South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut

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This page is dedicated to Mary Kay Bergman and Isaac Hayes, who died on November 11th, 1999 (Bergman) and August 10th, 2008 (Hayes). May they Rest In Peace.

South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut It's Not Just Another Day at the Park Genre: Adult animation Comedy Musical Directed By: Trey Parker Produced By: Trey Parker Matt Stone Written By: Trey Parker Matt Stone Pam Brady Based On: South Park by Trey Parker and Matt Stone Starring: Trey Parker Matt Stone Mary Kay Bergman Isaac Hayes Distributed By: Paramount Pictures (North America) Warner Bros. Pictures (International) Release Date: June 30, 1999 Runtime: 81 minutes Country: United States Language: English Budget: $21 million Box Office: $83.1 million Franchise: South Park Sequel: South Park: Post COVID (2021)

South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut is a 1999 American adult animated musical black comedy film based on the Comedy Central animated television series South Park. The film was directed by series creator Trey Parker and stars the regular television cast of Parker, Matt Stone, Mary Kay Bergman, and Isaac Hayes, with guest performances by George Clooney, Brent Spiner, Eric Idle, and Mike Judge. It had gone through a troubled development, with Trey Parker and Matt Stone fighting against the MPAA over the film's rating, eventually changing from NC-17 to R. South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut is Comedy Central's only theatrically released animated feature film. It was released theatrically in the United States and Canada on June 30, 1999, by Paramount Pictures, with Warner Bros. Pictures handling international distribution, until around 2013.

Plot

Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, and his adopted brother Ike, Eric Cartman, and Kenny McCormick are denied entry into the new Terrance and Phillip film, Asses of Fire so they pay a homeless man to accompany them. After watching the film, the boys begin swearing constantly. Their friends are impressed and also decide to see the film, except for Wendy Testaburger, who becomes acquainted with transfer student Gregory, to Stan's jealousy.

The parents find out but fail to keep them from seeing the film multiple times. As a bet with Cartman, Kenny sets his flatulence on fire, imitating a scene from the film; he accidentally immolates himself and succumbs to a heart transplant failure in the hospital. Barred from Heaven, Kenny descends into Hell, wherein he encounters Satan and his abusive partner Saddam Hussein. Meanwhile, Kyle's mother, Sheila, forms the Mothers Against Canada (M.A.C.) movement with other parents. Terrance and Phillip are arrested as war criminals; when the United States refuses to release them, Canada bombs the Baldwins in retaliation. The US declares war on Canada and arranges to have Terrance and Phillip executed during a USO show. After insulting Sheila, Cartman is implanted with a V-chip, which administers an electric shock whenever he swears.

Satan prophesies that the war is a sign of the apocalypse and upon Terrance and Phillip's deaths, he will invade and conquer Earth. After failing to persuade Satan to abandon Saddam, Kenny's ghost visits Cartman to warn him. Unable to reason with their mothers, Stan, Kyle, and Cartman form a resistance movement with their classmates to rescue Terrance and Phillip. At Gregory's behest, they recruit the French-accented, misotheistic Cristophe, nicknamed "the Mole." Kyle later hides Ike in their family's attic as Canadians are sent to internment camps. After they infiltrate the show, Stan and Kyle are tasked with stalling the execution, while Cartman attempts to deactivate the alarm as the Mole prepares to secure Terrance and Phillip. However, Kenny's ghost reappears before Cartman, frightening him into forgetting his task. The Mole is discovered and fatally mauled by guard dogs.

The remaining boys try to warn their mothers about Satan's prophecy but are ignored as the execution commences. The execution is interrupted when Canada launches a surprise attack, resulting in a massive battle between the two armies. Cartman deactivates the electrical switch, allowing Terrance and Phillip to escape; the shock from the switch causes his V-chip to malfunction. Stan chases after them but is knocked out in an explosion. Members of M.A.C., horrified at what they incited, decide to abandon their cause, with only Sheila remaining committed.

