8 Most Cowardly Times TV Writers Copped Out

4. South Park - Eric Cartman's Dad

During South Park's early years, one of the biggest questions ran thus €“ who is Cartman's father? All the other boys seemed to have one, except for everyone's favourite fat sociopath. And although the parental character void was well and truly filled by Cartman's Mom (who contrary to her unassuming appearance was possibly the sickest and most sexually depraved characters on the show) the question remained. Even the endless parade of 'your mom' jokes can grow stale eventually, and to their credit Matt Stone and Trey Parker seemed prepared to answer one of the show's biggest questions inside the first season with the episode 'Cartman's Mom Is A Dirty Slut.' The provocative title gave us the whole episode in a nutshell €“ all the menfolk of the town with whom Liane Cartman had had relations were lined up and hinted at as the father. Whether it was a Native American chief, Mr. Garrison, Chef, the entire 1989 Denver Broncos squad or even Jesus, just about everyone got a turn in the sun as the potential Cartman paterfamilias. Cartman was subjected to a DNA test by South Park's resident Marlon Brando lookalike Dr. Mephesto, but because the test cost money Cartman and the boys needed to collect it, the question was stretched across an episode. Then they went one further, with the narrator promising us that that next week we would see who exactly was Cartman's father. Up to that point it was all fine €“ the episode had given us a more tender look at Cartman's psyche (if such a thing is possible) while keeping up the laugh rate with an endless precession of Ms. Cartman's dance partners. But then came the next episode €“ 'Terrance and Phillip In Not Without My Anus'. This episode had precisely sod all to do with the previous cliffhanger, and €“ in a rare exception among this list, the writers knew it. Instead of giving us dramatic resolution, the show moved onto an adventure starring Canada's favourite farting comedians and their attempt to thwart Saddam Hussein's invasion of Canada. What with the April Fool's Day airdate, we all should've seen it coming. But still, while you've got to give Parker and Stone credit for utterly committing to the April Fools bit, there was still a question to be answered and the show put off the Cartman cliffhanger until the next episode €“ 'Cartman's Mom Is Still A Dirty Slut.' Yet this was where the cop-out happened €“ after weeks of baiting the audience, Parker and Stone decided to throw a collective screw-it and refused to tell us the elusive gentleman's identity. It was first done in a subtle (by South Park standards) way as a similar 'Who Shot Dr Mephesto' mystery took over when the good doctor bit the bullet just before giving out the fabled results. But as time went on it was made clear that the writers had no intention of telling you the answer to the question which they'd hooked you in with, with Cartman going so far as to yell that he didn't want to know at the camera and the ever-present whodunnit narrator. When he eventually did get an answer, it was intentionally half-assed one which raised further questions €“ Liane Cartman was in fact Cartman's dad (because apparently, she's now a hermaphrodite), and now the mother is unknown. Sure, it was a clever cop-out as cop-outs go, but it remains cowardly because the writers knew that whatever they came up with couldn't possibly sate audience demand. So taking a route Sherlock would years later, they instead satirised that demand and ripped the p*ss out of their audience with something self-referentially bizarre and anti-climactic. It was clever but gutting, and a first peek at how far the South Park guys would go in their quest to troll the audience. But still, this one smarted €“ we wanted something good, and instead they went with farting Canadians. I know the episode's got its fans and we eventually learnt that Cartman's dad was eventually Jack Tenorman, father of Scott, but at the time, this was brutal.