The South Park episode "Cartman Joins NAMBLA" aired in June of 2000, right during the show's heyday. The episode is well-remembered, and consists of Cartman deciding that he's too mature to hang out with his old school friends and begins to search for more "mature" people to hang out with, leading to him joining an organization of pedophiles.
However, this episode was not shown in certain states. Several towns in the mountain states of the US report an entirely different episode running on the date that "Cartman Joins NAMBLA" was intended to air.
Nobody knows why this episode aired in place of the one it replaced, or where it even came from. However, almost all watchers, despite getting specific details different, recall the plot of the episode on a loose level, and a deep sense of unease for the entire runtime of the episode, which ran in full with no cuts or edits, and no commercial breaks, implying a mass hijacking.
At the time of the hijacking, the credits were rolling on Comedy Central’s airing of the 1997 movie “8 Heads in a Duffel Bag.” In the middle of the credits of the movie, it got stuck on a loop, causing the credits to scroll slightly down before jumping up. This would continue for roughly a minute, with the visuals cutting in and out, until eventually the entire screen cut to black.
The screen intermittently cuts between black and Comedy Central’s “Technical Difficulties” screen for the next few minutes before at 10PM, on the dot, the screen changes.
As the credits theme for South Park (a slowed instrumental version of the intro) plays, text appears on screen, scribbled as though hand drawn. “GOD MADE ME DO IT.”
This rough, scratchy “title card” appears for around 15 seconds until the episode itself begins in earnest.
The animation quality and voice acting of the episode is surprisingly amateurish- the animation is comparable more to Season 1 or the “Jesus vs. Santa” animation than the then-airing Season 4, and the voices sound very hit-or-miss, with only Cartman’s voice being noticeably recognizable as Cartman. The scene itself consists of an angry mob of South Park children on the school’s playground, having gathered around an unknown thing in the middle of their circle. The camera zooms into the circle and reveals that Cartman is inside of it. The rest of the large crowd is generic background characters- although some notable minor characters like Tolkien and Scott Malkinson can be seen in the crowd.
The kids are in the process of viciously beating and throwing around Cartman, whacking him with sticks and sharp objects and punching and kicking him repeatedly. Cartman’s facial wounds are illustrated in an oil painting style while the rest of him is in the show’s simplistic paper-cutout style, resulting in an uncanny style mismatch as his heavily wounded face is shown to the camera, tears falling down his face. The children are chanting as they beat up Cartman: “KILL THE FATSO! KILL THE FATSO!”
The camera pans over to Stan and Kyle, who are watching the carnage. They have looks of shock on their faces.
Kyle says, “You know, it was awesome watching that fatass get beaten up at first, but the crowd has been going since it was bright ouside!” He looks up, revealing that the moon is out. Kyle adds, “Now it’s crossed the line from sick to… ya know, the other sick.”
Stan simply says a blunt “yes” in agreement, clearly uncomfortable with talking.
It cuts back to Cartman in the middle of the circle, and the audio, formerly filled with the kids yelling and mumbling profanities at Cartman, is now replaced with what sounds like a looped stock scream. The source of the scream is hard to identify but it sounds like it was recorded by Cartman’s voice actor in the episode. It loops, becoming louder and louder, like a siren, as the camera keeps cutting closer and closer to Cartman’s face.
Just as suddenly as the screaming began, though, it stops. It cuts, with the show’s usual slide-guitar transition sting, to Cartman in his room. He has his head in his hands, sitting on the bed, sobbing. This goes on for 10 or so seconds. As soon as Cartman is done, though, he turns to one of his stuffed animals.
“They all think I’m fat and they hate me! What am I gonna do, Clyde?” he asks.
It cuts to a shot of Cartman’s stuffed frog, Clyde Frog, sitting silently on a chair, and back to Cartman, whose tears have disappeared and whose face has become completely neutral, stone-faced.
“You’re right,” he says, presumably talking to Clyde. “I have to show them. But how do I do it?”
Suddenly, the feed cuts out for a short period of time. Then, it cuts to a monochrome, color-inverted shot of a piece of paper on a desk, mostly black due to inversion, with the same scratchy handwriting as before.
“YOU MUST FIND THE WEAKEST AND STRIP HIM OF HIS JOY.”
A hand shakily reaches for the paper, and flips it over, revealing another message in the same handwriting on the back, underlined many times.
“USE ANY MEANS NECESSARY. HIS JOY WILL BECOME YOURS.”
It cuts back to Cartman, who looks noticeably happier, and shocked.
“God…? Alright, well if you say so, God!” He sounds almost innocent when he says this, getting up and walking out of his room.
The scene cuts again, to an interesting sight: the first verse of the “Everyone Knows It’s Butters” jingle and title card originating from the episode “Butters’ Very Own Episode.” This is despite the referenced jingle being a whole season away, from Season 5.
It shows Butters playing with a toy truck in his room, singing his usual “loo loo loo” song, when Cartman enters, hands behind his back, surprisingly poised-looking.
Butters cheerfully greets Cartman and asks what Cartman is doing over at his house. Cartman responds, extremely calmly, that he got a new video game system and asks Butters if he’d like to come over to play it. Butters eagerly agrees.