Stan reawakens before a sentient clitoris, who tells him to be self-confident to gain Wendy's affection. Stan leads the others to Terrance and Phillip, whom the US Army has cornered. The children form a human shield as Kyle tries to reason with Sheila, faulting her for scapegoating others for his mistakes. While the soldiers begin to back down, Sheila refuses and shoots and kills Terrance and Phillip, then Saddam demands that everyone bow to Satan and insults Cartman, the latter's retort releases bolts of energy from his hands. Subsequently, Cartman engages in profanity-laden tirades to attack Saddam, who continues to verbally abuse Satan who becomes enraged and throws Saddam back into Hell, where he is impaled on a stalagmite.

Grateful for Kenny's support, Satan grants him one wish. Kenny wishes for everything to return to a pre-war state, and parts with his friends before disappearing. South Park is restored as the casualties, including Terrance and Phillip, are undone. As Americans and Canadians make peace, Sheila reconciles with Kyle, as does Wendy with Stan. For his sacrifice, Kenny is allowed entry into heaven.

Why It's Indeed Bigger, Longer & Uncut

1. The plot of the film is incredibly creative and is quite different from other animated films at the time, and also takes some very bold steps as well. While it does revolve around the protagonists having to save the world from a threat, in this case, stop the war between Canada and prevent Satan's coming, it is also very ridiculous in all other aspects. Having the war between Canada and the U.S. being brought out by a disagreement over freedom of speech is a pretty good and hilarious idea on paper, and it executes well as a major plot point for the film's story. There are also other unique aspects, such as having a very different portrayal of Satan (see below), mocking the film industry, and taking large freedom with the R-rating by having lots of swearing and going into much more mature territory, that ends up being surprisingly well-written and incredibly funny, while also acting as a great social commentary.
2. Related to the above, this film covers a couple of controversial topics throughout, with the main plot of the movie being based on these, and does so in a way that is both humorous and well handled behind the comedic wrapping.
   • One of the main themes of the movie is the issues with censorship and how, while portrayed more comically in the film, will do a lot more harm than good. After the four kids see the R-rated movie, Kyle's mom, Sheila Broflovski, gets incredibly concerned over the kid's newfound vocabulary, and eventually gets the parents of South Park to censor the movie, which eventually leads to a war against Canada over the freedom of speech. The film shows that overly protecting children from stuff that isn't appropriate by outright removing it altogether will have disastrous consequences.
   • The issues of moral guardians are also portrayed in the film in both a comedic and serious way. The parents in the film are working against the source of what is influencing the kids, Canada in the film's case, rather than working to monitor what their kids are doing and watching. This is also related to the censorship theme, as monitoring what your kids are doing will help them grow, rather than removing it entirely and forcing them to learn about what's not okay a lot later than they should.
   • The hypocrisy of the MPAA and age ratings are also dealt with and parodied in the film, with references to the fact that people are more sensitive to swearing than they are too graphic violence, with the line, "we can't believe that a film with foul language would piss you off so much", being spoken by the Canadian ambassador early on.
3. The animation is a big step up from the animation of the show at the time, and while it does look outdated compared to the newer seasons of the show, it still looks impressive today and has aged very well in terms of its look and feel. It still maintains the intentionally bad animation style of the show, the film even mocks this in an early scene after the first song, but also expands upon it by setting up a larger scale for the scenes, with examples of these including the war scenes and the use of many background characters in the song numbers, with, "Blame Canada", and, "I'm Super". Some impressive shots were created using the style, such as Cartman's final attack in his battle against Saddam Hussein. The animation style itself also does a very good job of mimicking a paper-cutout style, with the characters looking like they were made using different types of construction paper and the use of drop shadows also evokes that equally well.
4. There are a lot of great scenes throughout.
   • As mentioned above, the segments for some of the songs, with a special mention going to, "Blame Canada", are very large in scale and perfectly showcase the fact that the film is a lot more than just an extended episode of the show. All of the musical numbers are a big highlight of the film.
   • The scene where the kids try out the new swear words they learned from Terrance and Phillip in the classroom is very funny.
   • The movie has one of the best Kenny deaths of the franchise, with Kenny dying by first getting set on fire and getting salt poured on him by a recently crashed truck, and then getting into the hospital with doctors who don't know what they are doing, and finally dying of getting his heart replaced with a baked potato.
     • On the subject of Kenny, we finally get to see his real face and hear his actual voice at the end of the movie.
   • Cartman's battle against Saddam Hussein is quite memorable and exciting to watch, even if it is a little short, and looks as if it is parodying the style of animation used in anime films and shows, and the shot of Cartman's final attack looks amazing despite the limitations of the movie's animation style.
5. As mentioned in the overview, the film is a musical, as a way to parody the Disney renaissance films that were being released at the time. While such a thing would normally turn off fans of the show from the movie, the film is still very enjoyable to even people who don't like those kinds of films. The best way to describe the soundtrack is that it has a lot of memorability to it, and all of the tunes and lyrics are very catchy and hilarious at times. It includes the cast of the film singing songs that progress parts of the story and is incredibly fun to listen to.
