Damien (South Park)
"Damien" | |
---|---|
South Park episode | |
Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 10 |
Directed by | Trey Parker |
Written by | Trey Parker Matt Stone Dave Polsky (additional written material) |
Production code | 108 |
Original air date | February 4, 1998 |
Guest appearance | |
Michael Buffer as himself | |
"Damien" is the tenth episode of the
and arrange a boxing match between the two. The majority of South Park's residents bet on Satan to win the match due to his enormous size and muscular physique, but Satan ultimately throws the fight and reveals he bet on Jesus, thus winning everybody's money.The episode was written by series co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, with additional dialogue by Dave Polsky, and directed by Parker. The episode serves as a satire on religion, faith and the nature of good and evil, as well as a commentary on commercialism, the cult of celebrity in America and the nature of children. It was originally conceptualized as a Christmas special, but the original broadcast was pushed forward when Parker and Stone decided instead to make "Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo" the season's holiday episode.
"Damien" received generally positive reviews and was watched by 5.55 million viewers when it was first broadcast, making it the highest rated cable program the week it aired. The episode marked the first appearance of Satan, who would become a recurring South Park character, as well as the character of Damien himself, who was inspired by the antagonist of the 1976 horror film
Plot
The entire town bets on Jesus to win the fight, but begin to lose faith when Satan appears for the weigh-in. He is huge and weighs a little over 320 pounds (150 kg), while Jesus weighs a mere 135 pounds (61 kg), and the citizens of South Park begin changing their bets. Jesus confronts the South Park residents about their changed betting slips after learning only one person is still betting on Jesus to win. Distraught, Jesus asks Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski and Chef to help him train. Damien gets counseling from Mr. Mackey, who recommends he just try being nice no matter what the other kids do, just like with unpopular British child Pip. Damien tries to apologize to the boys for setting fire to the playground and turning Kenny into a duck-billed platypus, stating that he was "doing his father's bidding" and he did not have a choice. The boys, however, still continue to act negatively towards Damien. Cartman's birthday party begins, as does the fight. Damien and Pip arrive uninvited to the party, but the kids finally accept Damien after he hurls Pip in the air and makes him explode in a shower of fireworks. However, an infuriated Cartman ends his party early after opening Kyle's present to discover that it's not what he had in mind.
Meanwhile, Jesus is disheartened by the town's lack of faith in him, and he does not retaliate to Satan's attacks against him, despite Satan's apparent taunting of "hit me". Chef and the kids make it for the end of the fight and offer Jesus some words of encouragement. Inspired, Jesus finally throws a single weak punch. However, Satan then takes a dive and goes down for the count. Afterward, Satan reveals that his plan had, in fact, been to bet on Jesus and then throw the fight, winning him a lot of money and real estate from the South Park residents. The townspeople are angered by this, until Stan reminds them that Jesus told them not to bet on Satan. The whole town then asks forgiveness of Jesus, who accepts the apology. Kenny dies when
Production
"Damien" was written by series co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, with additional dialogue by Dave Polsky, and was directed by Parker. "Damien" first aired on Comedy Central in the United States on February 4, 1998. It was highly anticipated in part because it was the first new episode of South Park in about two months, since the extremely popular Christmas special "Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo" aired on December 17, 1997.[1][2][3] Before "Damien" even ran, Mike Duffy of Detroit Free Press said the episode was "certain to become one of the show's signature moments".[4] In fact, Parker and Stone originally intended for "Damien" to be the season's Christmas episode. Although they had long planned to feature a talking piece of feces in the show, called Mr. Hankey, they did not decide to make him a Christmas character until halfway through the filming of "Damien", during which time they decided to make a separate holiday episode instead, centered around the Mr. Hankey character. Nevertheless, they decided to finish production of "Damien" first, even though it would not air until after the "Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo" episode.[5]
Parker said he and Stone did not intend for "Damien" to be offensive to Christians or any other religion: "In South Park, Jesus is a great guy, he's on our show, and in this episode he's the hero. We're not in the business of offending people. We're in the business of making people laugh."[6] The mean way Damien is treated by his fellow students when he joins the school, as well as Damien's reactions to the treatment, were inspired by Parker's experience of the second grade, when he started at a Cheyenne, Wyoming elementary school in the last three weeks of the school year. Parker said, "It was brutal ... Everybody already had their little groups and the year was almost over, so I wasn't going to fit into any of them, and I just wanted to destroy and kill, which was the inspiration for this show."[5]
By the time "Damien" was animated, much of the drawing and animation responsibilities that had previously been handled by Parker and Stone were now being delegated to a team of animators. The duo were particularly proud of the animation during the boxing match between Jesus and Satan, which used elements of perspective and three-dimension seldom used in the series before; Parker said it was "definitely the most action [oriented] stuff we'd done [so far]".