The camera cuts to the Cartmans’ house’s basement. Butters enters first, followed by Cartman, who is chuckling to himself, holding a long metal rod behind his back.
“Gee, Cartman, where’s the ga-” Butters begins to ask, but he’s cut off by the screen going black and a loud, metallic WHACK! followed by a thump. The next shot is from Butters’ point of view as he groggily opens his eyes. He struggles to move, to no avail. He looks down, seeing himself tied up, and yelps.
The shot cuts again to Cartman, approaching a fearful Butters.
“So, Butters, you thought you came here to play games with me,” he says. “You were wrong.”
Butters frantically struggles while Cartman continues.
“You were always the weakest one… so easy to pick on,” he laughs. “But now I’m not laughing anymore. I’ve been bullied, harder than I ever have in my life. And you’re gonna be the one to feel the pain I felt,” he says, eyes narrowing, “because you can’t fight back.”
Butters begins screaming loudly, but Cartman readies another whack with his metal rod.
“Sweet dreams, Butters,” he says as he grins wolfishly.
A time card appears- same scratchy font. “12 HOURS LATER…”
It shows the front of Butters’ house, with Stan, Kyle and Kenny walking up to the door, Stan ringing the doorbell.
“I don’t know what happened, I haven’t seen him since yesterday,” Kyle says to Stan, before the door opens.
The kids and Butters’ father (who answered the door) exchange formalities and Butters’ father says Butters went over to Cartman’s house to play. The kids walk off, and it cuts to the three entering Cartman’s basement, Kyle in the middle of calling Cartman’s name, presumably attempting to find him.
It pans over to Cartman, grinning as he faces the boys.
“I killed him. Finally, I will be wi-”
The audio cuts out as Cartman talks, his facial expression becoming more and more maniacal, before gesturing to a spot on the floor.
It pans over the floor, and you can gradually see a pool of red and a familiar tuft of yellow hair, before the broadcast hangs on a single frame.
It cuts after a few seconds of this looping frame to the other kids, clearly distraught- whatever Cartman did to Butters is causing them all severe distress, Stan even vomiting.
“We’re calling the cops! You’ve done a lot of fucked-up stuff but this is just on another level! Butters was our friend!” Kyle yells, starting to walk up t he stairs.
Another scene with the piece of paper shows up on screen.
“THEY KNOW TOO MUCH, CARTMAN.”
The paper is flipped, and stains mark the page all around the phrase in the center.
“KILL THEM.”
Cartman runs to the top of the stairs, locking the door.
“You’ll never tell anyone! God doesn’t want anyone else to know what I did!”
He produces a canister of kerosene and a match from behind his back. He douses the basement in the substance before quickly unlocking and opening the door, tossing the match, and closing and re-locking the door once he was on the other side. Screams of muffled pain can be heard from the other side as explosions are heard.
Another shot of paper.
“VERY GOOD.”
Flip.
“NOW, I KNOW JUST WHAT YOU MUST DO. YOU WILL NEVER BE FAT AGAIN.”
Cartman is down on his knees in front of the door, praying. He opens his eyes and they look determined.
It cuts to him in front of the mirror in what looks like the house next to Cartman’s own. There are police and firefighters outside the burning rubble of Cartman’s house, and Stan, Kyle and Kenny’s parents are gathered around the house, sobbing.
Cartman produces a medical scalpel from behind his back and looks into the mirror before pulling up his shirt and making a cut in his stomach.
Loud, disgusting squelching noises play as Cartman fishes around in the wound, eventually pulling out a yellow substance- his own body fat.
“Yes… I have done what God has told me!” he proclaims. “I am no longer fat! I am with God now! I am in His image!”
It cuts back to the rubble of Cartman’s house. Kyle’s parents are waiting anxiously when a firefighter presents them with what looks to be a blackened hunk of coal. Kyle’s mother takes the hunk and begins sobbing, his father hugging her reassuringly.
The broadcast footage abruptly cuts to the same camera view from earlier, the pieces of paper strewn on a table. They get up and the camera follows them through a series of large rooms until they make it to a vault.
They punch in a code and the vault opens, revealing the contents, the final thing that can be seen before the video feed cuts out: a charred human skull, clearly snapped roughly from the spinal cord. The camera pans around it, faint chuckling being heard before the feed cuts back to the “technical difficulties” screen. Several minutes later, the intended 10:30 programming, Comedy Central Presents with Jeremy Hotz, began, and the feed suffered no further issues.
To this day, nobody knows who or what caused this interruption, but one suspect was found in a news report from several days after the broadcast in Frisco, Colorado. A man whose identity was not given by the authorities due to the request of his family was arrested that day after authorities found dozens of charred, burned skulls and bones in the basement of his home when given an anonymous tip.
His listed crimes were abuse of a corpse and broadcast signal intrusion.
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Author's Notes:
Long time no see, huh.
Yup, life got in the way, long story short. Glad to be back, though.
This story fascinates me for whatever reason, but I think they absolutely dropped the ball on the theming. Ending sucks, which is why I've changed it entirely. So it goes.
Hopefully I'm not too rusty..
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