'South Park' - Season 15 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Apple

Cartman is a person at the extremum of materialism and his low income upbringing was never to his satisfaction. His mother, working multiple jobs, was unable to bring herself to purchase a rather costly Apple product so she tried to get Cartman to compromise; the youngster could have the affordable Toshiba HandiBook rather than the Apple iPad.

This suggestion went down like a sack of the proverbial with Cartman and he consequently started to make obscene allegations regarding his very patient mother.

This is the first, though certainly not the last, reference to the financial status of Cartman's family in season fifteen of this irreverent show.

Answer: Germany

In 'Funnybot', it was Germany's turn to be ridiculed and it was their perceived lack of humour that was put under the spotlight. In this episode, the South Park Special Ed department devised a comedy awards ceremony which the rest of the school wasn't particularly interested in. Attending the show was mandatory however, and so they all voted and watched on as award after award was accepted on behalf of comedians who couldn't make it. The final award was for the country that was deemed to be the "least funny in the world" - it went to Germany! Of course, Germany couldn't attend and so the award was accepted by one of the students on behalf of the European nation. The German government found out about this award though and so they made a "diplomatic" trip to Colorado in order to convince the students of South Park that they had made a terrible mistake.

Ironically, for an episode explicitly about comedy, some television critics, including those of 'Entertainment Weekly', found this episode to be rather lacking in humour.

Answer: Canada

By the time 'South Park' had reached its fifteenth series, I am sure Canadians from British Columbia to Nova Scotia were very much used to, and perhaps even flattered by, the attention given to the nation by the franchise. Examples of such attention include the peculiar head structure of the Canadian 'South Park' characters, the 'blame Canada' meme (from the film) and the truly fictional peculiarities of a Canadian royal wedding.

The latter is the subject of 'Royal Pudding', an episode which followed Ike Broflovski's nationalistic adventure to his homeland. I don't know what else to say "aboot" this episode apart from watch it and enjoy!

Answer: Dr Janus

Dr Janus was named after the figure from Roman mythology - Janus, the God of Beginnings and Endings. The common depiction of Janus is of two faces, one facing forward and the other looking back. In "City Sushi", which is not one of the most memorable of the season's episodes, Butters picks up a job distributing flyers for, you guessed it, a new sushi restaurant.

This starts an "Asian turf war" between the owners of the new restaurant and the proprietors of the existing Japanese eatery. Butters gets caught up in the dispute and was sent home by the fuzz.

His parents couldn't blame themselves for Butters "misdemeanours" as they declared themselves "awesome". To try and find out what was wrong, Butters was sent to Dr Janus, a therapist, who of course arrives at a diagnosis of multiple personality disorder (it couldn't really have been any other condition!).

Answer: The Police

This episode is all about growing up, mid-life crises and unresolved frustration. This theme was explored by using Stan's tenth birthday as the framing device; he received a CD (oh, how times move on!) of songs from a band making their way in the maligned fictional genre, though loved by the youth, "tween wave". Stan was initially prohibited from listening to it after his parents privately played the music and heard the sounds of flatulence and other bathroom noises. The 'South Park' adults were listening to the same songs on that CD as their kids but were hearing completely different sounds. This was a not so subtle foray by the writers into the meme of adults not liking the music popular amongst the youth.

The parents of the 'South Park' youngsters suggested that music by The Police would be far preferable, but to the kids this style of music sounded like flatulence. Stan listened to the "tween wave" music on the sly but was perplexed when he heard something akin to a bathroom symphony! Stan was at a turning point in his life, his tastes were changing but in that transition everything was, to him, "crap".

Answer: Burgers

The eighth episode of this season of 'South Park' was rather crudely named "Ass Burgers", which reflects Cartman's misunderstanding of the word Asperger. Cartman tried to convince the school that he had Asperger Syndrome by storing burgers in his pants.

He proceeded to give one of those burgers to his friend, Kyle, who loved the taste! This prompted Cartman to turn this offering into a business.

Answer: Wicked

'Broadway Bro Down', how to write about the content of this 'South Park' episode and comply with FunTrivia rules? The only solution - pretend 99% of the episode didn't happen! To be as bland as I can about it, Randy wanted to be more...randy, and the subtext of musicals was apparently the way to go about it. Moving swiftly on to 'Wicked'...

'Wicked' is the fantastic musical that looks at Oz through the lens of the witches rather than the more traditional perspective of Dorothy Gale. The Stephen Schwartz musical is known for songs such as 'Defying Gravity', which features at the end of the first act. Stephen Schwartz was characterised in 'Broadway Bro Down' alongside the likes of Stephen Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Answer: Physical Education

'South Park' often used the physical characteristics of its animated characters to generate some great comedy and contemporary social commentary; '1%' focussed more on the social commentary than the comedy. In this episode, Cartman finds himself isolated when he was considered so bad at physical education that the entire school was dragged down from an overall average performance to being the worst in the country! The rest of the students of South Park Elementary were distinctly unimpressed leaving Cartman feeling alienated and part of the 1% of society being oppressed by the 99%. This, of course, was a deliberate inversion by the show's writers of the 1% / 99% wealth and power dynamic that was very much in the spotlight, particularly in the West, after the 2008 financial crisis.

I sympathise with Cartman, I always had a note to excuse myself from physical education whether it was genuine or not!

Answer: History

'A History Channel Thanksgiving' was a confused episode with random forays into the 'Thor' franchise and the peculiar inclusion of Natalie Portman. Perhaps however, this confusion and randomness was meant to pillory History (formerly History Channel) and one of its most absurd programmes, 'Ancient Aliens'.

In this episode, Kyle, Cartman and gang decide to use History as the source for their assignment about the origins of Thanksgiving. No surprise that the channel suggests that the existence of Thanksgiving is down to aliens! Before you know it, the 'South Park' regulars were appearing on History as experts on the topic!

Answer: Yes

Season 15 of 'South Park' was brought to a close with an episode about wealth, or rather a lack thereof, and agnosticism. Kenny's parents get involved in the drug industry and as a consequence Kenny is sent into the care of another family and had to move to another school. This family are very strongly agnostic and the only thing that they could be certain of, or would allow any of the children under their care to be certain of, is that you cannot be certain of anything! This is illustrated by their assertion, though riddled with an appropriate level of doubt, that God could be a "giant reptilian bird".

When Kenny moves schools, Cartman became the poorest kid in South Park Elementary and gets bullied for this...mainly by himself! Kenny meets a grizzly end, as he so often did, by being eaten by, of all things, a "giant reptilian bird"!