The worst episode of South Park ever?

For my favorite television programs currently on the air, namely The Office, Lost, Battlestar Galactica, and Family Guy, almost all of the episodes are very good. Sure, some episodes are better than others, but very few episodes are downright bad.

The same cannot be said for South Park. It seems like half the episodes are awesome, and the other half are simply awful, with few in between. To be sure, there have been some incredible South Park episodes that are both hilarious and insightful. These awesome episodes include Starvin' Marvin In Space, Cherokee Hair Tampons, The Biggest Douche In The Universe, Cancelled, Good Times With Weapons, Woodland Critter Christmas, and Free Willzyx. But there have also been some episodes which are unfunny, idiotic, and simply painful to watch. These awful episodes include Rainforest Schmainforest, Jakovasaurs, Butt Out, Something Wall-Mart This Way Comes, Two Days Before The Day After Tomorrow, Smug Alert!, and ManBearPig.

So far 4 episodes of Season 12 have aired, and the episodes are decidedly mixed. Tonsil Trouble, the season premiere, was decent, Britney's New Look was bad, Major Boobage was pretty funny, and Canada On Strike, the most recent episode, is easily one of the worst South Park episodes ever.

The episode attacks the recent Writer's Guide Of America (WGA) strike as not being worth it. To make the point, the episode features a fictional general strike of all of Canada, with them demanding "some of that Internet money." To show how ridiculous the idea of "Internet money" is, the episode features the cartoon likeness of some people that have been in some of the most popular and well-known Internet videos, including Tay Zonday (of Chocolate Rain fame), Ghyslain Raza (AKA Star Wars Kid), Chris Crocker (the leave Britney alone guy), Tron Guy, the dramatic chipmunk, as well as a few others, talking about how many "theoretical dollars" they would have if they were able to make money off of all the views their videos have gotten on YouToob (the show's version of YouTube).

Obviously, there's a world of difference between a YouTube video that becomes an Internet sensation, and a professionally produced weekly television show. Most of these viral videos that became Internet sensations cost nothing to create. Most of the viral videos which propelled each of these people to Internet fame are very brief, lasting only a few seconds to a few minutes. Also, it should be noted that not all of these Internet stars wanted the fame that they got, such as the Star Wars Kid. But for the willing, uploading your video to YouTube represents a clear and conscious decision: The chance at fame (the vast majority of user created videos on YouTube obviously do not give the people in them even a little bit of temporary stardom), at the cost of possible fortune. They could of course instead put their videos on their own sites along with advertising to make money when people watch them, but putting the video on their own obscure site would get them significantly fewer people watching the video. In this case the video would probably never become a hit in the first place (although if it's good someone would probably just upload it to YouTube anyway), and then they'd get neither fame nor fortune.

While the Internet has long been a great place to get unofficial releases of television programs and movies, over the past few years the networks and studios have finally gotten their act together and started to use it to officially distribute shows. A few examples of official outlets where you can buy, rent, or watch TV shows and movies include iTunes, Amazon Unbox, Hulu, Netflix, and others. The services differ in what they offer, and on some you buy or rent digital copies of programs and movies, while on others you can watch episodes free of charge, but then they have advertisements that you can't skip.

Near the end of the episode, Kyle delivers this monologue summing up the South Park creators' point of view:

"We thought we could make money on the Internet. But 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 opportunities for income for the promise of future online revenue. It will be a few years before digital distribution of media on the Internet can be monetized to an extent that necessitates content producers to forgo their fair value in more traditional media."

In the episode, this monologue is spoken very quickly, probably to try to disguise how idiotic this line of reasoning, and therefore the basis of the entire episode, is.

The WGA strike was necessary because the networks are making money now off of the online distribution of television program by either selling episodes outright or by selling advertising that must be viewed when the episodes are watched, or both. Under their previous contract the writers didn't make any off of this new delivery method, and since the Alliance Of Motion Picture And Television Producers (AMPTP) obviously wasn't going to give them a fair deal for these new revenues out of the goodness of their hearts, the strike was necessary. In the short term, the strike cost the writers and others who work in the entertainment industry more than they'll get in the first few years of the new deal. But as the Internet becomes an increasingly popular delivery method, and supplants traditional content delivery (i.e., TV), this income will increase and will be be integral to the their livelihood. If the writers waited until the Internet took over as the primary content delivery mechanism, then while they might have a better idea of what exactly a fair deal might be, they would then be in a weaker position to actually get it. By acting now the WGA avoided this negative risk.

The ironic thing here is that South Park episodes are available for purchase and download on the XBOX Live service, so you can download episodes to your Xbox 360. The first episode that was available, the fantastic Good Times With Weapons, was available for free for a limited time, but now the episodes cost money to download. While I couldn't find recent exact pricing information for South Park episodes, it seems that most shows on Xbox Live cost $3 an episode to download. Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South Park, are in a unique position in that they both write and produce South Park. Considering this, I'd assume that they make money on these downloads even if the WGA had not renegotiated their contract with the AMPTP. Needless to say, for the vast majority of writers this is not the case. Thanks to the WGA strike, however, now they will.