   • Some of the songs are also very well-done parodies of other songs and musicals in terms of how they were written. Examples of this would include "Mountain Town", which was made to parody songs from Beauty and the Beast and Oklahoma! by introducing the setting and characters of the film, "La Résistance (Medley)" being similar to songs from Les Misérables, which, "Up There", and, "I Can Change", being similar to songs from The Little Mermaid, and, "Kyle's Mom's a Bitch", is similar to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
6. The humor in the film has aged incredibly well by today's standards, and is even better and more relevant now than back in 1999, with the rise of social justice culture and increasing amounts of censorship in modern works. This also makes the comedic aspects of the film more appealing to a larger audience and is a testament to how smartly written the movie is, and even without those aspects of the humor, the movie is still incredibly hilarious.
   • The entire plot point of how a simple argument over allowing bad words in movies eventually leads to a full-scale war over censorship and freedom of speech is already a ridiculous and hilarious premise, and moments such as the bombing of the Baldwins and the scene where Terrance and Phillip are arrested on public television help make the plot even more ridiculous and funny to watch.
   • Other humorous moments are inside the songs themselves, such as the ridiculous, "What Would Brian Boitano Do?", song, which portrays the Olympic skater as some sort of superhero. Its randomness and overall lyrics of how the skater doing crazy and random things, such as traveling to the year 3010 to save the world again or fighting Kublai Khan in Egypt, make the song even more funny.
   • While it could get tiring to some viewers, the constant swearing is pretty funny at times, such as the scene where the kids walk out of the movie theater swearing, the song, "Kyle's Mom's a Bitch", and Cartman's battle against Saddam Hussein are pretty funny, even after watching the movie multiple times, and are good examples of how to make swearing in media funny.
7. The new characters introduced in the movie are very well written, and there is some new depth added to some of the existing ones.
   • Sheila Broflovski goes through character development and starts as a great, "villain", character and is expanded from her role as a mother in the show. While her main goal of what she is doing is understandable, to make the world a better and safer place for children, she immediately goes way too far with this motivation and creates an organization that goes against the Canadians just because Terrance and Phillip's movie wasn't appropriate for younger audiences, and leads to the aforementioned war against Canada. However, she ends up realizing her mistakes near the end of the movie and reconciles with Kyle for not taking the time to be with him when he needs her.
   • Satan's depiction in this film is very interesting from his versions in other media. While he is at first portrayed as an evil torturer for the damned, we quickly learn that he doesn't like living in Hell and wants to know what it is like to live on the Earth above. He is also going through a troubled homosexual relationship with Saddam Hussein and is frustrated at the fact that it is very hard to communicate with him. This depiction of Satan is pretty sympathetic, and almost makes the viewer feel bad for the prince of darkness.
   • Christophe Ze Mole is also introduced here and is a hardcore child spy, who acts much more mature and serious for a person his age. He frequently expresses his distaste for life and religion and is also pretty enigmatic. He also had the potential to be a recurring character for the show, even though he died after getting very little screen time, see, "Bad Qualities #7".
8. Many great and memorable quotes throughout, such as:
   • Eric, did you just say the F-word?
   • How would you like to suck my balls?
   • I'm sorry, I can't help myself. That movie has warped my fragile little mind.
   • Men, when you're out there in the battlefield and you're looking into the beady eyes of a Canadian as he charges you with his hockey stick or whatever he has and people are dying all around you, just remember what the MPAA says: "Horrific, deplorable violence is okay, as long as people don't say any naughty words!" That is what this war is all about!
   • Careful? Was my mother careful when she stabbed me in the heart with a clothes hanger while I was still in the womb?
   • Come on, guy!
   • Oh, good job, Mrs. Broflovski! Thanks a lot!
9. The voice acting in the film is pretty good, with the entire main cast of the show, mostly including Parker and Stone voicing the characters they played in the show, being in the film, along with guest appearances from Eric Idle, Brent Spiner (who portrayed Lieutenant Commander Data in the Star Trek film series, and Dr. Brackish Okun in the Independence Day duology) and Mike Judge (who portrayed Hank Hill in King of the Hill, and the titular characters in Beavis and Butt-Head). All of the voice cast put a lot of personality into the characters they are playing, from the high-pitched voice Parker uses for Stan, to the accent Eric Idle puts in for Dr. Vosknocker, all of the voices are incredibly expressive.
   • Even more amazing is the fact that both Parker and Stone voice a combined total of 31 main characters while also providing some background voices. This is quite impressive, especially because all of the characters' voices sound different from each other.
10. The film's length and pacing are well handled, with the film being just long enough to tell the story it wants to tell, while also not being so long that it becomes long and drawn out. There is a very noticeable lack of any kind of annoying filler in all of the scenes, and all parts of each scene make sense with each other in terms of story relevance. Everything progressively transitions well, as each scene is perfectly lengthened enough without being overly long.
11. The commercial and critical success of the film led to the South Park series being saved from the possibility of cancellation and declining quality and was the main reason why the series still exists and going strong today.

