After the mediocre "Sexual Healing", The Tale Of Scrotie McBoogerballs is once again another excellent south park episode.The plot revolves around the age old issue of controversial novels.The boys get assigned to read "Catcher In The Rye" for school.They dislike the fact, but after hearing that the book is "controversial", they are excited.They then find that the book is not actually controversial at all(especially for today's standards), so Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny decide to write the most disgusting novel of all time.They do so and despite the fact that everybody who reads it throws up, they love the book! The boys just meant to be as gross as possible, however everybody else keeps analyzing the deeper meanings of the novel and praising it.The boys thought they would be in trouble for writing it, so they use Butters as a scapegoat, therefore he gets all the fame and glory.The episode also pokes fun at actress Sarah Jessica Parker.The episode raises the questions "should we ban disgusting novels?" and "what(if any) are the deeper meanings of them?".There have only been two episodes so far, but if Trey and Matt continue like this, the season will for sure be great!
7 Reviews
True to society
MusicPenguin6 May 2016
Warning: Spoilers
There are not many south park episodes that I agree with more than this one. People over-interpret may art-forms, situations, and issues in ways that were completely unintended by their creators. The world is full of people who do and say offensive and disgusting things without always having a deeper meaning that they were trying to portray. For instance the likes of human centipede and a Serbian film were not written for any other purpose than for shock value but some have interpreted it that way. This episode takes a look at how much of society tries to find deeper meaning in obscene works of literature that is vulgar for the sake of being vulgar.
Crazy funny
ygwebwebconsult3 December 2022
I burst out laughing, why did they stop making such episodes! There haven't been episodes like this for years, the part at the end where Butters is lying on the dresser and the broadcaster in the background shouts that he hopes he gets buried, I burst out laughing.
The day the creators of Southpark make Cartman a really badass again, and Butters in most episodes suffers from the children, it will be great again.
Meanwhile, from season 19, everything went downhill, I didn't laugh even once.
There is no shortage of things to criticize, but the foundation is always the best, the first seasons with Hanifar Lopez, for example, are iconic!
The day the creators of Southpark make Cartman a really badass again, and Butters in most episodes suffers from the children, it will be great again.
Meanwhile, from season 19, everything went downhill, I didn't laugh even once.
There is no shortage of things to criticize, but the foundation is always the best, the first seasons with Hanifar Lopez, for example, are iconic!
South Park's take on literature
Horst_In_Translation4 November 2021
Warning: Spoilers
"The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs" is the second episode from season 14 of the long-running television series South Park and this aired already over a decade ago originally. Gave it another watch today and I enjoyed it overall. It's at least as good as the season premiere, but maybe even better. Parker and Stone are/were still going strong after all these years, especially with the ideas they keep coming up with in terms of stories. Maybe it is too big of a statement, but perhaps South Park is the voice of a generation. The voice of a generation in this episode is Butters and those who like him can be happy because it is the second episode in a row in which he is featured heavily. The four kids at the center of it all are not amazed at all by "Catcher in the Rye", the book they have to read for school and they don't see the controversy supposed to come with it. So they decide to write their own book. However, when one of their parents gets a hand on it, they are scared of the consequences they may face because there is a lot of truly disgusting content in there and they decide to put the blame on Butters. However, the book is quickly considered an obscene masterpiece and Butters becomes a star. Wears different clothes and glasses that make him look intellectual and the girls at school appreciate his talent as well. And we constantly hear his real name. Still he is on house arrest.
Maybe the funniest thing about this episode was the vomiting running gag. It shows how something disgusting can be really funny, even on several occasions and this has been key since the beginning of South Park soon 25 years ago. As for celebrities, the Kardashians and Sarah Jessica Parker get their share this time, especially the latter (maybe a bit too much even), even if her fate is not the most tragic in here. Morgan Freeman gets a little tribute too because of how great a narrator he is. John Lennon and Ronald Reagan are referenced during dialogue and the talk about how a book can(not) turn somebody into a murderer was among the more memorable aspects surely. Butters is in danger of becoming a killer on two occasions, but his potential victims are already deceased. He is also the closest to an antagonist to the gang this time, even if he really does not do anything wrong. You rarely see Eric, Stan, Kyle and Cartman as harmonic with each other as they are in this episode. No insults or anything. The only minor argument they are having is when early on they talk about who gets the blame for their book. If there is a lesson or something to this episode in the end, then it is that people should not mistake garbage for art. I enjoyed the watch here. These 22 minutes are closer to a great watch than a weak watch, but overall I would call it a good watch. Go check it out.
