3. Online Gaming
Episode: Make Love, Not Warcraft We've all had a love affair with online gaming at one point or another; whether it's through everyone's favourite racist insult generator Call of Duty or even the spreadsheet management simulator EVE Online. One that I find quite often divides opinion is World of Warcraft. I used to play this game but soon found that too much of my time was spent in its enjoyable, but admittedly repetitive world. Make Love, Not Warcraft was a brilliant episode for a number of reasons, for one, Blizzard Entertainment actually allowed them to use in-game footage within the narrative and this helped to for a hilarious contrast between the action in the game and the kids that were playing it. While they leveled up online they became Jabba the Hutt sized abominations stuck in Cartman's basement stereotyping of course, but very funny nonetheless. Some of the best jabs at gaming culture came from the Blizzard employees' hyperbolic reactions to the unkillable character within the game. This allowed for Randy to go on a quest to a Best Buy with the Sword of a Thousand Truths and overcome his status as a n00b to save the day. The episode tackles the addictive nature of MMOs like World of Warcraft perfectly. Setting a montage of boar killing and XP grinding to Paul Stanley's Live to Win? Genius.