South Park is perhaps the most misunderstood show out there: it is seen generally as a potty-mouthed immature comedy made by a pair of bullies, but in fact it is a potty-mouthed immature comedy filled with deep political and social insight. It is also a show that critiques modern day life more thoroughly and interestingly than any other show before or since made by a pair of evil geniuses.
The animated comedy crosses the lines of convention combining highly adult themes and jokes with a childish animation style as well as telling stories from the points of view of the mostly-innocent children, to add a gloriously inappropriate perspective to some of the more colourful themes.
All in all, South Park is a unique show with over two hundred brilliant episodes but we count down today a compelling, exciting and undeniably subjective list of the 15 best of those episodes.
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15. Trapped In The Closet
Season 9 Episode 12 Character Of The Week Either R Kelly or Tom Cruise - both spoofs voiced by Trey Parker to such ridiculous extremes that they are frankly hilarious. Tom Cruise's whiny schoolboy voice is put to good use as he petulantly refuses to come out of Stan's bed room closet and the bland song that R Kelly sings repeatedly instead of talking is a sharp side-swipe at his notoriously awful opera by the same name as the episode. Cartman's Wisdom "Stan, don't you know the first law of physics? Anything that's fun costs at least 8 dollars." Celebrities Tarnished L. Ron Hubbard, Tom Cruise, John Travolta and R Kelly. Why This Episode Is So Good This episode is a bit of a famous one, and it caused a lot of uproar upon its release. Isaac Hayes left the show due to the show-runners mocking Scientology and Tom Cruise held his contribution to the promotion of Mission Impossible III to ransom (allegedly) over one of the episode's jokes made at his expense. All of the behind-the-scenes commotion has come to improve the episode, not only promoting it in a way that the advertising reps at Comedy Central couldn't have dreamed but also because the final shot of a defiant Stan yelling at cartoon Cruise and his Scientology-buddies to 'Sue me! I don't care! Go on just sue me!' has come to be a case of life reflecting art. It's South Park stirring at its best. This episode is a very funny affair, it deserves points for the amount of things that it makes fun of all at once: Tom Cruise's sexuality and religion; John Travolta's voice, flamboyancy and Scientologist-beliefs, and the same for R Kelly, with added jabs at his terrible musical. The best joke really comes down to the leader of Scientology explaining to Stan what he believes as the words 'THIS IS WHAT SCIENTOLOGISTS REALLY BELIEVE' are shown on the bottom of the screen.