re: South Park Episode 18-9 "#REHASH"

quote:

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Calling out the writers would make them raise their own standards for a successful show and improve the overall content

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Because Trey Parker reads these threads?

Personally, though I've enjoyed the season, I think the show has become an ad for video games. It has been for a while now, from the Wii episode to Kenny and the PSP episode to the console wars trilogy last year to half the episodes this season. The ads that run during the breaks are for video games, snack food and Buzz colas, so they're obviously selling to this demographic.

The only episode this season that I thought was really weak was cock magic. Yes, Randy was funny for the pure lowbrow value of it, but the episode seemed to be a strained effort to create a story around Magic the Gathering, the most popular board game in the world.

This show and Tarantino movies are pretty much the last remnants of my youthful, 90's Gen X coolness, but if all they're interested in doing in selling people video games, they may as well hang it up.

Fwiw, I think Trey Parker is one of the most brilliant comedy writers in television history, but product placement is a box in which no real artist can truly thrive, and in which a satirist is effectively betraying his own efforts.