Le Petit Tourette

Infobox Television episode
Title = Le Petit Tourette
Series = South Park


Caption = Cartman taunts Kyle while planning to feign Tourette's Syndrome on live TV.
Season = 11
Episode = 161
Airdate = October 3, 2007
Production = 1108
Writer = Trey Parker
Director =
Guests =
Episode list = List of "South Park" episodes
Season list = Infobox South Park season 11 episode list| Prev =
Next = TBA [http://imdb.com/title/tt0995582/ See this episode on IMDB]

"Le Petit Tourette" ("lit." The Little Tourette) is episode 1108 (#161) of Comedy Central's "South Park". It originally aired on October 3, 2007. This episode marked the beginning of the second half of the eleventh season. [ [http://www.southparkstudios.com/show/episodes/display_episode.php?episodeid=1108 Episode guide.] South Park Studios. Retrieved on 2007-10-03. It originally aired in U.K on Paramount Comedy 1 at 9 pm on Friday 7 February. ]

Plot

While shopping in a toy store, Cartman sees a boy named Thomas who continuously shouts obscenities, as his mother tries to explain that her son has Tourette syndrome. Cartman, excitedly singing "(I've Got a) Golden Ticket", decides to pretend he has the disorder as well, and successfully convinces his mother and a doctor, who diagnoses him with Tourette's and notifies the school.

When Kyle finds out about Cartman's "disorder", he immediately deduces that he's faking, which Cartman quickly admits to him. Nevertheless, Cartman continues to enjoy his newfound freedom, repeatedly shouting random curses to people, to Kyle's intense annoyance and Craig's amazement and jealousy. Kyle decides to complain to Principal Victoria, however she is already meeting Mr. Donaldso—who has coprolalia—from the "Tourette's Tolerance and Understanding Foundation". Donaldson is insulted, thinking that Kyle is accusing "all" people with TS of faking it, and takes him to a local support group for children with the disorder, who explain their various tics and how they are not faking it. Kyle attempts to explain that Cartman can control what he says, and is only pretending that he can't for fun. The children are confused by this and state that one should not find having Tourette's fun at all. Thomas, the boy from the beginning of the episode, tells Kyle of how his father divorced his mother due to his Coprolalia and thinks his mother would be better off if he were dead. Kyle relents under the pressure, and apologizes to everyone, but struggles when he has to apologize to Cartman, who deliberately pretends not to hear and continues to take advantage of his "disorder" by screaming vulgar anti-Semitic remarks at Kyle's parents. Cartman happily asks Thomas "Isn't having Tourette's awesome?". As a result, Thomas is instantly convinced that Kyle was telling the truth.

Cartman decides to appear on "Dateline NBC" with Chris Hansen, who plans to document the "sad story" of Cartman living with the condition. Cartman invites Kyle over to his house to taunt him and tell him he plans to say horrible, despicable things on the air and make an anti-Semitic hate speech. He suddenly blurts out that he wet his bed the night before. Kyle does not find this suspicious at all, and plans to stop Cartman. Cartman realizes that, having said everything completely unfiltered for so long, he has lost the ability to think before he speaks, and now merely says whatever comes into his head, including embarrassing secrets, such as how he fantasizes about kissing a girl named Patty Nelson and a sexual experiment he had with a cousin. He quickly tries to cancel the "Dateline" appointment, but Chris Hansen refuses to allow it (using his trademark "Take a seat, right over there. What are you doing here?" quote) and tells him that once, when a pedophile tried to get out of appearing on his "To Catch a Predator" series, they tracked him down and he shot himself (a reference to the Louis Conradt case), and that it would be a real shame if Cartman "shot himself" (Using finger-quotes and highly implying a threat of murder). Realizing he has no way to get out of going on the show, and that he still cannot control his self-inflicted Tourette syndrome, Cartman prays to God for help.

Meanwhile, Kyle has teamed up with Thomas, who is worried that Cartman's appearance on the show will make others think Tourette's is "fun" and copy him. The pair aims to foil Cartman's plan which, unknown to Kyle, Cartman has already given up on. Nevertheless, in order to provide a distraction, the two, taking a page out of To Catch a Predator, go on the Internet to entice numerous pedophiles to come to the show. When the would-be child molesters come into the studio and see Chris Hansen, they all assume it to be a bust on To Catch a Predator and shoot themselves (excluding one who, before suicide, exclaims "There aren't really brownies!?"), sending panic through the studio and forcing everyone to flee. Chris Hansen runs out of the studio and discovers Thomas, who has a tic and heavily swears at Hansen. This causes Hansen to run away after saying "Nobody talks to me like that. I-I'll tell on you!". Craig is then jealous and amazed that Thomas could tell off Hansen, and offers to hang out with him sometime. Kyle then sneaks in and confronts Cartman, expecting him to be furious and humiliated. Cartman, however, is overjoyed, hugs Kyle and cries into his shoulder, explaining that he wanted a miracle and Kyle must really care about him, and happily runs off (again singing and dancing to the "I've Got a Golden Ticket" song) to seek a psychiatrist to help him control his language. The episode ends with Kyle and Thomas both exclaiming "Aw Shit!" simultaneously (Thomas as the result of his tic and Kyle because he unwittingly helped Cartman.)

