I would say that there are both similarities and differences between the two shows when it comes to quotaionalism and hyper-irony; for example, both shows definitely use a lot of quotationalism. Both shows make fun of popular culture by mocking different aspects. In the episode of The Simpsons we watched in class, it was making fun of religion by having the town go "crazy" when the remains of an "angel" are found. Also, in the SouthPark movie, the genre of it was a musical, thus mocking all the other musicals in pop culture. In terms of Hyper-Irony, I would say that both the Simpsons and SouthPark have it, but with SouthPark it is much more evident and obvious; for instance, when watching the southpark movie, you see elementry kids use very obscene curse curse words in literally every scene of the movie. Also, SouthPark is a much colder comedy because it can be very offensive to almost any aspect of life such as: homosexuality, war, government, you name it. In the Southpark movie, satan and saddam hussein are lovers. In this case, it would appear that they are comparing homosexuality with what americans would perceive as the two worst figures in the world.

The makers of South Park made the movie very offensive. They make fun of race, religion, Christianity as well as Judism, and the priorities of the town. Kyle's mom rather shed blood in a nasty war than have her kid say a few inappropriate curse words. The movie is very funny yet highly offensive, but it is offensive to EVERYONE, so no one should take it too personally.

I think they both possess some similarities and differences in regards to popular culture. THey both possess a very dry humor yet SOuthpark takes it further and with quite a bit more vulgarity. Southpark is often extremely offensive. God was called many vulgar names while Satan was glorified throughout the movie. After his guts exploding on the hosptital bed due to the docotrs accidently replacing his heart with a potatoe the child is rejected from heaven which is a violation of scripture)Heaven is portrayed as having nude women. And then the young child ( I forgot his name at the moment) is sent down to hell and witnesses a culminating relationship between Satan and Saddam Hussein where they engage in a homosexual relationship. Yet, Satan is unfulfilled in the relationship and just wants someone to talk to and be kind to him, yet all Saddam wants is sex. Satan is portrayed as sensitive, caring, and loving. In contrast with God whom, is cursed upon and yelled at by the MOle. THroughtout the movie is the ongoing belittlement of a wholesome life with the constant encouragemtent of of an immoral life.

Some of you were wondering, so to clarify, the movie was made in 1999, long before the whole Iraq war, while Clinton was still president. So it was made during a very different political climate than the one we had now, and Saddam Hussein was a very different figure in the popular imagination than he became during the Iraq war. Does the issue of when it was made affect how you see it? Julia suggests that after Hussein's trial and hanging, this is "cold" - does the timing matter?

Today’s comedies highly tend to show those two characteristics explained by Carl Matheson. The movie Southpark has those characteristics. The comedies like Southpark use quotations to make fun of some individuals or groups of individual. I can’t really recall specific examples from the movie, but I do remember that there are quite a few quotations that came from other literary works, including movie, music, etc…
The Simpson’s episode that we viewed in class proves above statement. The quotations from other sources were used to mock other characters and perhaps other individuals outside of the show. These two comedies also have hyper-ironic sides. Those shows have humors are extremely cruel and brutal (in some way). They tend to touch very sensitive areas in today’s world. Religions, political affiliations, ethnicity, and other things. Simpson’s episode were mainly about a fossilized angel being a symbol of a new mall.(religion) And the Southpark shows Sadam Husein as a devil’s mate.(political affiliation). I’m pretty sure there are a lot more instances where these two shows display those characteristics, but my short memory is failing me.

South Park and The Simpsons are both American’s one of favorite comedies that carry a lot of exaggerations and are similar in the way of carrying reflection of the American’s society. They both are very hyper-ironic and quotational. However, South Park seems to be a lot more extreme and direct on criticizing others. Also they show more of what is going on in the real world and it seems that the purpose is to offend other culture, religion, race and portrays a lot of inappropriate slangs, sexual things,etc. (I really wonder what the Canadians would think about the show) However, The Simpsons portray slightly of the society and is less offensive, it’s more subtle.

A lot of you are commenting on how this film and the show are pretty offensive, but many of you find it funny anyway. Why do you think they seem to go out of their way to offend anyone and everyone? I'd guess there are very, very few people who can watch the entire movie and not find something offensive, even if they also think it's funny. And how does this offensiveness tie in to the movie's humor?

The Simpsons do make fun of every genre of literature as well as society issue. However simpsons is not as offending as South Park. Althought south Park’s characters are elementary students, their use of language and the content are just like adults. Compare to simpsons, south park seems more like rubbish to me with unrealistic story like Satan coming out from the hell and ruling the world. Although both of them are adult cartoons, Simpsons carries some advanced level of literature in its content like 'street care named margie' and modifies it to humor the audience and only certain people could understand the joke.Whereas I don’t see any literature contain in the southpark nor moral values. It appears that southpark is for everybody not requiring any extra knowledge to understand.
I noticed that simpsons is more to making fun of literature while southpark is more to making fun of society issues.ALso Southpark actually used real person's picture so there’s no distinction between reality and cartoon world like Novel. For example, Sadam, who is already dead comes to alive back from the Hell or the point where mothers put V-chip in the children's brain.
Southpark contains brutal imageries and evokes imagination of something is impossible like Sadam has strong influence even in the underworld.If we think about Sadam and how medi portrays of him actually make us to agree on the story.However simpsons never actually put the picture of real person in the cartoon nor make audience relate the current issues direct to the story.
Whatever the arguments are, simpsons and southparks are just a cartoon and they are just to humor people. However, Simpsons and Southparks has different characteristics of themselves.

