"A Ladder to Heaven" is the 12th episode of the sixth season and the 91st overall episode of the

Comedy Central Comedy Central is an American basic cable channel owned by Paramount Global through its network division's MTV Entertainment Group unit, based in Manhattan. The channel is geared towards young adults aged 18–34 and carries comedy programming ...

series ''

South Park ''South Park'' is an American animated sitcom created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone and developed by Brian Graden for Comedy Central. The series revolves around four boys Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman, and Kenny McCormickand th ...

''. It was originally broadcast on November 6, 2002. In the episode, the boys try to build a ladder to heaven to retrieve a winning ticket

Kenny Kenny is a surname, a given name, and a diminutive of several different given names. In Ireland, the surname is an Anglicisation of the Irish language, Irish ''Ó Cionnaith'', also spelt ''Ó Cionnaoith'' and ''Ó Cionaodha'', meaning "descendant ...

had before he died. When their efforts are mistaken for an act of childhood innocence, a media circus ensues.

Plot

Stan Stan or STAN may refer to: People * Stan (given name), a list of people with the given name ** Stan Laurel (1890–1965), English comic actor, part of duo Laurel and Hardy * Stan (surname), a Romanian surname * Stan! (born 1964), American author ...

Kyle Kyle or Kyles may refer to: Places Canada * Kyle, Saskatchewan, Canada Ireland * Kyle, County Laois * Kyle, County Wexford Scotland * Kyle, Ayrshire, area of Scotland which stretched across parts of modern-day East Ayrshire and South Ayrshir ...

and

Cartman Eric Theodore Cartman, commonly referred to by his surname Cartman, is a fictional character in the adult animated sitcom ''South Park'', created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone. He is voiced by Parker, and is one of the series' four main charact ...

win an all-you-can-grab candy prize, but cannot claim it without the stub of the ticket they bought. They remember that they gave the ticket stub to

to hold on to before he last

died Death is the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism. For organisms with a brain, death can also be defined as the irreversible cessation of functioning of the whole brain, including brainstem, and brain ...

. Upon visiting Kenny's house, the boys are shown an urn containing his ashes, which they steal during the next night. However, having never heard of

cremation Cremation is a method of Disposal of human corpses, final disposition of a Cadaver, dead body through Combustion, burning. Cremation may serve as a funeral or post-funeral rite and as an alternative to burial. In some countries, including India ...

, they expect to find Kenny's body and are confused when they find ashes inside. Cartman assumes it must be some kind of chocolate milk powder. He mixes the ashes with milk and drinks them, replacing the ashes with kitty litter. The boys decide to build a ladder to

Heaven Heaven or the heavens, is a common religious cosmological or transcendent supernatural place where beings such as deities, angels, souls, saints, or venerated ancestors are said to originate, be enthroned, or reside. According to the belie ...

to find Kenny so he can hand them the ticket. However, when questioned about why they are building the ladder, they neglect to mention that candy is involved and merely say they want to see Kenny again. As a result, the adults, thinking that the boys desperately want to see their dead friend again, are touched and the ladder's construction grips the whole country. Singer

Alan Jackson Alan Eugene Jackson (born October 17, 1958) is an American singer-songwriter. He is known for blending traditional honky-tonk and mainstream country pop sounds (for a style widely regarded as "neotraditional country"), as well as penning many o ...

turns up to memorialize the event in song. The

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

ese even start building a rival ladder of their own so that when the boys announce they have run out of stuff to build the ladder, the

United States military The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. The armed forces consists of six service branches: the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard. The president of the United States is the ...

arrives and starts to build a reinforced tower in order to beat the Japanese. The ladder eventually reaches above the clouds and the boys are disappointed when they see nothing. Suspicious photos taken of heavenly clouds are reported to the

U.S. President The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States ...

as indicating a potential factory making

weapons of mass destruction A weapon of mass destruction (WMD) is a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or any other weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to numerous individuals or cause great damage to artificial structures (e.g., buildings), natura ...

(WMD) run by

Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolution ...

, now dead and permanently living in Heaven. The

U.S. The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

decides to bomb Heaven, believing Hussein to be building nuclear warheads there. A U.S. representative explains the Satan/Saddam/Chris love triangle story to a skeptical

United Nations General Assembly The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; french: link=no, Assemblée générale, AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as the main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ of the UN. Curr ...

. Meanwhile, Cartman starts viewing Kenny's memories every time something hits his head. After the adults try to tell the boys to get back to their lives and explain cremation to them, Cartman realizes that this is because he drank Kenny's ashes. After getting intentionally hit on the head a few more times, Cartman witnesses Kenny locking up the ticket in a box he kept in his room. The boys retrieve the stub, collect their confectionery, and lose all interest in the ladder. The whole misunderstanding is explained, and various platitudes exchanged that they all want to believe that they can go to heaven when they die, but the meaning is to enjoy life on Earth, which Alan Jackson tries and fails to turn into an umpteenth song. As they all leave, Cartman says that he is happy just to have Kenny's memories, but Cartman then insults himself in Kenny's words, implying that Kenny's soul really is trapped in Cartman's body. In a final scene, it is revealed that Saddam Hussein is in fact building a WMD factory, disguised as a chocolate chip factory, and is lying to God about it.

Production

Singer Alan Jackson is parodied for his country hit "

Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning) "Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)" is a song written and recorded by American country music singer Alan Jackson. It was the lead single from his tenth studio album, ''Drive'' (2002), released on Arista Nashville. The song's lyrics c ...

" about

9/11 The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial ...

, with Matt Stone saying in the episode's audio commentary that he felt Jackson was "cashing in on the sentimentality of emembering the 9/11 attacks.

Home media

"A Ladder to Heaven", along with the sixteen other episodes from ''South Parks sixth season, were released on a three-disc DVD set in the United States on October 11, 2005. The sets included brief audio commentaries by Trey Parker and Stone for each episode. ''

IGN ''IGN'' (formerly ''Imagine Games Network'') is an American video game and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa distri ...

'' gave the season a rating of 9/10.

References

External links

"A Ladder to Heaven"
Full episode at South Park Studios * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ladder To Heaven, A Aftermath of the September 11 attacks Cultural depictions of George W. Bush Cultural depictions of Saddam Hussein Television episodes set in heaven South Park (season 6) episodes Television episodes about spirit possession White House in fiction