Bad Qualities

1. While making a South Park movie was an excellent idea, it may have been done way too early, as it was released 2 years after the series started. Although the show was indeed popular at the time of its release, it became even more relevant in pop culture in the 2000s-onwards. Imagine if they had made the movie now, with everything that has happened in these last two decades and everything that they could've satirized and mocked.
2. The movie can be unintentionally racist and disrespectful to actual Canadians at times, such as with the "aboot", joke. What makes it even more insulting is that Mary Kay Bergman, Sheila Broflovski's voice actress, was good friends with Tara Strong, who is Canadian herself.
   • Also, even though it was just a coincidence, and not unintentional either, the film makes several references and allusions to World War II, the Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan, and the holocaust, which can be very racist and distasteful to certain audiences.
3. While the movie is for the most part still very funny today, there are a few jokes in the movie that are references that have not aged well and have lost relevance for a modern audience, such as the Bryan Adams joke, and possibly the Brian Boitano song.
4. The swearing in the movie can feel very excessive at times and can get annoying to some audiences. The movie has a Guinness world record for the most swear words in an animated movie, totaling 399. One more, and the movie would have gotten an NC-17 rating.
5. Some extremely graphic images, like Kenny's surgery, and Saddam Hussein's death, can make some viewers feel very uneasy.
6. Plot hole: How did the kids just learn the swears from watching the Terrance and Phillip movie, when they swore all the time in the show?
7. Christophe Ze Mole is mauled to death by a pack of guard dogs after getting only 15 minutes of screentime. He was a great character who could've made more appearances in the series.
8. The plot of the film was inspired by the season 1 episode, "Death", with both that episode, and this film being about Sheila getting upset over what the kids are watching, and going out to destroy the source. Therefore, the film can feel more of a remake or rehash of that episode at times, more so in the first half.
9. Kyle's mom, Sheila Broflovski, can be very unlikable, and annoying, since she acts very racist against Canada, and constantly rants about how Canadians are supposedly corrupting children with vulgar language, and inappropriate media. She and the other parents of South Park are huge hypocrites, not only because they were guilty of doing a lot of the same things the Canadians were doing, a lot more than them in this case, but also because Sheila's youngest son and Kyle's adopted baby brother, Ike, is Canadian himself. To make matters worse, she even almost unintentionally destroys the world with her mortal outrage, when she kills Terrance and Phillip by shooting them, which summons Satan and Saddam Hussein from hell. However, she does show remorse at the end of the movie and apologizes for what she did.

