Episode 1501: HUMANCENTiPAD

• HUMANCENTiPAD (04/27/11)

• Synopsis: Cartman tries to get an iPad and Kyle becomes part of a human centipede after agreeing to it through an Apple update.

The iPad came out in April of 2010 and "The Human Centipede" was released in the same month. Had this been 5 years ago Matt and Trey would have made this the opener of the second half of season 14 instead. I remember when they were making Cartman obsess over the Wii back when everyone thought it would totally bomb, which never would have happened today. (Though I bet that being tied up doing "The Book of Mormon" - very funny, btw, and I might review it at some point - impacted this.)

Of the three plots here, Kyle's is the best. Cartman's plot is very similar to the aforementioned Wii plot of "Go, God, Go!", and it's intermittently funny at best. While I've been pulling for character development on the show, I'm not a big fan of Mrs. Cartman not being a pushover anymore. She was much funnier when Cartman shit all over her, and one of the big reasons "Tsst" was so good was that she finally stood up to him. Stan's somewhat better, but feels tacked on to quickly get a resolution.

Kyle, on the other hand, is actually funny. Sometimes the stupidest jokes can be funny, and the Japanese guy's utterly hysterical. (I've seen the actual movie, and I can't watch it now without pulling an MSTK3000 when I see that Japanese guy. Either the iTunes joke or the cuttlefish.) The iTunes licensing agreements should have been parodied a long time ago - if that was real, everyone I know would be in a human centipede right now - and work very well here.

I've changed my original ratings a few times since starting this blog, and this ep is one of them. It's not a first tier by any means, but it's pretty good. And for a show that's been so down as of late, I'll take it.

Rating: B (second tier)