Cartman Joins NAMBLA

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South Park episode
"Cartman Joins NAMBLA"
Cartman becomes the NAMBLA poster child.
Episode no.	53
Airdate	June 21, 2000
South Park - Season 4 April 5, 2000 – December 20, 2000
Cartman's Silly Hate Crime 2000 The Tooth Fairy Tats 2000 Quintuplets 2000 Timmy 2000 Pip Cartman Joins NAMBLA Cherokee Hair Tampons Chef Goes Nanners Something You Can Do with Your Finger Do the Handicapped Go to Hell? Probably 4th Grade Trapper Keeper Helen Keller! The Musical Fat Camp The Wacky Molestation Adventure A Very Crappy Christmas
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List of all South Park episodes

"Cartman Joins NAMBLA" is episode 406 of South Park. It originally aired on June 21, 2000.

[edit] Synopsis

Cartman decides he is too mature to be with Stan, Kyle, and Kenny, so he decides to look for older male friends in an Internet chat room. He stumbles upon the topic "Men Who Like Young Boys" and decides to talk to some eager men who want to be friends with him. In reality, they are sexually attracted to young boys.

Meanwhile, Kenny's parents are trying for another baby. Kenny doesn't like the idea, so, while playing catch with his father, throws the ball at his dad's testes.

The next day Cartman meets Tony316, who is arrested for soliciting sex from a minor, then, the day after, to Cartman's surprise, "Mr. Hammerhead" turns out to be Mr. Garrison who is also arrested. Cartman, being too naïve to know what's really going on, concludes that Stan and Kyle are behind this.

Kenny slips abortion pills in his mom's vodka, but his dad accidentally drinks it instead and gets heavy diarrhea. After seeing a commercial for an amusement park ride, (The John Denver Experience) informing that pregnant women should not ride, he goes with his parents where Kenny's dad nose is broken. Finally, tired of his failed attempts, Kenny chases his mom through the town with a plunger.

Dr. Mephisto advises Cartman to join NAMBLA, saying "you look about right." Cartman joins and becomes poster boy for the North American Man/Boy Love Association, and a banquet is thrown in his honor with all the boys in town invited.

The police raid a meeting of Dr. Mephisto's organization, but it is a mistake (this group is the National Association of Marlon Brando Look Alikes, who are not affiliated with the North American Man/Boy Love Association). They rush to stop the other NAMBLA's banquet.

All the boys in town are there; however, when the men take them to their hotel rooms, the boys realize what it really is, and a chase ensues. The NAMBLA men and Mr. McCormick finally end up in a dark room, and they "make love to him in the ass" thinking he's a boy. In the end, all of the NAMBLA people are arrested, and despite their leader's so-called impassioned speech about rights to all people, they're all taken away. Kenny is run over by the ambulance taking his father to the hospital, and afterwards, Mrs. McCormick gives birth to an identical child they name Kenny. Mrs. McCormick claims this is the 52nd time such has happened, a humorous explanation of Kenny's death and reappearance between the 53 episodes aired at the time.

[edit] Incidental Music

• The song playing during the chase scene is 'Page d'écriture' by Yves Montand.
• The music playing during the "North Park Funland" commercial is the same music from the commercials for "Wild Wacky Action Bike" and "Alabama Man" on the season 3 episode, Chinpokomon.

[edit] Goofs

• In the opening scene where the boys are playing the Bill Kurtis-themed version of Monopoly, Kurtis's name is spelled correctly on the actual board. However, it is spelled incorrectly (as 'Curtis') on the box for the game.
• There was no plunger in the bathroom when Stewart went in after getting sick from the vodka/chocolate milk/abortion pill concoction, but the plunger appears when Kenny wakes up from his second nightmare and decides to kill the unborn baby himself.
• Stewart's cap is missing the "Scotch" insignia when he, Carol, and Kenny are riding The John Denver Experience.
• Carol McCormick's (Kenny's mom) T-shirt message switches from "God Bless America" to "I'm With Stupid" throughout the episode (except for the John Denver Experience sequence, where Carol's T-shirt was solid green with no message written on it).
• The bandage on Stuart's crotch (from when Kenny hit him there when they were playing catch) is not shown in the scene where Kenny goes after his mom with the plunger (and all scenes after that).
• In the sequence with The John Denver Experience, the soundtrack makes it sound like everyone was screaming, but the McCormicks (Kenny's family) were the only ones reacting to the bumpy ride.
• Kenny is watching the North Park Funland commercial on a TV that has color, but in the season two episode "Chickenpox", Kenny's dad says that they have a black and white TV with a ColecoVision console plugged in (the ColecoVision console appears in this episode in a brief shot of Kenny begging his dad to play catch with him). They could've gotten a new color TV, though.

[edit] Trivia

• The studio where Cartman gets his picture taken for NAMBLA, The Photo Dojo, was first seen on the season one episode Tom's Rhinoplasty.
• The British channel, SkyOne, has banned this episode from showing due to the strong pedophilia references in the main plot (and the subplot being centered on Kenny killing his mom's unborn child). The Paramount Comedy Channel and Channel 4, however, have aired this episode and it does appear on the UK DVD release of South Park's fourth season.
• In the scene where Cartman is talking to Clyde Frog about where he should meet new friends, there is a photo of Cartman with Bill Clinton on the wall above the computer.
• The second time Cartman enters the chat room after his first failed meeting, amongst the many messages we can see "r u reading these?" "Get a life" "You're treading a line" and "This is gay".
• The chat rooms on Cartman's computer are:
  • Cat People
  • Gleaming the Cube
  • Joel Schumacher Must Die
  • Meat Lovers
  • Men Who Like Young Boys (the one Cartman chooses)
  • Teen Steam
  • United Anarchists

[edit] Pop Culture References

• The dream that Kenny has its a spoof of the cult classic "It's Alive".
• The chase through the hallway is reminiscent of those on the Hanna-Barbera cartoon Scooby Doo (and its many rip-offs, such as Josie and the Pussycats and "The Clue Club").
• The sounds of the screaming people on The John Denver Experience sound similar to the screams heard on the computer game "Roller Coaster Tycoon".