Cartman's Incredible Gift
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

"Cartman's Incredible Gift" is episode 124 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 originally aired December 8, 2004 as part of the series' eighth season. In the episode, local police become convinced that
Eric 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 chara ...
has psychic abilities, which Cartman exploits for personal gain, much to the ire of
Kyle Broflovski Kyle Matthew Broflovski is a fictional character in the adult animated television series ''South Park''. He is voiced by and loosely based on co-creator Matt Stone. Kyle is one of the series' four central characters, along with his friends Stan ...
, other
psychic detectives A psychic detective is a person who investigates crimes by using purported paranormal psychic abilities. Examples have included postcognition (the paranormal perception of the past), psychometry (information psychically gained from objects), ...
, and the true
serial killer A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more persons,A * * * * with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them. While most authorities set a threshold of three ...
behind a series of murders that Cartman falsely attributes to others. The episode's story continues ''South Park's'' critical view of psychics, previously seen in the episode " The Biggest Douche in the Universe", while also acting as a parody of several films, including '' Red Dragon, The Gift,'' and '' The Dead Zone''.Quigles (September 5, 2006)
"South Park (S8) DVD Review"
JoBlo.com The JoBlo Movie Network includes a website, JoBlo.com, which focuses on news, film reviews, and movie trailers; and YouTube channels that focus on trailers, movie clips, celebrity interviews, original content, and as film distribution. Early da ...
.
Though a minor part of the episode, it marks the last appearance of the seldom-seen South Park Elementary school bus driver Mrs. Veronica Crabtree.


Plot

Cartman attempts to fly by jumping off of his roof with cardboard wings attached to his arms, to which only Kyle roots for knowing what's going to happen while everyone else is against it. He emerges from a brief
coma A coma is a deep state of prolonged unconsciousness in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light, or sound, lacks a normal wake-sleep cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. Coma patients exhi ...
in the hospital, where he shares a room with a victim of a
serial killer A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more persons,A * * * * with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them. While most authorities set a threshold of three ...
who cuts off his victims' left hands. When Cartman makes a lucky guess and manages to deduce some obvious routine things, like the food the hospital is serving, a gullible local police detective, Sergeant Yates, believes that Cartman has developed psychic powers. Cartman plays along and is taken to the scene of one of the murders. Where Yates asks him if he is "seeing anything" Cartman closes his eyes and vocalizes his cravings for ice cream and
Oreo Oreo () (stylized as OREO) is a brand of sandwich cookie consisting of two biscuits or cookie pieces with a sweet creme filling. It was introduced by Nabisco on March 6, 1912, and through a series of corporate acquisitions, mergers and split ...
cookies, prompting Yates to arrest ice cream shop owner Tom Johannsen with extreme brutality. Cartman receives a cash reward. At school,
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 ...
angrily confronts Cartman over his fraudulent psychic abilities, but Cartman defiantly insists that he has such powers, and convinces the other frightened school children of this, though not Kyle, Stan, and
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 ...
. The left-hand murders resume, but instead of realizing his mistake, Yates rationalizes that these are copycat killings. At the next crime scene, the boys meet a disturbed man named Michael Deets who is quite obviously the murderer, but Yates refuses to listen to Kyle's pleas, focusing instead on Cartman's fake visions. Cartman's involvement in the case makes him famous, resulting in a visit from a group of "psychic detectives" who demand he join their group and pay a fee. Cartman laughs off their pretensions, resulting in a "psychic battle" in which the "detectives" indulge in the same histrionics as Cartman, terrifying his mother. Failing to intimidate Cartman, the psychics leave with a threat of
class action A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class actio ...
lawsuit. Cartman solves this problem by telling Sergeant Yates that the group is behind the copycat murders, leading the members of the group to be arrested, beaten, and in one case, fatally shot. Meanwhile, Kyle has followed Deets to his home and obtained fingerprint and blood samples and had them analyzed, but he is completely ignored by the police. Deciding the police will listen to him only if he himself claims psychic powers, Kyle imitates Cartman's attempted flight and is rendered comatose. When he awakens he claims to have psychic powers and gives the police his original findings. Yates is skeptical but goes to investigate Deets anyway, who, by this point, has abducted Cartman, furious that the self-proclaimed psychic has credited his work to others. When Yates arrives, he prepares to arrest Deets upon finding many severed hands pinned to a wall in Deets' home, but stands down upon realizing that the hands on the wall appear to be right hands, not left hands, because the thumb on Yates' own left hand points to the left, cluelessly failing to realize that he is looking at his hand with its palm facing up, in the opposite orientation of those on the wall. Yates leaves, not knowing that Cartman is bound and gagged in Deets' basement, but he questions his own observation about the hands. He goes back to the station, and after a montage depicting running elaborate criminology tests, exercising, and even losing track of what he was doing, he figures out his mistake, and returns to Deets' house, where he shoots Deets just before Deets can kill Cartman who begs Deets not kill him and confesses his sins to him. At the hospital, Johannsen and the psychics have been released from prison, and Kyle is praised as a real psychic. Kyle, however, tells them that there are no psychics, and that there is a logical explanation for every psychic story ever heard. The other "psychics", however, decide to reignite their conflict with Cartman, and engage in a "final battle". Kyle becomes annoyed and loudly yells at them to stop, at which point the light bulbs in the room explode and a shelf becomes partially detached from its wall, spilling its contents on the floor. Everyone is surprised by this, but Kyle sheepishly insists there is a logical explanation for this.


