What Would Brian Boitano Do?

"What Would Brian Boitano Do?" is a song from the film "" written by DVDA (Trey Parker and Matt Stone's band) in which figure skater Brian Boitano is treated as a role model for all situations (which become increasingly ludicrous in the lyrics), in parody of the saying "What Would Jesus Do?".

In South Park

The song is also a reference to the original Christmas short "The Spirit of Christmas" which was the first appearance of the characters that led to the full-fledged "South Park" (1997) series. In the short, Stan asks Cartman, "What would Brian Boitano do?" as Jesus battles Santa Claus. [cite web|url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0158983/trivia|title=Trivia for South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut|year=1999|publisher=IMDB|accessdate=2008-07-18]

In the song, Boitano skates through circles in the 1988 Olympic Winter Games, fights grizzly bears (in the Alps) with his fire breath, saves fair maidens, travels through time, to Europe 3010, fights an evil robot king, saves the human race (again), and builds the Great Pyramids of Egypt while beating up Kublai Khan, because he "doesn't take shit from anybody". During the middle of the song, a cartoon Brian Dennehy interrupts.

A hardcore punk version of the song was performed by Matt and Trey's band D.V.D.A. and featured in the official movie soundtrack, and the video is found on the DVD of the film. In this version, it is further revealed that Boitano also has an apparently limitless appetite for spicy chicken wings, and came from the planet Krylock to "save us all from war, and death, and stuff."

Response from Boitano

In April 2003, Boitano answered the question of the song's title in an interview. [cite web|url=http://www.usolympicteam.com/27555_13664.htm|archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20070630083447/http://www.usolympicteam.com/27555_13664.htm|archivedate=2007-06-30|title=What would figure skating legend Brian Boitano do?|first=Robin A.|last=Rothman|publisher=gazette.com|date=April 25, 2003] Brian Boitano skated to a slightly-modified version of the song as part of the 1999 "Brian Boitano's Holiday Skating Spectacular" television special.fact|date=May 2008

References

External links

* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0158983/ "South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut" at IMDB]
* [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2006/02/05/SPGAMH2SKR1.DTL San Francisco Chronicle interview with Brian Boitano about the song]