Parker and Stone said a number of Cartman's characteristics which have endured throughout the South Park series started in "Damien". Specifically, his voice took on a higher-pitch that was more nasally and whiney than in previous episodes; Stone described it as a "self-indulgent accent".[5] Some of his regular vocal mannerisms were also developed in the episode, including his use of the sound "Nyah" while saying the word "Here", and the way he says "Hey you guuuuuuys" while talking to his friends. Parker, who provides the voice of Cartman, said the characteristics came about naturally while filming the episode: "This show for some reason, for whatever reason, maybe I just lost interest, but I was trying all these messed up things with him and all these things sort of stuck."[5]
"Damien" included the first appearance of Satan, who would become a commonly recurring character throughout the series. Although Satan displays an evil and unscrupulous personality in "Damien", he is portrayed in later episodes as a thoughtful, sensitive and often deeply conflicted character.
Prior to the broadcast, Parker and Stone said "Damien" would be the first episode in which Kenny would not be killed; ultimately, however, Kenny was shot by Jimbo at the end of the pay-per-view fight.[10] Kenny is turned into a duck-billed platypus in the episode, which Parker said was done because, "Duck billed platypuses are something I've always been infatuated with. They're just so bizarre."[5] In the original script, Pip, the unpopular British student inspired by the character of the same name in Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, was originally supposed to be killed and permanently removed from the show after "Damien", in which Damien projects Pip into the air and blows him up in a shower of fireworks. However, Parker and Stone decided they should not kill any student characters except for Kenny, so they decided not to kill Pip and to bring him back for future episodes.[5]
"Damien" was later released, along with eleven other episodes, in a three-DVD set in November 1998. It was included in the second volume, which also included the episodes "An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig", "Death" and "Pinkeye".[11] The episode, along with the other twelve from the first season, was also included in the DVD release "South Park: The Complete First Season", which was released on November 12, 2002.[12] Parker and Stone recorded commentary tracks for each episode, but they were not included with the DVDs due to "standards" issues with some of the statements; Parker and Stone refused to allow the tracks to be edited and censored, so they were released in a CD completely separately from the DVDs.[13][14]
Themes
"Damien" has been described as a satire on religion, faith and the nature of good and evil,
Parker also said he and Stone purposely wrote the episode to present Jesus as the hero from a "
Religious writer Michel Clasquin said the episode also demonstrates the ease with which people blend their religious convictions with lessons from pop culture, particularly with Stan's confusion of a Star Trek quote with a lesson from Jesus Christ. Additionally, Clasquin said the fact that even Priest Maxi recognizes Jesus as "that guy from the public access show" demonstrates that even the supposedly most religious people are not always the most open to genuine religious experiences.[16] Clasquin also said elements of the Crucifixion of Jesus are alluded to in the boxing match with Satan.[16]
In addition to the religious themes, the cruel way in which Damien is treated by the other children is a satire on the tendency of schoolchildren to relentlessly pick on new students. Stone said of this aspect of the episode, "The whole basis of South Park was that kids are little shitheads and civilization and society controls them. Instead of what a lot of hippies and Democrats think, which is we're born innocent and pure and society corrupts us. We believe the first way, that society controls you and makes you a better person, ultimately, because when you're little, you're just a little asshole."[5]
Cultural references
The voice for Satan, provided by Parker, was inspired by the voice of the Pinhead character at the ending of the 1988 horror film, Hellbound: Hellraiser II, when Pinhead emotionally recalls his old life, when he was a good person. The animators went through several sketch drafts for Satan because, in Parker's words, "There's so many ways to go with him and we couldn't figure out the right one for a long time". The large and muscular look of the character stemmed from the fact that the script called for Satan to massively outweigh Jesus, and that look has persisted for the character throughout the rest of the series.[5]
The character of Damien himself was also first featured in this episode; although he appeared as a background character in a handful of future episodes, he seldom has a speaking role and is never again featured as prominently as he was in "Damien". The character was inspired by Damien Thorn, the child antichrist character in the 1976 horror film The Omen. The music which plays in the episode whenever Damien performs magic is also directly inspired by the music from that film;[5] that same demonic chorus would later be reused in the twelfth season episode "Britney's New Look". (The lyric "Rectus Dominus" repeatedly sung by the demonic chorus in the episode translates from Latin as "Ass Master".) The scene in which the boys tell Damien his mom is "a real dog" is also a reference to The Omen. In that film, the actual Antichrist's mother was a jackal.[9]
In addition to Michael Buffer, the American boxing promoter
The Jesus Vs. Satan pay-per-view event "Boutin' at the Mountain" is a parody of similarly advertised pay-to-watch boxing events featured on the premium cable channel
Reception
"Damien" received a 6.4
Parker said following the tremendous success of "Mr Hankey, the Christmas Poo", much of the direct feedback he received for "Damien" was negative. Parker described it as the "first sort of backlash"[5] he had experienced with South Park, with fans claiming the show was losing its edge and that Parker and Stone had "sold out".[5] Parker said, "We kept hearing that word so much. We were like, 'What does that mean, sold out? What did we get and what did we do?' We just kept doing what we thought was funny, we didn't go start making commercials or anything. But everybody was saying we sold out."[5] Nevertheless, the episode received generally positive reviews, and has been described as one of South Park's "classic episodes".[24][25]
References
- ^ Anderson, John; Werts, Diane (January 20, 1998). "The latest entertainment news and more...flash!". Newsday. p. A12.
