South Park S 13 E 3 Margaritaville - TV Tropes

“That is not cool!"

Original air date: 3/25/2009

In a parody of the final weeks of Christ's life, South Park goes into hysterics over the failing economy, but Kyle begins preaching that there is no reason for fear. Meanwhile, Stan unsuccessfully tries to return his dad's margarita machine.

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This episode contains examples of the following tropes:

• Aesop Amnesia: After preaching an extreme case of fiscal conservatism, Randy ends the episode getting a new Margaritaville, describing its function in such a way as to demonstrate what a waste of money it is.
• All for Nothing: Stan's journey to return his dad's Margaritaville is all for naught after he gives up upon seeing just how nonsensical the treasury's handling of important financial decisions are, tossing and destroying the mixer in frustration. Even worse, Randy buys another Margaritaville at the end just to further illustrate how pointless Stan's efforts were.
• Artistic License – Economics:
  • The bank teller, Benny, is only supposed to deposit the money into the accounts of the client when asked to, but instead moves the money around into high risk ventures unprompted and without receiving permission from the clients to do so, resulting in the bank losing all of Stan, Randy, and Mrs. Farnickle's money. In real life, Benny's actions would be grounds for termination of employment, in particular his treatment of Stan due to Stan being both a new customer who never gave permission for Benny to do anything other than deposit the check, and a minor who can't legally sign off on said action to begin with without a legal guardian present.
  • Even discounting how Kyle was able to apply for a credit card, much less a limitless card, despite being underage, no credit card company is going to let a person stack up hundreds if not thousands of charges all in the span of a few hours without freezing the card due to fraud concerns.
• Call-Back: While being interviewed on the recession, Darryl Weathers brings back the Running Gag of "They took our jobs!" from "Goobacks".
• Chekhov's Gun: The credit card with no spending limit that Kyle gets to "prove a point".
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: For the crime of frivolous spending, a mob of people throw squirrels at Mr. Garrison.
• Curtain Clothing: To avoid having to spend money on detergent to wash their clothes, Randy has everyone start wearing sheets, serving to further the religious imagery by making them resemble robes. Kenny as a result has most of his head uncovered for the majority of the episode.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: No one even acknowledges the fact that Kyle paid off their debts; the closest he gets for his sacrifice is being carried to his room after getting tired paying off everyone's debts, all done in a way that pays homage to Jesus being carried to His tomb after dying on the Cross.
• Dumbass Has a Point: Randy isn't wrong when he points out one of the causes of the recession was people spending money they didn't have on frivolous purchases. Kyle even agrees on that point. However, Randy's idea of fixing the economy by not spending any money at all is completely wrong.
• Fantastic Racism: Once again, Cartman takes the opportunity to blame Jewish people for everything going wrong, being the only one preaching anti-semitic rhetoric while everyone else is blaming the economy. Fitting his role as the Judas amidst Kyle's disciples, he uses said rhetoric to get Randy and his friends to follow through on turning Kyle into The Scapegoat for everything.
• Genre Savvy: Kyle was catching on to the Jesus parallels he was following and after a conversation about a possible traitor he enacts his plan ahead of time to prevent the adults from stopping him, charging everyone else's debts to his no limit credit card so that they had disposable income to use.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Parodied. Kyle, fitting him being the Messianic Archetype here, decides to pay off everyone's debts using the credit card he applied for, doing so all day leaving him exhausted and requiring a group of his "followers" carry him to bed in a parallel to Jesus being laid to rest. While he was only tired and wakes up fine the next morning, as Sheila points out while begging him to stop he's effectively made all their debt into his own debt, meaning he'll likely be in debt for the rest of his life, Kyle doing so anyway means South Park can finally recover.
• Hypocritical Humor: Father Maxi, the devout Catholic, is the one who calls the idea of Kyle being the "one son" of the economy meant to save them stupid, when the entire idea of Jesus Christ being the Messiah of Judeo-Christian faith is that he is the "one son" of God meant to deliver all of God's children from sin.
• Hypocrite: Randy, for all of his talk about people's frivolous spending on expensive things they don't need, initially exposits his rage while using an obviously expensive margarita mixer he didn't need. What's worse is that he isn't oblivious to it, he just tries to justify his spending by including margaritas in his list of bare essentials people need to live. And after trying to stop Kyle the whole episode, he's more than happy to let him pay off his debt.
• Insane Troll Logic:
  • Randy's plan to fix the economy is for the people of South Park to not spend any money at all. When the town's economy unsurprisingly gets worse because of this, he's completely perplexed and decides to blame Kyle for it.
