The Pandemic Special on South Park

The new hour-long episode of South Park, also known as The Pandemic Special on Comedy Central was premiered on Wednesday September 30th at 8/7 pm Central Time. This episode of South Park is a very comical presentation of today’s new normal that has emerged due to the coronavirus pandemic. Just about every main component of our society during the pandemic was addressed in this episode.

Starting from the beginning of the episode, the characters were either wearing face masks properly or improperly. These different versions of wearing a face mask are something that we all have probably seen when out in public. Some people will try to avoid the mask guidelines by placing the mask completely under their chin. This was referred to as a “chin diaper” in the episode. Part of the comedy included Randy Marsh receiving mail. The delivery person was wearing a chin diaper (or a mask under the chin) and asked Randy to put on his chin diaper before approaching him to receive his mail.

With the prominence of the coronavirus pandemic in society, Randy decided to pursue an idea to increase sales for his business, Tegrity Farms. He invited people in town to gather in public (while socially distancing) to hear his big announcement. At this event, Randy acknowledged that a lot of businesses and people are struggling in this season. Therefore, he introduced a pandemic special for Tegrity. The special included discounted items and a free accessory when a certain amount of the item was purchased. After this announcement, many people lined up in their cars to purchase this special.

As for social distancing, Eric Cartman took this to a whole new level. Cartman lives at home with his mother and whenever Cartman walked by his mom in the house, he would point a 6 foot long stick at her in order to maintain a 6 foot distance. He also carried this stick outside of the house as well and would use it whenever someone was about to be within 6 feet from him.

The comedy continues with Cartman as school is held online via Zoom. Cartman and all the other students log onto Zoom from their respective households for their school day. Cartman did not want to go to school during the pandemic nor did he want to spend time online for school. Therefore, he pretended that his video feed had frozen. Then, he set up a picture of himself to make it look as if he was still at the computer. At this point, Cartman left the computer and ditched school for the day. With huge online group calls, it can be easy to quietly leave the session while still appearing to be tuned in (especially by turning off your video).

The Zoom issues in today’s society continued with an online parent conference for all the students. The parents and school counselor, Mr. Mackey, met online to discuss the possibility of reopening school for in-person classes amidst the pandemic. During the discussion, the parents ended up arguing with each other and Mr. Mackey had to mute everyone’s audio in order to maintain appropriate behavior on the call. This is relevant to the fact that more than one person could start talking at the same time and it would be difficult to understand someone. Therefore, Zoom provides an option for the host of the meeting to mute other people’s audios.

This episode of South Park does a good job highlighting the new norms in our society as the coronavirus pandemic is occurring. It is very hilarious yet relatable to what is going on right now. Watching this new episode is definitely worth your time.