Raisins (Episode)

From South Park Archives

South Park episode
“Raisins”
Episode no.	Season 7 Episode 14
Production no.	714
Original airdate	December 10, 2003
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"Raisins" is episode 714 of the 'Comedy Central' series South Park. It aired on December 10, 2003. This episode was inspired by creator Trey Parker's breakup with his ex-fiancée, Liane Adamo, on whom Wendy is based.

[edit] Plot

The boys are playing football when Bebe walks up behind Stan (who is the quarter back) and tells him that his girl friend Wendy Testaburger has broken up with him. As he begs for an explanation, she just says that, " She just doesn't want to be with you anymore. She says she still wants to be friends." Stan seems to be in some kind of trance as the other boys tell Bebe to, " Get the hell out of our football game you stupid skank." Stan simply walks away. Stan is then seen looking over a bridge into the water, crying in the rain and looking at pictures of Wendy.

As Stan attempts to win back Wendy, he asks Kyle if he will talk to her for him. All Wendy says is that Stan is really nice but she just doesn't want to be together anymore. Stan begs Kyle to ask her to be more direct with him but Kyle just tells him to talk to her himself, and to be poetic. So Stan gets Jimmy to talk to her. Because of his disability he is unable to talk normally, he makes the mistake of saying, " Stan says your a cont..." when the original phrase was " Stan says you're a continuing source of inspiration to him." and Wendy simply tells Stan to "Fuck off". Stan realizes that more attempts would be in vain.

Stan begins to withdrawal from life, staying in bed for days. So the other boys take him to "Raisins" (a parody of "Hooters") where all of the waitresses are cute pre-teens with heavy make up. Afterwords, Stan says that he feel worse, while Butters has fallen in love with one of the Raisins girls.

So Stan tries to take control by asking Bebe to talk to Wendy for him. She tells him to do the most romantic thin he can think of, and orders him to hold a boom box over his head and play Peter Gabriel. so he chooses the less than romantic song, "Shock the Monkey". Wendy gives Stan a guilty look from her window, and Token walks up to her. She looks down and walks away while Token shuts the blinds.

Stan is moping around in gym class and Kyle tells him, "You might as well go hang out with those goth kids

who dress in black and talk about pain all the time!" Stan takes this advice so literally that he joins the goth kids who are obsessed with trying to not be conformist, yet the convince Stan to conform to their ways.

Kyle catches Stan at "Benny's" (a parody of "Denny's) drinking coffee and wearing all black. While Kyle tries to convince Stan to come back, Stan asks about whether Wendy and Token are still together. After Kyle confirms this, he says(in a strange deep voice) "...People shouldn't care about me, because I don't care about them. What's the point of caring if all it brings is pain?"

Butters is obsessed over his relationship with the waitress from Raisins named Lexus, who obviously doesn't have any interest in him. While Butters is oblivious to this, he continues to give Lexus large tips and gifts. So he brings his parents to Raisins and they are appalled with the way the Raisin girls are using boys for tips and possibly with Butters stupidity. They explain that girls can make men do anything be flirting and that they turn that into a profession. So Butters just tells his parents to go to "heck" and storms out with Lexus, only for her to tell him that she wants nothing to do with him.

Butters does the same thing as Stan did after his heartbreak; crying in the rain. When the other goth kids stumble across him, they tell Stan (who they call "the Raven") to check out the "the tortured soul" . when Stan asks what's wrong with him, he tells him how Lexus broke up with him. So the goth kids offer to let him into their clique. But Butters explains how he loves life, "I'm sad. But at the same time I'm really happy that something can make me feel that sad. It makes me feel alive you know, feel human. The only way I could feel this sad now is is if I felt something really good before. So I have to take the bad with the good. So I guess what I'm feeling now is a beautiful sadness..." Stan is touched by his speech and begins to recover. After Butters walks away Stan says "He's right. I don't even know who I am anymore. I liked liking life alot more than hating it. Screw you guys. Im going home".

The next day at school, as the other boys are struggling in football, Stan shows up and claims how he realized that there are a lot of painful times in life an that he need to deal with the right way. When Wendy and Token walk by, he says proudly, "hey Wendy... You're a bitch! Token, (flips him the birdie) right here buddy!" They both angrily walk away, and the boys get back to football.

[edit] References to Pop-Culture

• When Stan joins the goth kids, he wears a T-shirt with Edgar Allen Poe's face on it with the word "nevermore" above. His goth name is also the Raven, a reference to one of Poe's poems.

• When Stan is looking over the bridge and into the water, it is a reference to Charlie Brown.

• A reference to Say Anything can be seen when Stan holds the boom box over his head outside Wendy's window just like Lloyd did in front of Diane's window. You can listen to Peter Gabriel's "Shock the Monkey".

• Stan and Wendy eventually got back together in the season 11 finale.

• It was "110 episodes ago" since Cartman Gets an Anal Probe, when Stan and Wendy were together. The break-up is going to hold in 57 episodes.
• Raisins is a parody of Hooters
• While the girls are performing the YMCA, Loogie can be seen sitting at the table with sauce around his mouth
• All of the girl waiters have names of Car Manufacturers(Honda, Audi, Hyundai)
• When Stan leaves the goth kids he uses Cartman's old catchphrase,"Screw you guys, i'm going home!"   He already told this phrase in New Year's special.