"Pre-School"

"Quest for Ratings"

"Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset"

South Park episode
"Quest for Ratings"
Episode no.	Season 8 Episode 11
Production no.	811
Original airdate	November 17, 2004
Episode chronology Previous Next "Pre-School" "Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset"
South Park - Season 8 March 17, 2004 - December 15, 2004
"Good Times with Weapons" "Up the Down Steroid" "The Passion of the Jew" "You Got F'd in the A" "AWESOM-O" "The Jeffersons" "Goobacks" "Douche and Turd" "Something Wall-Mart This Way Comes" "Pre-School" "Quest for Ratings" "Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset" "Cartman's Incredible Gift" "Woodland Critter Christmas"
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List of all South Park episodes

"Quest for Ratings" is the eleventh episode of Season Eight, and the 122nd overall episode of South Park. It aired on November 17, 2004 ^[1].

Spoiler warning! Plot details follow.

SynopsisEdit

The boys produce their own morning news show on the school's closed-circuit television station and are immediately caught up in an intense competition for ratings.

PlotEdit

The boys' school news show is in competition against a rival television program created by Craig.

Cartman, Jimmy, Butters, Kyle, Token and Stan are taping "Super School News", a newscast airing on South Park Elementary's closed-circuit television system. Cartman and Jimmy play the leading roles as head anchors, Butters is the entertainment/celebrity reporter, Stan is a field reporter, Token is the meteorologist, and Kyle does sports. However after their news program premieres, their teacher (Mr. Meryl) tells them that they did horribly in the ratings, trailing far behind Craig's home video show, "Animals Close-Up With a Wide-Angle Lens" (which uses the Benny Hill theme song, "Yakety Sax"), which they consider pointless and banal. Even Kenny has been helping Craig, which Cartman considered betrayal after they had been "super cool" to him (whereas Cartman had actually been mocking Kenny for being poor and using it as an excuse to keep him out of his show).

The news team then pledges to make a program that will be a ratings booster and gain the attention of all students. They rename the show "Sexy Action School News" and add flashy elements, including random "Panda Madness Minutes" in which the newscasters spontaneously dance with pandas. However, nothing seems to work; although they beat Craig's original series, they fall behind his follow up "Animals Close-Up With a Wide-Angle Lens Wearing Hats". To get ideas, the boys decide to get high on cough syrup. They hallucinate, run wild, pass out, and wake up disoriented an unspecified amount of time later, watching "Animals Close-Up With a Wide-Angle Lens Wearing Hats", and with a naked Butters face-down in Kyle's lap, but their notepads contain nothing useful. Remembering that they had seen Craig's program while high and thought it to be brilliant, they conclude that a majority of the school must be perpetually high on cough syrup, accounting for his ratings. They then decide to produce a special report that gets cough syrup banned from school.

Soon after, the ratings drop and Craig's show is cancelled, as the children are no longer high, and they start to cough endlessly. To emphasize the importance of good ratings, the AV teacher then suspends Craig from school and recommends the removal of his testicles. Satisfied with their results, the "Sexy Action School News" team discovers the curse of a successful show: each subsequent episode has to be just as good. Back in the writer's room, they come up with nothing and eventually decide to just bail.

ReferencesEdit