Lice Capades

Infobox Television episode
Title = Lice Capades
Series = South Park


Caption = Cartman about to test who has head lice
Season = 11
Episode = 156
Airdate = March 21, 2007
Production = 1103
Writer = Trey Parker
Director = Trey Parker
Guests =
Episode list = List of "South Park" episodes
Season list = Infobox South Park season 11 episode list
Prev =
Next =

"Lice Capades" is episode 1103 (#156) of Comedy Central's animated comedy series South Park. It originally aired on March 21, 2007.

Plot

In this episode, Ms. Garrison announces to the class that the school has a lice problem, and every student must now be checked. During the check Clyde discovers that he has lice , much to his horror. The nurse gives him a note and he goes to the doctor to get a special shampoo to deal with the problem, but Clyde remains very embarrassed by the situation.

Meanwhile, from on top of Clyde's head, one of the lice, named Travis Mayfield, starts to warn the other lice that the "earth is angry" with them. During Clyde's examination, Travis witnesses the nurse parting Clyde's hair, and sees the nurse's giant eye-in-the-sky gazing at Travis. Already suspicious about what has been happening, Travis goes back to his village and tells the government of the lice that their world has become conscious of them, and that their involvement has led it to want to get rid of them. He urges the government to start an evacuation, but the officials (particularly the Vice President), are hostile to the idea, and throw him out of the meeting. Travis takes his warnings of doom to the lice population at large, but is ridiculed. Suddenly, it begins to rain at an unusual time (Clyde taking a shower in the afternoon) and Travis, sensing danger, takes his wife, Kelly, and unhatched baby and runs to safety. As the other lice are playing in the rain, a green slime (the shampoo) comes and begins to kill them all. Some of the lice escape the slime by climbing up into the "trees" (hair), where they wait out the green slime. However, Clyde then blow-dries his hair, and Kelly and many others perish, being blown off of the hair, although Travis and his unhatched baby (which he names Hope) survive.

The next day in class, they ask Mrs. Garrison if somebody did have lice. Mrs. Garrison tells the children that someone had lice but will not reveal who, because of a school policy not to single out a kid with head lice because that will cause potential embarrassment. The kids become upset, and want to know who it is so they can avoid them and make fun of them. This begins a subplot involving Cartman trying to expose who in the class has head lice.

Back on Clyde's head, the few survivors of the disaster gather and Travis tells them that they must flee the world (Clyde's head) for another one, and to do so they must go to the "Forbidden Zone" (The back of Clyde's neck.) This is the only place where they have a chance to spot another world. Only two lice agree to follow him, a female and the Vice President. Travis is initially furious with the Vice President for not listening to his warnings of disaster and he wants to see him rot in prison, but when the Vice President pleads that he is sorry and wants to atone for his errors, he is allowed to accompany Travis and the female. When they reach the Forbidden Zone, the female reveals her love for Travis. The Vice President shoots the female in the head, killing her instantly, and leads Travis to the very back of Clyde's neck and then shoots Travis in both knees, crippling him, and states he will go back to Clyde's head and start a new colony, where he will become President. While taunting the now-helpless Travis, the Vice President mocks his theories of a living world and shoots the ground several times, stating that if the world was alive, it would feel the gunshots and react. A quick cut back to Clyde shows him wincing slightly at the pain and plucking at the area that hurt him. Back at lice scale, the Vice President is about to finish Travis off when Clyde picks him up and throws him away, sending him plummeting and screaming to his death, while Travis manages a low, humourless laugh.

After a series of accusations and conspiracies, Cartman eventually devises a test to tell who had head lice, by taking a sample of everyone's blood and heating it, claiming the remaining lice saliva will make the blood jump. Kyle says that he merely stole the idea from "The Thing" and that it will not work. However, all the boys agree to go through with it. However when Cartman heats Kenny's blood, he intentionally splashes it all over himself making it look like it worked, and then Kenny flees in terror.

The boys manage to track Kenny down to the park, where they intend to punish him for lying about his lice; by giving him a "sock bath." They tell Clyde to come, but before he does, he calls Mrs. Garrison to warn her of Kenny's danger. Kenny is caught and stripped to his underwear. His parka is thrown to one side and he is washed with soap and dried with the socks. Kenny also speaks unmuffled and says "No, No not the socks!" Then Kyle says that he cannot go through with it and admits that he was the person who had lice. Stan, surprised, says that this isn't true and "he" was the one with lice. Even Cartman admits that he had lice and was just trying to frame Kenny. Mrs. Garrison shows up and tells them that "everyone" in the class (both boys and girls) had lice, and that each of them were afraid thinking that he/she could be be the only one holding lice. This seems to give Clyde some relief for not being singled out having head lice, but upon this revelation, the boys realize that this includes Kenny, and they proceed to continue with the sock bath for his denial.

As the episode ends, Travis is almost dead and sees an apparition of his dead wife in the sky. It turns out to be a fly, and Travis grabs on to it, still holding his child. The fly finally lands on another body and Travis is welcomed by larger, red-colored lice (revealed moments later to be pubic louse), and is told they have lived in peace for "generations." The episode's ending reveals that this place is in fact Angelina Jolie's pubic hair.

Cultural references

* The pubic hair is that of Angelina Jolie.
* The subplot and dialogue involving Travis' point of view, a "world" that interacts with the lice and rejects them, and an over-the-top "evil" Vice President who refuses to believe that theory, makes Parker and Stone's second noteworthy parody of the movie "The Day After Tomorrow". The other is "Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow."
* The scene in which Travis is flown away by the fly is a reference to the scene from "," in which Frodo and Sam are flown away from near death on Mount Doom by giant eagles, complete with similar "heavenly" music (Pie Jesu from the Fauré Requiem), and a close-up on Travis's face (Frodo's face in the film) as he hovers on the edge of unconsciousness.
* The idea to punish Kenny with bars of soap inside of socks is a reference to the movie "Full Metal Jacket."
* Cartman's bloodjumping test is self-admittedly (as Kyle points out) taken directly from John Carpenter's "The Thing."

External links

* [http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/103203 "Lice Capades" at South Park Studios]
* [http://images.southparkstudios.com/downloads/download.php?file=/media/video/1103/1103_teaser.mov Teaser for "Lice Capades" (quicktime)]
* [http://www.tv.com/south-park/lice-capades/episode/1000646/summary.html "Lice Capades"] at TV.com