- ^ Weintraub, Josh (January 20, 1998). "South Park' creators are zany kids at heart – Colorado graduates Parker, Stone can't help but pull for Denver". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. p. 8.
- ^ Minge, Jim (January 22, 1998). "America Loves That Dancing Baby Featured on "Ally McBeal"". Omaha World-Herald. p. 36.
- ^ a b c Duffy, Mike (February 4, 1998). "Good and evil to duke it out in new "South Park" episode". Detroit Free Press. p. 6C.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Trey Parker, Matt Stone (2003). South Park: The Complete First Season: "Damien" (CD). Comedy Central.
- ^ Feran, Tom (February 3, 1998). ""South Park" a runaway cult hit". The Plain Dealer. p. 5E.
- ^ Cheplic, Matt (May 1, 1998). "'As Crappy As Possible': The Method Behind the Madness of South Park". digitalcontentproducer.com. Archived from the original on December 22, 2015. Retrieved December 4, 2011.
- ^ "FAQ: In 'Meet the Jeffersons' and in BLU you can hear Kenny's voice without it being muffled by his hood. But the voice in the movie sounds different from the episode!! Was it done by two different people?? If so why and who did the voice?". South Park Studios. June 24, 2010. Archived from the original on November 29, 2010. Retrieved December 4, 2011.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-7624-3561-6.
- ^ a b c d Littlefield, Kinney (February 3, 1998). "Good and evil are a laughing matter on bratty new episode of "South Park"". The Orange County Register.
- ^ Perry, Vern (November 13, 1998). "Not just another pretty face". The Orange County Register. p. F33.
- ^ Lawson, Terry (November 12, 2002). "4-disc "Rings" could take up a whole weekend". Detroit Free Press.
- ^ Owen, Rob (November 22, 2002). ""South Park" warped and worthy". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. p. 39.
- ISBN 1-932916-01-6.
- ^ Daily News (New York). p. 65. Archivedfrom the original on 2014-11-09. Retrieved 2022-02-21.
- ^ ISBN 0-620-29867-7.
- ^ Barber, David (1998-08-08). "Bad as they #$"@&/%! wanna be The creators of the cult hit South Park say they aren't bad – just misunderstood". The Globe and Mail. Canada. p. 8.
- ^ a b c d e Seitz, Matt Zoller (1998-02-04). "Unholy "South Park" tests the limits". The Star-Ledger. p. 53.
- ^ a b Vognar, Chris (1998-02-01). "Brats entertainment; South Park' creators potty hardy on Comedy Central show". The Dallas Morning News. p. 1C.
- ^ Stall, p. 28
- ^ "Comedy Central's "Mecha-Streisand" Episode of "South Park" Breaks Its Own Ratings Record by a Nose With a 6.9 HH Rating Beating ABC". Business Wire. 1998-02-20.
- ISBN 978-1-84511-511-1.
- ^ Duffy, Mike (1997-12-16). "Rudeness rules! Comedy Central hit "South Park" is smarter than it looks". Detroit Free Press. p. 1D.
- ^ Lowry, Brian; Strachan, Alex (1998-04-28). "True South: South Park's success has spawned 40 more episodes, a movie and a new deal for its young creators". Hollywood. p. E5.
- ^ Shister, Gail (1998-05-13). "Latest project for ABC's Cokie Roberts: her first best-selling book". The Philadelphia Inquirer.
- ^ Pratt p.1126
- ^ Budzak, Gary (1998-02-02). "This potpourri should tickle almost anyone's ribs". The Columbus Dispatch. p. 6B.
- The Record. Bergen County, New Jersey. p. Y01.
- ^ Grahnke, Lon (1998-02-04). "Tonight's outrageous cable programs". Chicago Sun-Times. p. 51.
External links