I really had trouble getting started on this topic so I've had to condense the somewhat meaningful information here:

I do see South Park being similar to The Simpsons in this way because, as seen from the movie, South Park relies on poking fun at things a majority of the audience is aware of (in pop culture). In the movie, Saddam Hussein's face cutout is used for humor, after everything that took place, with his capture and hanging. I'm not sure if the movie was done before or after his hanging, but it proves how "cold" the humor is with the intended audience being able to laugh at his death and showing him in hell aside the devil. Also, in every episode of South Park, Kenny dies. For the audience to be able to laugh at this, shows that like The Simpsons, South Park is "based less on a shared sense of humanity".

I do find South Park to be very quotational such as The Simpsons. Just like The Simpsons, South Park also has guest characters that we see in the real world. In the movie, people like Bill Clinton, the Baldwin brothers and Saddam Hussein were guests. Unlike The Simpsons, the guest characters in South Park aren’t voiced by the actual people. This might be because South Parks humor is much more crude than the humor of The Simpsons. With Saddam Hussein, this country has grown to hate a man like this tremendously so the way he is portrayed in South Park makes it hilarious. People want to see these people that they have learned to hate be ridiculed and made fun of. South Park doesn't care what they do and breaks whatever boundries they might have by making fun of whoever/whatever they want. While The Simpsons have been known to go overboard with their humor, South Park takes it to a whole other level.

Come to think of it...I haven't seen much of South Park. When I went home on Monday thinking about the assignment to watch the movie I kind of laughed. What type of class would be assigned to watch this movie? I really wasn't interested in watching South Park when it became a t.v. show or even now. When I think of South Park, I think of hatefullness. I dont understand how someone can make such cold humor be something people in society want to watch. I know it is for entertainment but I always wonder what type of message are these people trying to get across. Are children really that bad? I think that the t.v. show displays poor character for children.

I see South Park as being similar to The Simpsons in both instances stated by Carl Matheson. It is both quotational and hyper-ironic. The way it is quotational is that in the movie it is a musical which is making fun of all other musicals. They also refer to religion, and often make fun of works from the bible. The Conan O’Brien show is also shown in the movie and being made fun of. The movie is hyper-ironic as well. At the same time it is like the creators are trying to be as offensive as possible. The humor is very cynical as the characters are careless about events that would normally be very serious. Like when Kenny dies they are mad his guts splatter on them. Also Cartman is happy that he does not have to pay him for losing the bet for lighting his fart on fire. Overall both shows are similar in the instances, but South Park is a bit more extreme and offensive.

I didn’t get to watch the South Park movie however I did read the article on the "The Simpson's". I usually don’t watch either but if I had to choose to watch one it would definitely be “The Simpson’s” because I think that it is funnier and not as stupid. When I read the article I agreed on a lot of things that the author talked about especially the hyper-irony part. It makes a lot of sense to describe adult cartoons or just cartoons in general have changed a lot over the years in the sense the comedy is much harsher that it used to be. I read the article awhile ago, so I don't remember that much. I do however remember about the part about quotationalism, and something about it referring to things in pop culture to make it funnier. That reminded me of how comedy these days is all about making fun of somebody whether it be their culture, their looks, personality, class, or just something like the way that they talk. "The Simpson's" does represent many "inside jokes" about pop culture and if you don't pay close attention they are easy to miss. “The Simpson’s” does do this quite a bit, but the one thing that I like about the show and something that I never realized before is the moral lessons that always come at the end. So in a way the comedy is hyper-ironic but the show still keeps it's integrity in at the end so you walk about thinking that it wasn't that bad (or mean).

Yes, I think that South Park is a comedy that is quotational and hyper-ironic. There are a couple of examples that displays these qualities that Carl Matheson described. First, there is the political figure President George Bush still stumbling while trying to present his speech to the nation. And while he is presenting his speech, a woman who is strongly opinionated interrupts George Bush and finishes the speech for him. This action makes fun of President Bush of how he does not know how to be a leader and make good decisions.
Another example I saw is Saddam Hussein and how he is still shown as a villain of the society. South Park displays Hussein as being more evil than Satan. I thought the displaying of the sexual desire of Hussein was very vulgar and inappropriate. I was actually disgusted by the scene, and I think this was the intent of the movie to put Hussein in a bad light once again.
Although there was some exaggeration to some extent, I agree with South Park that America does have a problem of children swearing and being exposed to things earlier than they should be. Despite the ratings on movies and the parent restricted sites, children are still able to get access to it. There should be further actions to restrict children at a certain age or just like South Park displayed, there might be a horrible outcome in the near future. (Well, maybe not a war or the world coming to an end.)