  • The treasury's financial decisions resemble a cult ritual.
• Jerkass Ball: The normally reasonable authority figures like Father Maxi and Principal Victoria all end up falling for Randy's mania, acting like religious zealots and blind sheeple compared to their usual level headedness.
• Kazoos Mean Silliness: The weird decision making process the treasurers go through is accompanied by a kazoo rendition of "Yakety Sax".
• Laser-Guided Karma: The bank in the opening scene manages to lose Stan, Randy, and Mrs. Farnickle's money in rapid succession while having No Sympathy for their situation. The Channel 9 News immediately after reveals the bank was closed after mismanaging their client's money and contributing to the recession.
• "Last Supper" Steal: Kyle and his friends have one last pizza dinner at Whistlin' Willy's, and all happen to be sitting on one side of a long table, with Kyle as Jesus in the centre, flanked by Craig as Bartholomew, Timmy as James the Lesser, Jason as Andrew, Cartman as Judas (true to form, he is the one planning to betray Kyle), Token as John, Jimmy as Thomas, Butters as James the Greater, Kenny as Philip, Tweek as Matthew, Ike as Thaddeus, and Clyde as Simon.^note 
• Messianic Archetype: Kyle gets turned into one when he tries to get people to come round to the idea that the economy isn't an angry beast, and they need to start spending again to revitalize it. His initial "disciples" include Butters, Craig, Clyde, Kenny, and Cartman as the equivalent of Judas Iscariot.
• Nails on a Blackboard: Cartman does this to get Randy and his friends' attention when they question how to catch Kyle.
• Pretentious Pronunciation: The guy working at Sur la Table pronounces the "ble" in words like "table", "cable" and "agreeable" as "bluh".
• Product Placement: The people of South Park not buying anything anymore means Cartman can't get Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, which aggravates him.
• Rage Quit: Stan's subplot ends with him getting so fed up with the bullshit concerning the Margaritaville that, rather than continue pursuing it after seeing the bailout scene, he smashes it.
• Running Gag:
  • "Annnd it's gone!"
  • Whenever Stan reaches a different financial planner and explains that he's come to return the Margaritaville (which becomes increasingly convoluted since he adds each experience to his reasoning), said person replies with "Yeah, that makes sense."
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here!: Stan, after realizing he's in a "Shaggy Dog" Story, smashes the titular Margaritaville and goes home.
• Sentient Cosmic Force: How the people of South Park begin treating the economy.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: Stan's side plot, which involves him talking to various people in an attempt to get a refund for the Margaritaville mixer, only to get denied at every turn when it turns out said machines are all part of a convoluted financing plan for people who want one but can't pay for one and said plan has already been sold to a different person whom he must now consult. When he finally moves up the ladder all the way to the treasury, it turns out their shorthand of "consulting the charts" regarding important financial decisions actually involves cutting the head off a chicken, playing a version of "Yakety Sax" on a kazoo and watching the chicken run around on a giant gameboard, and deciding what action to take based on what space it finally expires on. Upon seeing this insanity, he gives up, throws the Margaritaville mixer on the gameboard, and goes back home.
• Shout-Out:
  • The sequence of all of the street preachers throwing blame at various entities as the cause of the recession is a reference to Monty Python's Life of Brian.
  • Cartman's Nails on a Blackboard moment is done the same way as Quint's in Jaws
• Take That!:
  • The opening scene lampoons the nature of banks and their irresponsibility with people's money. Stan simply wanted to open an account to deposit his check for $100, and the teller, Benny, proceeds to put it through several unnecessary investments before losing it all in a matter of seconds. Mrs. Farnickle puts her check into her retirement account, and its lost even faster. Randy then tries defending Stan and Benny, unprompted, proceeds to transfer Randy's money into a portfolio for him and Stan then loses it all just as fast. Each time Benny has No Sympathy for his clients and tells them to buzz off since their accounts are empty and thus no longer considered "part of the bank".
  • At the end, the newscast shows that the people of South Park consider Barack Obama to be the one who turned the economy around, despite the fact he didn't do anything.
  • When it is suggested that Kyle is the "only son of the Economy, sent to us", Father Maxi angrily states that the Economy is omnipotent and capable of anything, and thus having only one son is completely illogical. He and everyone else is blind to the irony.
  • The foundations of the economy are overlaid with several layers' worth of middle-men, with the top brass basing their decisions on the results of an insanely stupid ritual.
• The Unreveal: Exactly how much Kyle's credit, and by extension the town's debt, is in the hole for is never revealed.
• Verbal Tic: Josh from the finance company has a habit of saying "yeah... no" at random points in conversation.
• Whole-Plot Reference: The main plot becomes a reenactment of Biblical events, with Kyle in the role of Jesus.