Reception

Box office

South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut opened up at #3 on its opening weekend with a domestic gross of $11,335,889, behind Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace and Tarzan. The total domestic gross was $52,037,603. In foreign markets, the film made $31,100,000. Overall, the film made a total gross of $83,137,603 against its $21 million budget, and would make it the highest-grossing R-rated animated film at the time.

Critical Response

South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut received mostly positive reviews from critics while gaining almost critical acclaim from audiences and fans of the series. As of 2021, the movie has an aggregated approval score of 80% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 93 reviews, with the critical consensus that "its jokes are profoundly bold and rude, but incredibly funny at the same time." The film also has an overall audience score of 88% based on over 250,000 reviews. On IMDb, the film has a total user score of 7.7/10. On review aggregator Metacritic, the film has a combined critical score of 73% based on 31 critical reviews, indicating positive reviews. Richard Corliss on Time gave the film a positive review, stating that, "you may laugh yourself sick–as sick as this ruthlessly funny movie is." He would later state that South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut was his 5th favorite animated film of all time. The Washington Post's Rita Kempley also gave it a positive review, saying, "it's all in good dirty fun and in service of their pro-tolerance theme." Stephen Holden of The New York Times also liked the film, and particularly praised the v-chip twist, favorably comparing it to a similar twist from A Clockwork Orange, as well as the overall moral of the film. However, film critic Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times was less impressed, and gave the film 2 1/2 stars out of 4, stating that while it was a great commentary, it was also too long and, "runs out of steam", too quickly.

The film has been frequently ranked as both one of the best animated films ever made, as well as one of the best musicals by many publications, and even by people influential in the film industry. IGN ranked the film as the sixth greatest animated film of all time. Time also ranked the film in the number six spot on their list of the best-animated movies ever made. It was ranked fifth place on UK Channel 4's list of the greatest comedies of all time. It was nominated by the American Film Institute for their list of the greatest musicals of all time.

Awards and Nominations

The film was nominated for an academy award for, "Best Original Song", for the song, "Blame Canada", but lost to Phil Collins, "You'll Be In My Heart", from Disney's Tarzan. This led to Phil Collins being mocked in two season four episodes of South Park, which were, "Cartman's Silly Hate Crime 2000", and, "Timmy 2000". Trey Parker would later state in the DVD commentary for the latter episode that they were, "fully expecting to lose, just not to Phil Collins". At the MTV Music Awards, the film won the award for, "Best Musical Sequence", for, "Uncle Fucka". At the New York Film Critics Circle Awards, the movie won the award for, "Best Animated Film".

Trivia

• The song, "Hell Isn't Good", was sung by James Hetfield, the main songwriter for the heavy metal band, Metallica, who went by uncredited.
• A few moments in the film (most notably the song "Kyle's Mom's a Big Fat Bitch", as the background music during a boss fight) have been referenced in the Ubisoft game, South Park: The Fractured but Whole.
• The film was banned in Iraq for parodying then-president Saddam Hussein, but more specifically, for portraying him as being homosexual.
• After the real Saddam Hussein was arrested for crimes against humanity, soldiers in Iraq claim that he was shown the movie along with the film’s depiction of himself as punishment.
• This was the highest-grossing R-rated animated film since Akira until it was surpassed by Sausage Party in 2016, which grossed more than $140 million worldwide; that record was, in turn, surpassed by Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie: Mugen Train in 2020, which grossed more than $500 million worldwide.
• The film was released in between the season three episodes, "Tweek vs. Craig", and, "Sexual Harassment Panda".
• The film was originally going to be titled South Park: All Hell Breaks Loose, but the MPAA rejected that title.

External Links

• South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut at the Internet Movie Database
• South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut on Rotten Tomatoes

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