Spontaneous Combustion
South Park episode Spontaneous Combustion
South Park - Episode 0302 - Original Air Date: 14th April 1999.
Stan, Kenny and Cartman help Kyle find an "Reserection" for his dad but learn a valuable lesson from the Stations of the Cross. Meanwhile, it's up to Randy Marsh to stop the rash of spontaneous combustion before South Park is reduced to ashes. But when his "gaseous" solution leads to a rip in the ozone layer that will kill everyone, Randy Marsh becomes a marked man. Of cores Randy as an respected scientist, will find a final solution for all this mess, receiving back his Nobel medal.
Kenny is the first South Park citizen which spontaneously burst in flames and so he dies.
This is the only episode where Kenny dies right at the beginning of this episode and barely appears.
The picture Stan's dad uses in his spontaneous combustion presentation is of Jocelyn Wildenstein. Jocelyn Wildenstien is notable as a socialite who had dozens upon dozens of plastic surgeries performed on her face in a misguided attempt to keep her husband, a famous art dealer, from leaving her. Her goal, bizarrely enough, was to transform herself into a human tiger.
South Park Spoiler Alert!
(The complete plot for this South Park Episode)
In this episode, Kyle discovers that his dad and his mom are having marital difficulties caused by his dad's dysfunction, and he and the others (Kenny, Stan, and Cartman) try to "give him an e**ction" (which the boys confuse with "a ne**ction"), unaware of what it actually is. Meanwhile, various members of the town, beginning with Kenny, start to spontaneously combust, which causes the townspeople to attend church more, and compels Mayor McDaniels to order Randy Marsh to discern the cause for the explosions.
The boys get drawn into presenting the Stations of the Cross in church, with Cartman tied to the cross in the role of Jesus, after repeated pleading that he could not play any other role. Afterwards, the boys take the cross and put it up outside the church, with Cartman still attached, so that he will die and get a "res-erection" to give to Kyle's dad. Meanwhile, Randy manages to find out that the combustions are caused by people refusing to fart in front of their partners (Kenny was spending some time with Kelly, his girlfriend from the previous episode) and so he encourages everyone in town to fart every few seconds. For this, he wins the Nobel Prize and a statue is made for him, much to the ire of South Park's only other scientist, Dr. Mephisto, who wanted to win the prize for creating a Galapagos turtle with seven asses; he then plots revenge.
Meanwhile, Cartman (still on the cross), is getting upset and tired that Stan and Kyle will not take him down, even going as far as claiming his mom is worried and "calling" for him. He is later taken down by Chef until he tells him it was all "just a dream" and he is still on the cross, angering him even more.
Another crisis then comes up, when a heat wave hits the town, and again Randy is hired to figure out the cause. However, Mephisto beats him to it. He discovers that it is the methane gas from all the farting that led to the global warming. Randy, blamed for the crisis, is stripped of his Nobel Prize, and stoned and forced to walk through the town with his own statue on his back, being denied by his friends (as Jesus was in the Stations of the Cross). Meanwhile, Kyle's dad manages to get an e**ction, after seeing some attractive, young female clients undress in his office (to show him the skin cancer for which they claim Randy is responsible).
Randy does not want to try to find a solution for his problem, since all the people in town would still hate him, even if he managed to solve the combustion/global warming conundrum. However, Stan tells him that he learned something from the Stations of the Cross: Even though Jesus was hated by all the people he knew and denied by his friends, he still did what he had to do and as he was dying, raised his right hand and stated, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few", which Kyle later points out is a quote from The Wrath of Khan (Star Trek). After going through extensive researching, Randy finds out that people need to fart only in moderation in order to fight against the global warming. This works well, and he ends up winning the town's accolades again, and gets his Nobel Prize back three weeks later, at which point the boys remember they had left Cartman out on the cross that long. They run to get him, and find him still alive but emaciated, having survived for three weeks on his accumulated body fat. Angered, Cartman then says that once he is taken down, he will kick both of them in the nuts. The song in Randy's daydream montage plays during the end credits.
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Spontaneous Combustion