Gonna Have Ourselves a Time
Or, I dunno, maybe people just like the poop jokes. Immature dicks.
"Drunk Park": The Rules
- Drink when they drink.
- Drink for Daddy Issues.
- Drink for Title Drops. For Easy Mode, this is whenever someone says "South Park".
- Drink when Kenny Dies. Drink twice if he doesn't die by the end of the episode. More likely than not, he's toast.
- Drink when Cartman and Kyle insult each other. They have to have their insults repaid for this to count.
- Drink when a child outsmarts an adult.
- Drink for Celebrity cameos.
- Drink for disgusting sexual acts.
Medium Mode
All of the above rules apply. Also...
- Drink when a science fiction or fantasy movie is spoofed. You must be able to name the movie.
- Drink when someone bursts into song.
- Drink whenever one of the main four boys leaves South Park. One drink for each boy.
- Drink whenever a character wins money.
- Drink when part of South Park is destroyed. The construction workers at South Park must be the best in the world.
- Drink for Title Drops. For Medium Mode, this means drink for episode title drops.
Hard Mode
All the above rules apply. Also...
- Drink whenever a deity makes himself/herself known.
- Drink for vomit. If you're ambitious, drink as they vomit.
- Drink when one of the main four boys learns something new about the world
- Drink when Butters is injured in any way. Emotional pain counts, but only if he's truly bothered by it.
- Drink for an epic battle sequence. This can range from the battle of Imaginationland to cripple fights.
The Players
The Bishop: Could give Father Maxie a run for his money (Easy).
Paul [Big Moose]: Had never seen the show before we playtested this game (Medium).
Get ready to leave your woes behind. Let's play the South Park drinking game!
Can You Be More Specific?
For example, what constitutes a celebrity cameo? Williams and I both assumed that in order for a character to be a "celebrity", they should have a real-world likeness outside of the show. Shirley argued otherwise.
"I think that fictional characters should count," she staunchly argued, "because it is a cartoon."
You can guess that for episodes like "Imaginationland" (Season 11, Episode 10), things can get a little hairy. And not just because of all the hairy creatures walking around.
Poor Kenny
In season two, episode 4 ("Ike's Wee Wee"), Kenny dies by falling into an open grave. Since a funeral was going on just a few paces away, everyone rolled with it.
The same can't be said for some of his playmates.
The Many Sins of Eric Cartman
If Kenny is a cautionary tale, Cartman is a horse of a different color. His development over the course of the series took him from spoiled, ignorant brat to conniving, influential, evil mini-dictator. Why, just in the course of the five episodes we watched he called the police on his Mother because her low income made him the poorest kid in school...
Every time someone compares a friend of theirs to Cartman, I get a little more scared of living in this world.
Butters
This is what makes Butters fascinating as a character. He implicitly trusts the laws of the world, and has faith in authority figures, no matter how many times he is proven that this trust is unfounded. He's mistreated by his friends, shamed by his family and never quite fits in with the world. None of this seems to bother him. He goes through more pain than any character on the show, but still manages to make it through because he considers pain a temporary occurrence that he must live through.
In "Freak Strike", Butters willingly goes along with the boys' plan to earn cash prizes by committing fraud on a major network TV show, but is greeted by angry parents upon his return. He is sent to his room, but quickly learns that the true freaks who frequent the talk show circuit are looking for him. His instinct is to run away, but he realizes he can't because he's grounded, and running away would lengthen his punishment.
"Moral dilemma!" The Bishop shouted gleefully.
That's the core of Butters' character. He has an uber-strict moral code, and no regard for himself. Even when he tries to go bad, he ends up doing more damage to himself than the world around him. Just as I know people like Cartman, I definitely know people like Butters. Maybe they balance each other out somehow, on the grand scale.
Trey? Matt? Are you Okay?
It stands to reason that after more than ten years of doing a thing, you start to get tired. You have to be passionate about a project to keep it going for that long in the first place, but even the longest candle burns out eventually. Instead of trying to hide their frustration from their audience, instead of churning out low-quality hack work to appease their fans, Parker and Stone channeled their feelings into one episode that broke the hearts of thousands. This was only my second time watching it, and I still felt just as sad and confused as I did after the first viewing.
Made while Parker and Stone were hard at work getting their Broadway musical "The Book of Mormon" off the ground, "You're Getting Old" details Stan's sudden plunge into cynicism and the effect it has on his friends. He's suddenly a drain to be around, he feels he can't enjoy things he used to love, and eventually his friends give up trying to help.
Meanwhile, Stan's parents fight for what feels like the millionth time about a small issue that blossoms into a full-on discussion of their mutual unhappiness, the feeling that they're repeating the same shit over and over, week after week, and the realization that nothing ever changes. This conversation results in their divorce.
Fans went NUTS when this episode aired. The implications were huge. Some thought Parker and Stone might end their season contract early and leave "You're Getting Old" as the series finale.
That didn't happen. Two episodes later, things were back to normal, but the statement had been made. A desire had been expressed to move on, but a commitment had been made to continue working on the show for as long as possible. And its audience now had full knowledge that every episode since was made with craft, care and the certainty that someday, the episodes would stop.
"This is why I can deal with this show," said Paul, a South Park newbie. "I don't like this style of humor, but they're so compelling as filmmakers that I can really get into it."
This is a show that would rather try and fail than phone in anything. That is why it forever has my respect.
Remember...Drugs are Bad. MmmKay?
We raised our glasses in a toast as we slowly watched Mr. Mackey devolve into drug induced madness in "Ike's Wee Wee".
The point of the episode seems to be that recreational drug and alcohol use is made into a bigger deal than it actually is, and that dependence varies on a case by case basis.
We at For Your Inebriation do not actively encourage such abuse. Drugs are bad. Mmmkay? In fact, what are you even doing here? Get off the computer. Read a book.
The Result
Still, if you'd like to tweak the game a bit, here are some rules for you.
Drink whenever you see a shot like this.
Pick a side character. Drink whenever they make an appearence.
South Park has a cast of thousands, and only a handful show up in every episode. We all have favorites, and when a plot centers around one of our favorites, we light up inside. Pay homage to your homies.
Drink for poop jokes.
Good ol' poop jokes.