Spontaneous Combustion (South Park episode)

Infobox Television episode
Title = Spontaneous Combustion
Series = South Park


Caption = Randy daydreams while looking for a solution
Season = 3
Episode = 33
Airdate = April 14, 1999
Production = 302
Writer = Trey Parker
Matt Stone
David Goodman
Director = Matt Stone
Guests =
Episode list = List of "South Park" episodes
Season list = Infobox South Park season 3 episode list
Prev =
Next =

"Spontaneous Combustion" is the 33rd episode of Comedy Central's animated series "South Park". It originally aired on April 14, 1999.

Plot synopsis

In this episode, Kyle discovers that his dad and his mom are having marital difficulties, and he and the others (Kenny, Stan, and Cartman) try to "give him an erection" (which the boys confuse with "a nurection"), unaware of what it actually is. Meanwhile, various members of the town, beginning with Kenny, start to spontaneously combust, which causes the townspeople to attend church more, and compels Mayor McDaniels to order Randy Marsh to discern the cause for the explosions.

The boys get drawn into presenting the Stations of the Cross in church, with Cartman tied to the cross in the role of Jesus, after repeated pleading that he couldn't play any other role. Afterwards, the boys take the cross and put it up outside the church, with Cartman still attached, so that he'll die and get an erection to give to Kyle's dad (their having confused "erection" with "resurrection"). Meanwhile, Randy manages to find out that the combustions are caused by people refusing to fart in front of their partners (Kenny was spending some time with Kelly, his girlfriend from the previous episode) and so he encourages everyone in town to fart every few seconds. For this, he wins the Nobel Prize, much to the ire of South Park's only other scientist, Dr. Mephesto, who wanted to win the prize for creating a turtle with seven asses; he plots revenge.

Another crisis then comes up, when a heat wave hits the town, and again Randy is hired to figure out the cause. However, Mephisto beats him to it. He discovers that it is the methane gas from all the farting that led to the global warming. Randy, blamed for the crisis, is stripped of his Nobel Prize, and stoned and forced to walk through the town with his own statue on his back, being denied by his friends (as Jesus was in the Stations of the Cross). Meanwhile, Kyle's dad manages to get an erection, after seeing some attractive, young female clients undress in his office (to show him the skin cancer they claim Randy was responsible for).

Randy does not want to try to find a solution for his problem, since all the people in town would still hate him, even if he managed to solve the combustion/global warming conundrum; however, Stan tells him that he learned something from the Stations of the Cross, and that was that even though Jesus was hated by all the people he knew and denied by his friends, he still did what he had to do and as he was dying, stated, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few". Randy declares that people need to fart only in moderation, and everyone turns back to him. He ends up winning the town's accolades again, and gets his Nobel Prize back three weeks later, at which point the boys remember they had left Cartman out on the cross. They run to get him, and find him still alive, having survived for three weeks on his accumulated body fat.