Comedy Central show spoofs SM
SANTA MONICA PIER Few subjects are spared from the cutting satire of “South Park,” including the homelessness issue in Santa Monica.
Having already poked fun at hot-button topics such as teacher-student trysts, Scientology and homosexuality, “South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, whose productions are based in Los Angeles, took direct aim at Santa Monica and its long-standing homeless problem in the season finale.
“Night of the Living Homeless” centers around a new homeless epidemic overtaking South Park, Colo., the fictional setting for the Comedy Central cartoon. The four main characters — Stan, Kyle, Kenny and Cartman — learn that a nearby city had experienced a similar influx of homeless and had chased its down-and-out population to neighboring South Park by creating a brochure advertising it as a friendly city to the less fortunate.
The four young boys decide to lead the homeless away from their hometown to California. Driving a bus to the “Park Community Center,” presumably the “South Park Community Center,” the boys engage in their own rendition of “California Love,” altering the Tupac Shakur song to incorporate a message that “California is super cool to the homeless.”
The episode ends with the homeless marching to the Westside communities of Brentwood, Marina del Rey, Venice and Santa Monica. The last scenes depict the Santa Monica Pier sign and Palisades Park, where Cartman jumps his skateboard over three homeless men sleeping on the grass — a running gag throughout the episode.
The episode premiered on April 18, with no rebroadcast date scheduled as of Wednesday. Select clips from the show can be found on YouTube.com and the entire episode can be downloaded on iTunes.
New episodes of “South Park” will return in October, said Jenni Runyan, spokeswoman for Comedy Central.
Santa Monica City Councilwoman Pam O’Connor was channel-surfing on Sunday when she stopped at “South Park.” A fan of the cartoon, O’Connor laughed throughout the episode chock full of references to her city.
“As soon as I started the episode, I said ‘OK, I have a feeling the boys are going to work Santa Monica in,’” O’Connor said of Parker and Stone. “I chuckled when I saw images that clearly communicated Palisades Park, one that clearly was the (pier) sign.”
Neither Parker nor Stone were available for comment.
Santa Monica has always had a reputation for absorbing a large homeless population, but would the new episode give the perception to those who are unfamiliar with the city that it is a place where “lots of rich people” give change to the homeless?
“In the city, city of Santa Monica... lots of rich people, giving change to the homeless.”
“I think the homeless people here in Santa Monica are here for many of the same reasons everyone wants to be in Santa Monica,” said John Maceri, executive director of Ocean Park Community Center, a social service center in the city. “The weather is nice, it’s a relatively safe community and it’s easy to get around on foot.”
Maceri has not seen the “South Park” episode in question, but believes there is a perception among some people that the city is “nice” to its homeless population.
“I think the city is a destination for all kinds of people — tourists, visitors, people coming for recreation, people who work here and who can’t afford to live here,” he said.
“It’s not just because the city is nice to homeless people.”
Councilman Bob Holbrook received a phone call from his son recently that he should watch the episode. Calling himself “more of a ‘Saturday Night Live’ person,” Holbrook had never watched an entire episode of “South Park,” catching a few segments here and there.
“It started out kind of funny,” he said.“By the time it was finished, I was kind of rolling my eyes a little bit. Some people told me it was typical ‘South Park’ stuff.”
Holbrook was taken back by the violence in the episode, including a scene where a homeless researcher shoots himself repeatedly in the head.
“We do not allow skateboarders jumping over the homeless,” Holbrook joked.“I think they are going to have pay us some residuals on (the pier sign).”
The city has been a friendly place for the homeless, perhaps even more so than Los Angeles, which has an even larger homeless population, Holbrook remarked.
“There’s a lot of messages in that half hour, but we haven’t advertised for the homeless to come to Santa Monica or led a march to Santa Monica,” he said.
While depicting the homeless as “change”-hungry zombies could be offensive to some, viewers should understand that “South Park”is a show that has killed off one of its main characters, Kenny, repeatedly over the years, and set a record for using the word “shit” 162 times in one episode, commented Mayor Richard Bloom.
In fact,“nothing is sacred to the writers of South Park,” he said, including gay marriage and child abuse.
“South Park is a source my son and his peers pay attention to,” Bloom said. “So this episode may put to rest an argument he and I had last week after I insisted that Santa Monica is nationally famous and he said we are not.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 26, 2007. Read the original PDF.