Quest for Ratings

Infobox Television episode
Title = Quest for Ratings
Series = South Park


Caption = Butters reports on the celebrities, or lack thereof, seen around South Park
Season = 8
Episode = 122
Airdate = November 17, 2004
Production =
Writer = Trey Parker
Director = Trey Parker
Guests =
Episode list = List of “South Park” episodes
Season list = Infobox South Park season 8 episode list
Prev =
Next =

“Quest for Ratings” is episode 122 in the Comedy Central series "South Park". Its original air date was November 17, 2004.

Plot synopsis

Eric Cartman, Jimmy, Butters, Kyle, Token and Stan are taping "Super School News", a newscast airing on South Park Elementary's closed-circuit television system. Cartman and Jimmy play the leading roles as head anchors, Butters is the entertainment/celebrity reporter, Stan is a field reporter, Token is the meteorologist, and Kyle does sports. However after their news program premieres, their teacher (Mr. Meryl) tells them that they did horribly in the ratings, trailing far behind Craig's home video show, "Animals Close-Up With a Wide-Angle Lens" (which uses the Benny Hill theme song, "Yakety Sax"), which they consider pointless and banal. (Kenny apparently also helped Craig, since Cartman hadn't allowed him to participate in their news show since (quote Cartman) “ [he] is too poor, and poor people don't watch the news”.

The news team then pledges to make a program that will be a ratings booster and gain the attention of all students. They rename the show "Sexy Action School News" and add flashy elements (in a parody of various infotainment shows), including random "Panda Madness Minutes" in which the newscasters spontaneously dance with pandas. However, nothing seems to work; although they beat Craig's original series, they fall behind his follow up "Animals Close-Up With a Wide-Angle Lens Wearing Hats". To get ideas, the boys decide to get high on cough syrup. They hallucinate and wake up the next day with hangovers (and ironically enough, watching "Animals Close-Up With a Wide-Angle Lens Wearing Hats"), but their notepads contain nothing useful. Remembering that they had seen Craig's program while high and thought it to be brilliant, they conclude that a majority of the school must be perpetually high on cough syrup, accounting for his ratings. They then decide to produce a special report that gets cough syrup banned from school.

Soon after, the ratings drop and Craig's show is cancelled, as the children are no longer high, and they start to cough endlessly. To emphasize the importance of good ratings, the AV teacher then suspends Craig from school and recommends the removal of his testicles. Satisfied with their results, the "Sexy Action School News" team discovers the curse of a successful show: each subsequent episode has to be just as good. Back in the writer's room, they come up with nothing and eventually decide to just bail.

Production

With the recent release of season 8 on DVD, many of the mini commentaries revealed that much of the lack of ideas was due to the fact that "", Trey Parker and Matt Stone's concurrent film, had just been through a long, grueling post-production and left the staff low on energy: