Review: South Park “The Poor Kid”

With their parents in jail, Kenny and his brother and sister find themselves in the foster care system. Cartman is sincerely disturbed when Kenny is taken away. He doesn’t know who to rip on for being the poorest kid in school anymore.


Spoilers Below!

After a case of domestic abuse, which saw Kenny’s family being profiled on a news report about the results of white trash and Pabst Blue-Ribbon, the parents get locked up and the kids get sent to a foster home all in front of a live audience for “I’m White Trash and I’m IN TROUBLE!”. The kids get sent to a Counselor who loves rattling off Penn State jokes left and right:

“Where’s that smile? How about this one – Joe Paterno DOESN’T walk into a police station… come on, that’s a good one.”

So Kenny and his siblings get sent to a strict agnostic home where they can only drink Dr. Pepper and be non-committal. But never fear because when the kids need a hero, they have one in Mysterion!

Cartman needs to find his new poor kid in place of Kenny, but after doing a bunch of research, it turns out Cartman’s the poor kid! He gets pissed, so he calls the authorities so he can join a home like Kenny and therefore gets his mom thrown in the slammer and his own spot on the “I’m White Trash and I’m IN TROUBLE!”.

And thus starts a new round of Penn State jokes from the counselor which causes a showdown between Penn state jokes and Cartman’s poor jokes like “My mama so poor she waves around a popsicle and calls it air conditioninnnngg…” . Cartman ends up in same house as Kenny, and at first the fat kid HATES it. Soon, they have to go to a different elementary school, where Cartman and Kenny get introduced to a bunch of other poor kids, but with the poorest being Jacob Hallory, which of course makes Cartman NOT the poorest kid! YAAAAAAA!

Alas, when Karen McCormack is in a heap of trouble, Mysterion comes to the rescue! But, back at home everything isn’t all fun and games with the adoptive family, and it turns out the foster parents enjoy torturing their kids in the basement with a power hose full of Dr. Pepper.Luckily, Cartman tells the counselor and saves the day!

In recap, I’ve been thinking the last week or so who was going to nail the Penn State monsters to the wall, my bets were on either David Cross or Gilbert Gottfried, but I was just as happy to see the guys in South Park take this head on. The only thing left to wonder is if I were a student at Penn State, or a graduate, or anything what would go through my mind while watching this episode? ( I would hope it’s those guys have a valid point!!) See ya in May(I think), South Park!