Critical reception

In its review of the Season 8 DVD, Quigles of
JoBlo.com The JoBlo Movie Network includes a website, JoBlo.com, which focuses on news, film reviews, and movie trailers; and YouTube channels that focus on trailers, movie clips, celebrity interviews, original content, and as film distribution. Early da ...
expressed a positive opinion of the episode, in contrast to its perceived reception by others, stating that he/she "laughed pretty much non-stop during it", and calling the references to ''Red Dragon'' and '' The Dead Zone'' "hilarious". Bill Gibron of
DVD Talk DVD Talk is a home video news and review website launched in 1999 by Geoffrey Kleinman. History Kleinman founded the site in January 1999 in Beaverton, Oregon. Besides news and reviews, it features information on hidden DVD features known as ...
thought the episode "kind of corny", stating that "Instead of being a blistering lampoon of ''The Dead Zone'', it sort of falters, looking for an overall purpose". Jesse Hicks, reviewing the episode for
PopMatters ''PopMatters'' is an international online magazine of cultural criticism that covers aspects of popular culture. ''PopMatters'' publishes reviews, interviews, and essays on cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, fi ...
, called it a "solid" one, despite series co-creator
Trey Parker Randolph Severn "Trey" Parker III (born October 19, 1969) is an American actor, animator, filmmaker, and composer. He is known for co-creating ''South Park'' (since 1997) and '' The Book of Mormon'' (2011) with his creative partner Matt Stone. ...
's reference to this season as "the year from hell", due to the grueling work schedule created by producing both the season and the feature film '' Team America: World Police''. Jonathan Barkan of
Bloody Disgusting Bloody Disgusting is an American multi-media company, which began as a horror genre-focused news site/website specializing in information services that covered various horror medias, including: film, television, video games, comics, and music. ...
singled out as the best line of the episode Sergeant Yates' observation to Deets: "I see you like cutting the eyes out of photos with women. My son is a big fan of that too."Barkan, Jonathan (February 16, 2011)
"Special Feature: ‘South Park’ Horror-Inspired Episodes"
Bloody Disgusting Bloody Disgusting is an American multi-media company, which began as a horror genre-focused news site/website specializing in information services that covered various horror medias, including: film, television, video games, comics, and music. ...
.


See also

*
Franz Reichelt Franz Reichelt (16 October 1878 – 4 February 1912), also known as Frantz Reichelt or François Reichelt, was an Austrian-born French tailor, inventor and parachuting pioneer, now sometimes referred to as the Flying Tailor, who is remembered fo ...
, a French inventor who died after jumping from the
Eiffel Tower The Eiffel Tower ( ; french: links=yes, tour Eiffel ) is a wrought-iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower. Locally nicknamed "'' ...
using a wing-like parachute


References


External links


"Cartman's Incredible Gift"
Full episode at South Park Studios * {{South Park episodes, 8 Television episodes about abduction Television episodes about psychic powers Television episodes about serial killers South Park (season 8) episodes