowhere near as good as Butters made it seem, and everyone ends up mad at Butters for making them go through all that trouble, Butters however thinks the play is amazing, oblivious to all of the angry glares around him.
[edit] Kenny's Death
When rehearsing the play, Cartman tries to rig a light so it falls and crushes Gobbles. However, he rigs the wrong light and it crushes Kenny.
[edit] Cameos
- The boy who asks why his mom died is Kevin, the boy thawed from the snow, from Summer Sucks.
- The girl who lost her dog Robby is Marcy, from Probably.
- Couple which appears after this girl is the couple of injured patients, from Cartman's Mom is Still a Dirty Slut.
- Announcer appears in Cow Days.
[edit] Cultural References
- The storyline of Timmy and Gobbles is similar to A Charlie Brown Christmas.
- The scenes of Butters running down the hall is similar to scenes in The Right Stuff.
- The title of the episode may be a reference to Cannibal! The Musical, which was also created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Another reference to Cannibal! The Musical are the fake beards that the children are forced to wear in their play.
- The scene where Cartman follows Jeffrey Maynard's suggestion of using sensory deprivation to get inside the mind of Helen Keller, resulting in disturbing and apocalyptic images flooding Cartman's mind, bears much similarity to the sensory deprivation sequences in the Ken Russell film Altered States.
- The final shot of Cartman's vision is from the movie Inseminoid.
- Cartman makes a reference to Tim Rice writing the lyrics to "The Phantom of the Opera." However, these lyrics were written by Charles Hart and Richard Stilgoe.
- The scene of the turkeys watching the movie before being killed is a reference to the euthanasia scene in Soylent Green.
- Jeffrey Maynard resembles Colm Wilkinson in both voice and appearance. Colm Wilkinson played the lead in Les Misérables on Broadway. Most of Maynard's dialogue is sung to the tune of various songs from Les Misérables.
- The scene where turkey is shot by hunters refferences to the James Caan's character Sonny's death in Godfather
- First time we see Butters coming with news.
[edit] Quotes
- [Kyle has agreed to buy a turkey from a rancher.]
- Kyle: How much?
- Rancher: Fifty bucks.
- Kyle: But you were just gonna take it out in the backyard and put a bullet in its head!
- Rancher: I know! Now I gotta find somethin' else to shoot.
- Cartman: Speak to me Helen. Let me be your voice. [nothing happens] Come on, you blind bitch! Channel your spirit through me!
- [Cartman has agreed to be blindfolded and earmuffed to get an idea of Helen Keller's perspective; he sees various frightening images.]
- Cartman: Oh, man!
- Maynard: What did you see?
- Cartman: Nothing, just the same old crap I always see when I close my eyes.
- Mr. Mackey: Every year the fourth graders do The Miracle Worker and every year I have to sit and watch it.
- Principal Victoria: Yeah, I swore that if I had to see it one more time I'd put a bullet in my head. But luckily I got really stoned before I came.