Maybe the funniest thing about this episode was the vomiting running gag. It shows how something disgusting can be really funny, even on several occasions and this has been key since the beginning of South Park soon 25 years ago. As for celebrities, the Kardashians and Sarah Jessica Parker get their share this time, especially the latter (maybe a bit too much even), even if her fate is not the most tragic in here. Morgan Freeman gets a little tribute too because of how great a narrator he is. John Lennon and Ronald Reagan are referenced during dialogue and the talk about how a book can(not) turn somebody into a murderer was among the more memorable aspects surely. Butters is in danger of becoming a killer on two occasions, but his potential victims are already deceased. He is also the closest to an antagonist to the gang this time, even if he really does not do anything wrong. You rarely see Eric, Stan, Kyle and Cartman as harmonic with each other as they are in this episode. No insults or anything. The only minor argument they are having is when early on they talk about who gets the blame for their book. If there is a lesson or something to this episode in the end, then it is that people should not mistake garbage for art. I enjoyed the watch here. These 22 minutes are closer to a great watch than a weak watch, but overall I would call it a good watch. Go check it out.
Messages stifle comedy
phenomynouss29 March 2010
Warning: Spoilers
The very least I can say about this just another winding curve in the journey down the toilet for "South Park" is that it doesn't poorly spoof a recent pop culture thing that will grow stale(r) and (more) outdated within months to come.
While it's always worth giving the sort of messages of seeing messages in trash, "order in chaos", Trey Parker and Matt Stone just don't know how to do this while remaining funny.
Instead, we get the typical formula for bad South Park in recent years: The adults are too idiotic to be realistic, and the kids cease to have any personality, with Stan and Kyle becoming total Author Avatars.
This time around, the jokes involve the overly long gag of people vomiting just from reading relatively tame passages from this book Butters claims credit for, and Butters randomly "zombie-fying" babbling to want to kill John Lennon and Ronald Reagan after reading the Catcher in the Rye. It wasn't funny (nor was it offensive) when he did it the first time, it just felt tacked on and pointless the second time.
Watching it the first time around produces some chuckles and smiles. Watching it again produces absolutely nothing of the sort. It's got nothing to it. It's just another in countless instances of South Park being, as they said of themselves jokingly, "preachy and up their own asses with messages" Unrelated to the review, was it just my imagination, or was the title of the book something different in the beginning of the episode? I swear they called it "Scrotie Mc" something, and it only became "McBoogerballs" when Sharon picked it up.
While it's always worth giving the sort of messages of seeing messages in trash, "order in chaos", Trey Parker and Matt Stone just don't know how to do this while remaining funny.
Instead, we get the typical formula for bad South Park in recent years: The adults are too idiotic to be realistic, and the kids cease to have any personality, with Stan and Kyle becoming total Author Avatars.
This time around, the jokes involve the overly long gag of people vomiting just from reading relatively tame passages from this book Butters claims credit for, and Butters randomly "zombie-fying" babbling to want to kill John Lennon and Ronald Reagan after reading the Catcher in the Rye. It wasn't funny (nor was it offensive) when he did it the first time, it just felt tacked on and pointless the second time.
Watching it the first time around produces some chuckles and smiles. Watching it again produces absolutely nothing of the sort. It's got nothing to it. It's just another in countless instances of South Park being, as they said of themselves jokingly, "preachy and up their own asses with messages" Unrelated to the review, was it just my imagination, or was the title of the book something different in the beginning of the episode? I swear they called it "Scrotie Mc" something, and it only became "McBoogerballs" when Sharon picked it up.
Who writes these reviews?
orbital-133445 January 2019
Warning: Spoilers
22 minutes of people vomiting and a few Sarah Jessica Parker jokes.
These guys used to write freakin musicals and now they just have people throwing up in buckets. It's like an Andy Kaufman skit. Everything is a message. Yes people read things into art where there wasn't really a message. Okay, but where is the comedy?
These guys used to write freakin musicals and now they just have people throwing up in buckets. It's like an Andy Kaufman skit. Everything is a message. Yes people read things into art where there wasn't really a message. Okay, but where is the comedy?
good until the transphobia :(
Soltye28 April 2021
Ive wanted to become a fan of southpark for a few months now, after constantly hearing praise for the series i wanted to give it a try. I used a random number generator to pick a few episodes and this was one of them. Its funny sure, then they make fun of someone who is presumably a trans celebrity (and if shes not it makes it WAY worse). A running bit in the episode is where they call the woman ugly, one of the insults against her looks is just calling her a "transvestite" which lots of trans people find very offensive, including my self.
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