"ManBearPig" is the sixth episode in the tenth season of the American animated television 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 ...

''. The 145th episode of the series overall, it first aired on

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 ...

in the United States on April 26, 2006. In the episode,

Al Gore Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American politician, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. Gore was the Democratic Part ...

visits South Park to warn everyone about a creature called ManBearPig, an

allegory As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a hidden meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory th ...

for

global warming In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...

. Gore then gets

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 ...

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 ...

, 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 ...

trapped inside the Cave of the Winds.

Plot

(voiced by

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. P ...

) visits South Park Elementary and warns the school's students about an imaginary monster named ManBearPig which roams the Earth attacking humans. Gore describes the monster as “half

human Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, ...

, half

bear Bears are carnivoran mammals of the family Ursidae. They are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans. Although only eight species of bears are extant, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout the Nor ...

, half

pig The pig (''Sus domesticus''), often called swine, hog, or domestic pig when distinguishing from other members of the genus '' Sus'', is an omnivorous, domesticated, even-toed, hoofed mammal. It is variously considered a subspecies of ''Sus s ...

.” While Gore continues to spread awareness of the fictional

cryptid Cryptids are animals that cryptozoologists believe may exist somewhere in the wild, but are not believed to exist by mainstream science. Cryptozoology is a pseudoscience, which primarily looks at anecdotal stories, and other claims rejected by ...

, Randy advises Stan and the boys to not be involved with Gore as he is only seeking attention. One night, Gore calls Stan about ManBearPig and Stan tries to turn him down gently; Gore weeps from this rejection until Stan changes his mind. Gore then persuades Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny to attend a ManBearPig meeting, where Gore states that the creature is hiding in the Cave of the Winds. The boys agree to assist Gore in his hunt for ManBearPig in exchange for being officially dismissed from school that day. In the caves, the echo sound the cave is named for causes Gore to mistake the sound for the creature. He fires a shotgun wildly, which causes a

cave-in A cave-in is a collapse of a geologic formation, mine or structure which may occur during mining, tunneling, or steep-walled excavation such as trenching. Geologic structures prone to spontaneous cave-ins include alvar, tsingy and other limes ...

that leaves the boys trapped in the caverns; all others escape before the cave-in and Gore believes ManBearPig is at fault. While the boys search for a way out of the cave, Cartman discovers a small cavern filled with what appears to be treasure. Greedily, he starts swallowing the treasure piece-by-piece to smuggle it out of the cave. As a rescue team assembles outside the cave to find the boys, Gore diverts the flow of a nearby stream in order to cause a flood which fills the cavern in an attempt to kill the still-unseen monster. The boys manage to escape just as a memorial service is being held for them. When Gore tries to take credit for saving them, Stan, having lost all sympathy for him, angrily yells at Gore and calls him a "loser" for using the situation 'as an excuse to draw attention to imself, but he is unfazed as he is certain that he killed ManBearPig. Cartman tries to walk away, but he does not get far before he begins painfully defecating pieces of treasure. It is revealed to Cartman that the treasure was a prop used for tourist

photo op A photo op (sometimes written as photo opp), short for photograph opportunity (or photo opportunity), is an arranged opportunity to take a photograph of a politician, a celebrity, or a notable event.a film starring himself and dons a cape before pretending to fly away.

Reception

Eric Goldman from ''

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 episode a score of 6.0 out of 10. He thought it was a superior episode compared with "

A Million Little Fibers "A Million Little Fibers" is the fifth episode in the tenth season of the American animated television series ''South Park''. The 144th episode of the series overall, it was first broadcast on Comedy Central in the United States on April 19, 2006. ...

", the previous episode of the season, but still called it an "okay, middle of the road" episode.

Home media

"ManBearPig", along with the thirteen other episodes from ''South Park''s tenth season, was released on a three-disc DVD set in the United States on August 21, 2007. The set includes brief audio commentaries by series co-creators

and

Matt Stone Matthew Richard Stone (born May 26, 1971) 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 Trey Parker. Stone was interes ...

for each episode.

Legacy

ManBearPig is one of the antagonist characters shown in the " Imaginationland" trilogy in the eleventh season of ''South Park''. The episode is notorious as an allegory for

climate change denial Climate change denial, or global warming denial, is denial, dismissal, or doubt that contradicts the scientific consensus on climate change, including the extent to which it is caused by humans, its effects on nature and human society, or th ...

because the ''South Park'' creators Trey Parker and

were initially unconvinced about Gore's film ''

An Inconvenient Truth ''An Inconvenient Truth'' is a 2006 American documentary film directed by Davis Guggenheim about former United States Vice President Al Gore's campaign to educate people about global warming. The film features a slide show that, by Gore's own e ...

''. In apologies for their treatment of the issue at the time, Gore and ManBearPig returned in the sixth and seventh episodes of the 22nd season of ''South Park'', " Time to Get Cereal" and " Nobody Got Cereal?", in which the boys realise that ManBearPig exists and apologise to Gore. ManBearPig returned in the 2022 films '' South Park The Streaming Wars'' and '' South Park The Streaming Wars Part 2'', which reveals that ManBearPig has a family. The 2018

action-adventure game The action-adventure genre is a video game hybrid genre that combines core elements from both the action game and adventure game genres. Typically, pure adventure games have situational problems for the player to solve to complete a story ...

Red Dead Redemption 2 ''Red Dead Redemption 2'' is a 2018 action-adventure game developed and published by Rockstar Games. The game is the third entry in the ''Red Dead'' series and a prequel to the 2010 game ''Red Dead Redemption''. The story is set in 1899 and f ...

'', developed and published by

Rockstar Games Rockstar Games, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in New York City. The company was established in December 1998 as a subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive, using the assets Take-Two had previously acquired from BMG Interactive. Foun ...

, features a creature that looks like a cross between a

, a

, and a

chained to a wall.

References

External links

"ManBearPig"
Full episode at South Park Studios * {{DEFAULTSORT:Manbearpig South Park (season 10) episodes Cultural depictions of Al Gore Fiction about cryptids Climate change denial fi:Luettelo televisiosarjan South Park jaksoista#10. tuotantokausi: 2006