SOUTH PARK: BIGGER, LONGER &
UNCUT:
HILARIOUS BACK IN 1999, HILARIOUS
IN 2006 WHEN I FIRST WATCHED IT, AND STILL AN OFFENSIVE LAUGH RIOT IN 2016!
By Nico Beland
Movie Review: A+
(4 stars)
PARAMOUNT
PICTURES, WARNER BROS. PICTURES, AND COMEDY CENTRAL
America
VS Canada in South Park: Bigger, Longer
& Uncut
I know, the main reason I created
the Psychopath Classic Reviews blog
originally was to show an archive of all my earlier work prior to the
development of my Moviewatchin’
Psychopath blog or a collection of reviews I’ve written in film study
classes. But there is a very important movie to me that I feel I should talk
about this year while it’s still 2016, that movie is the incredibly raunchy but
undeniably hilarious animated comedy, South
Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut.
Now, why am I talking about this
movie right now? Well, the movie was first released in 1999 but I first watched
it in summer 2006 (Yeah, ten years ago was my first viewing of the film). Trey
Parker and Matt Stone’s Comedy Central
series, South Park was a show I was
always curious about, obviously I wasn’t the right age to watch it at the time
but two of my best friends in elementary school quoted it a lot, showed me some
of the merchandise and characters, and they even created their own version of
the Terrance and Phillip song, Uncle
Fucka.
It wasn’t until I became a tween in
middle school where I made more friends that talked about it often and this was
coming after my Simpsons obsession at
the time. I thought to myself “Hey, I’ve already watched Simpsons, Family Guy, and
Futurama in my life, what other
mature shows can my pre-teen brain take?” So I finally gave South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut a
rent, invited two of my best friends over one night, and the three of us
watched it from start to finish.
The movie alone made me a South Park fan, I was hooked on the movie
right when it started, we were laughing our asses off, cursing like Uncle
Fuckers, and it introduced me to one of the best animated shows of all-time and
it followed in the footsteps of The
Simpsons as one of the longest running animated shows of all-time. I barely
knew anything about the show prior to watching the film, except the four boys’
names, Kenny always died, and Ike is a baby that always gets kicked, but the movie
gave me pretty much everything I needed to know about the show and I was able
to follow along with my pals.
The film follows elementary school
boys, Stan, Kyle, Kenny, and Cartman sneaking into the R-rated adult comedy, Asses of Fire, starring their favorite
farting Canadian comedy duo, Terrance and Phillip and it warps their fragile
little minds. The next day at school the boys share their vulgar knowledge with
their classmates and get in trouble.
Outraged by the offensive material,
all the South Park children’s moms begin protesting against Canada for “Corrupting
America’s Children” and it soon gets out of hand as they wage war with Canada.
Meanwhile in Hell, Satan and his lover, Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein are
plotting to rise up and take over the world when Terrance and Phillip’s blood
touches American ground.
So it’s up to the boys and all the
kids in South Park to rebel against their parents, save Terrance and Phillip,
and stop Satan and Saddam’s evil plans. All while singing some hilarious,
offensive, and sometimes beautiful songs.
Yeah, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut works both as a comedy
raunch-fest and as a musical and it was probably the first adult animated
musical that came to my knowledge at the time. From the sweet, Disney-style song, Mountain Town, to the more obscure Uncle Fucka and Kyle’s Mom’s
a Bitch, to the emotional Up There,
and of course the Oscar® nominated
song, Blame Canada, which was also
performed by the late Robin Williams at the Academy
Awards.
It’s one of my favorite comedies for
several different reasons, one, I was able to watch it as a movie and enjoy it
just as much as my already South Park
fan friends, constant laughs, clever writing, and even has a sense of life in
the material the film tackles, freedom of speech, censorship, war, these are
all very important and realistic topics and South
Park brings them to the viewer’s knowledge perfectly.
This movie was following the success
of Paramount’s earlier adult animated
release from 1996, Beavis and Butt-Head
Do America, which was also a critical and commercial success upon release
and another movie that lured me in like Bigger, Longer & Uncut. Both Beavis and Butt-Head Do America and South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut
were critical hits and inspired other adult animated films based on TV shows to
get made such as Aqua Teen Hunger Force
Colon Movie Film For Theaters, The
Simpsons Movie, and an upcoming Family
Guy movie.
I’ve been watching this movie and the
show, and listening to the film’s soundtrack for ten years now and I’ll watch
and listen to them for ten more years. South
Park is one of many things that inspired me creatively and I incorporated
several ideas and things I got from the show into my own work. Trey and Matt
really outdid themselves with the show and movie, it lasted for nineteen
seasons going on twenty, always knew how to stay current, and it was funny and
quotable back when the show first premiered in 1997 and it continues to be
today.
I don’t plan on stopping my South Park watching any time soon,
really, the 20th season is going to be a new start and hoping it
will lead to offensive, controversial, and comedic greatness.