Reaction

Tourette Syndrome Association

Prior to the airing, the Tourette Syndrome Association (TSA) issued a press release saying they had requested that Comedy Central air their public service announcements during or after the show and that they "fully expect [ed] it to be offensive and insensitive to people with TS". The President of the TSA said, " [w] e are actually surprised it took the creators so long to use TS as comedy fodder in this program, since no disability, illness or controversial topic is off limits to them." [http://www.tsa-usa.org/news/1007ConcernSouthPark.html TSA Voices Concern Over "South Park" October 3rd Episode.] Tourette Syndrome Association (2007-10-02). Retrieved on 2007-10-03.] Following the episode, they issued a second press release, expressing concern that the episode perpetuated the misconception that most people with TS have coprolalia, when in fact, 85–90% of people with TS do not. They conceded that "the episode was surprisingly well-researched. The highly exaggerated emphasis on coprolalia notwithstanding, for the attentive viewer, there was a surprising amount of accurate information conveyed," adding that several elements of the episode "served as a clever device" for providing accurate facts to the public. [http://www.tsa-usa.org/news/1007responseTSA_SouthParkTourettes.html TSA responds to "South Park" Episode.] Tourette Syndrome Association (2007-10-04). Retrieved on 2007-10-04.]

Reviews

The episode received relatively mixed reviews. The television weblog TV Squad were extremely positive, calling the episode "the stuff of brilliance". [cite news
url = http://www.tvsquad.com/2007/10/04/south-park-le-petit-tourette/
title = South Park: Le Petit Tourette - TV Squad
accessdate = 2007-10-05
publisher = TvSquad
date = 2007-10-04] IGN gave the episode a rating of 7.5/10, asserting "this isn't the greatest episode, and not the greatest way to bring back the series - but it's got some great laughs and manages to push its single joke further than expected." [cite news
url = http://tv.ign.com/articles/825/825094p1.html
title = IGN: Le Petit Tourette Review
accessdate = 2007-10-05
publisher = IGN Entertainment, Inc
date = 2007-10-04] 411mania took the middle ground, giving the show a 6.5/10 rating, calling it "hit and miss", and contesting that "while the first half of the show suffered because of a one-note joke, the second half showed why this series continues to remain one of the best on television." [cite news
url = http://www.411mania.com/movies/dvd_reviews/60928
title = Le Petit Tourette 411mania review
accessdate = 2007-10-05
publisher = 411mania
date = 2007-10-04] On the negative side, BuddyTV called the episode a "misfire", criticizing it as "disjointed and a little off-putting." [cite news
url = http://www.buddytv.com/articles/south-park/south-park-cartman-tourettes-a-11910.aspx
title = South Park : Cartman, Tourette's, and Chris Hanson
accessdate = 2007-10-05
publisher = BuddyTv
date = 2007-10-03]

Censorship

This episode featured a higher than normal amount of curse words than are regularly featured. It is the fourth episode out of five in the show's history to leave the word "shit" uncensored (the others being "It Hits the Fan", "Ike's Wee Wee", "It's Christmas in Canada" and later in "Imaginationland Episode III"). While all of the vulgarities, except for "fuck", were not bleeped as usual, in the first few runs of the episode most of the swear words were omitted or replaced with "obscenities" in the closed captioning. Later showings had the CC uncensored.

The episode has been aired in the UK on both Paramount Comedy 1 and MTV ONE. Whilst the Paramount showing has all obscenities except fuck uncensored, the MTV ONE airing bleeped out the words kike and retard.

Rating

For the first time in the show's history, an episode was rated TV-MA LV instead of the usual subrating-less TV-MA; this was due to many uncensored uses of the words "shit" used 26 times, kike used twice, and "cock" and a total of nine gunshot suicides. [cite news
url = http://www.comedycentral.com/tv_schedule/index.jhtml?seriesId=11600&forever=please
title = Comedy Central TV Show Schedule
accessdate = 2007-10-06
publisher = Comedy Central
date = 2007-10-03]

References

External links

* [http://southpark.comedycentral.com/video_by_episode.jhtml?episodeId=107318 Official Page Comedy Central]
* [http://imdb.com/title/tt0995582/ Le Petit Tourette at IMDB]
* [http://www.southparkstuff.com/season_11/episode_1108/ Trivia at South Park Stuff]