Ginger Cow

"Ginger Cow" is the sixth episode in the seventeenth season of the American animated television series South Park. The 243rd episode of the series overall, it first aired on Comedy Central in the United States on November 6, 2013.^[1] In the episode, Cartman modifies a cow to make it look like a ginger as a joke. However, various religious groups see this as a prophecy being fulfilled and peace is brought to the Middle East.

Plot

At South Park Elementary, Eric Cartman announces that he wishes to apologize to Kyle Broflovski, saying that Kyle was correct the previous day when he told Cartman that humans are not the only animals that can have light skin and freckles. Telling them that he has discovered a ginger cow, Cartman takes his classmates to a nearby farm, where he shows them a cow that has been given a red wig and painted white with giant red "freckles". Though Kyle sees through this obvious prank, Cartman insists to his credulous classmates that it is real.

News of the cow spreads across the globe and is widely interpreted as the fulfillment of a Biblical prophecy regarding a

Kyle and Cartman travel to Israel, where Cartman intends to further humiliate Kyle by having him endure his farts and claim to enjoy it on a stage before thousands of people. Their demonstration is interrupted, however, by a broadcast hosted by Anderson Cooper, in which Stan intends to expose the truth about Cartman's red cow. Kyle, speaking to Stan privately by cell phone, explains why he has been enduring Cartman's abuse and convinces Stan not to expose the truth, in order to preserve the new peace. Acquiescing to this, Stan instead announces in the broadcast that he saw the cow descend miraculously from heaven. However, the prophecy stated that a fat child with a small penis would disguise a cow to look ginger, not that one would just miraculously fall from the sky. The short-lived peace among the three religions falls apart. Kyle, realizing that the prophecy really has occurred, tries to convince the rabbis that this is precisely what happened, but Cartman (insulted at his penis size in the prophecy) refuses to corroborate this, claiming, "I have a huge dick." The episode ends with Cartman farting one last time on a crestfallen Kyle.

Production

On the DVD commentary for the episode, South Park co-creator Matt Stone revealed that the story was inspired by material he had read on the red heifer's prominence in the Abrahamic religions, which lent itself to the story on how peace is achieved in the Middle East.^[2]

Parker and Stone felt that, in hindsight, the episode should have been a two-part storyline, explaining that the premise could have been mined for further development, perhaps even for a feature film. They were forced to cut a lot of content to condense the episode to the standard runtime of around twenty-one minutes.^[2]

Reception

Max Nicholson of IGN gave the episode a score of 7.5 out of 10, stating that it "touches on some great ideas that would have benefited from more time."^[3]

Ryan McGee of The A.V. Club gave the episode a B+ rating, stating, "'Ginger Cow' comes very close to utterly succeeding on several occasions, but ultimately settles for being fascinating. There are some great ideas here that no amount of screen time would ever sufficiently answer. But those ideas still needed more screen time to sufficiently debate. Still, in a season as subpar as this has been, it’s heartening to see the show can still recapture some of its past heights this late in the game."^[4]

References

External links

• "Ginger Cow" Full episode at South Park Studios
• "Ginger Cow" at
  IMDb