The Simpsons and South Park are both similar because they share the use of quotations to provide the humor and the clever plots in their shows. Most of the jokes in both of these shows come from this kind of humor. There is a lot of parallelism and allusion to outside work.
South Park uses many references to pop culture and other things that are and were prevalent to society during the creation of the movie. The show specifically uses a large amount of bad language because it is something not seen as proper in most circles of society. They poke fun at how anal-retentive people are about language. In the movie Kyle’s mom can been seen as a Tipper Gore-esk character because she took a small issue like bad language and made it into this huge deal that the entire country had to focus on. The boys reference Brian Boytono for pretty much no reason except making fun of the fact that he is a figure skater, but they also look at him as a possible hero and some one to look up to.
Sadamm Hussein is also used in the show as an evil tyrant who wants to take control of the world, and similarly to The Simpsons the writers use hyper-ironicism to depict him being gay and in a relationship to Satan. Satan is also depicted as a figure that shows stereotypical homo-sexual tendencies, seems to be the follower in the relationship instead of the leader behind Satan. The movie also uses hyper-ironicism to show 4th graders depiction of heaven. When Kenny dies they show him wanting to ascend to a place with big-breasted woman. This is funny because instead of looking at heaven as the traditional tranquil place where people figure out the meaning of life and connect to God Kenny wants to party with nude women.
The Terence and Philip movie is also pushing the irony level to the extreme it shows a movie that is extremely stupid, consisting of idiots farting and cursing on each other. This is used to represent the dumbest possible movie ever but it eventually starts a huge battle and war. The use of la resistance and the character called: the “mole” is an illusion to the French underground resistance during WWII, the mole is sad but spiritual individual and the movie stresses these aspects. This is ironic because a again this character had just been grounded…and in fourth grade.

South Parh is similar to the Simpsons since it is highly quotational bc it targets certain ares of pop culture and hyper ironic bc its cold humor is often on certain minorities. The movie tends to be highly offensive with language and has offensive jokes against African Americans, Jews, and Sadam. And how could I forget poor Canada? After the rated R movie hit theaters with two Canadian actors, they are found responsible for destroying the innocent minds of the children, the mothers of the children and the town, eventually all of America blames Canada for the damage which leads to war. Other celebrities made fun of in this movie are the Baldwins, Brook Shields, Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, George Bush, and many others. The Simpsons humor is less obvious, you have to be really intuned with pop culture; its like an inside joke, whereas South Park is very sraitforward with their jokes/insults.

I would say that 'South Park" and "The Simpsons" are different in their forms of being highly quotational. "The Simpsons" rely mainly on past works of literature and movies. For example, the episode mentioned in the text, "A Streetcar Named Marge," makes references to the play "A Streetcar Named Desire," and the movie "Birds." "South Park" on the other hand relies mainly on what's popular and/or controversial at the time. For example, the movie "South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut," was written during the time while the show "South Park" was being criticized by many for beeing too vulgar. The writers on the other hand, Matt Parker and Trey Stone, did not understand how it is okay to show graphic violence, just as long as profanity isn't used, according to the MPAA. So though both shows are highly quotational, "The Simpsons" refers to past texts and movies, while "South Park" concentrates on current events, what's popular and controversial.

South Park uses pop culture for their humor as well as The Simpsons. However, from the episodes I’ve seen of South Park, they seem to make fun of it more obvious than The Simpsons. The Simpsons are more subtle when they are making fun of someone or a group. South Park will put the actual people or group in the episode and make fun of them or have them look stupid. The Simpsons uses pop culture people and events abstractly in way or they do it in a way where it is funny for all and just like good teasing. South Park seems to want to offend people and make them mad. When South Park puts a real celebrity in their show, the real person is not actually involved, someone else does their voice. The Simpsons use real celebrities too, but they actually get the celebrity to do their own voice, unless they can't. The celebrities agree because it is all in good fun, even the humor they get out of poking fun at the celebrity. The Simpsons do have some violence but most of the time it is meant to be humorous. They may also show people’s butts but it is also used in a humorous way opposed to an indecent way. In some episodes they also use profanity words that the censors allow and some they don’t by applying it is said or something. South Park likes to be as offensive and indecent as they can. They have violence that is also suppose to be funny but can also be seen as just violent. They cuss as much as they can and have to bleep quite a few words.

Before yesterday I had never watched an entire episode of South Park. I had always been under the impression that South Park is crude, “little boy” humor and not something that I would be interested in or amused by. When I heard that we were going to have to watch the movie for this class, my immediate reaction was “Seriously?”. But to my astonishment, I sat there and watched the movie and was cracking up laughing the entire time. I did think that it was crude, “little boy” humor, but the part that I was wrong about was that I was entirely amused by it. I can definitely see how people would be offended by it because every single nationality, religion, sexual preference, or gender takes a hit and is the punch line of a joke in this movie. I definitely think that South Park takes certain incidents, ideas, or happenings of what is going on in today’s society and makes fun of it completely. The hilarity of the movie was that it was so true of the culture that we are growing up in. The fact that Saddam Hussein was a major character was appropriate considering the effect that he has had on the United States because of what he was doing overseas.
cgaskamp