The Secrets of
"It Hits The Fan"

Oh, Shit! "Shit" was said on Chcago Hope (Mark Harmon: "shit happens") a couple years ago. A lot of discussion about the mention of the word "shit" occured before and after the airing. And when NYPD Blue, the "Cop Drama," aired "shit" last season, it caused the sort of uproar parodied in this episode. But then again, didn't South Park just cannibalize itself? In this episode we have 162 "shits," but in SP:BLU we have 399 bad words. Where were the knights and dragon then? And before that, when "Ike's Wee Wee" first aired, Mr. Mackey got "bullshit" past the censors the first time out. The second time the episode aired, it was "bull    ," and the third time it was "bull[beep]." ABC/NBC aired "Schindler's List" unbleeped (leaving "fuck" and "shit" in) back in 1995 or 1996. 60 Minutes aired a clip of Richard Nixon saying "Sometimes you have to shit or get off the pot" sometime around 1984-'85 In the late '70s there was a PBS show on architechture in which the British narrator used "shit." Normally the FCC, or Standards and Practices, gets involved when it's seen as "gratuitous," which was the whole point in last night's episode. Indeed, PBS has shown quite a few documentaries in which words such as "fuck" remained untouched. The mention of the word "shit" pretty much depends on the cable network. The FCC "seven dirty word rules" are more like guidelines than rules, but advertisers have problems with "bad" language, and since cable networks depend on advertising dollars as much as broadcast networks do, they'll bend to the will of the advertisers.

"Four tickets to The Lion King on stage!" — Parker and Stone pick up where they left off last Christmas: "Circle of Poo" parodied The Lion King's "Circle of Life," and here, in which "shit" is uttered 162 times (but see below), The Lion King is mentioned again.

"Like that time they had the first male-to-male kiss with Terrance and Phillip?" — Anne Heche and Ellen DeGeneres on Ellen's show a few years ago on ABC.

Cartman says he's gonna have people over to the house to see the show, but only the boys show up. Where's everybody else?

"Crime Drama Statistics" should read "Cop Drama Statistics"

The form of "shit" used on "Cop Drama" is the figurative noun form (you don't really think Mitchell had shit on the side of his mouth, do ya?) So, just to clarify, using Ms. Choksondik's example:

	Literal, and impermissible	Figurative, and permissible
Noun	This is a picture of shit.	———
Adjective	My bad diarrhea made the inside of the toilet bowl shitty, and I had to clean it with a rag, which then also became shitty.	That's a shitty picture of me. The weather outside is shitty.

As you can see, Ms. Choksondik did not, in fact, use the figurative noun form in explaining the school's position to the class. This chart spoofs FCC rulings on connotations under which vulgar words can and can't be used.

Mr. Garrison's song parodies "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang."

Shitty things... SHIT SHACK Window CHECK THIS SHIT OUT!! Shirt at upper left: THE SHIT! Shirt at upper right: SHIT YEAH! five caps: SHIT ten cups: SHIT People near the store Shirt on a man: SHIT HAPPENED Shirt on woman leaving store: SHIT Shirt on her son: LITTLE SHIT Two shopping bags: HOT SHIT Shit 'n Things Cartman wears a "SHIT" shirt bearing the HBC logo before the boys ever go to HBC The lead knight emerges from the store with a "SHIT" shirt On the plane, the lead knight reads THE WORLD NEWS paper with "SHIT CONTINUES TO HAPPEN" as its headline These I left off the script so that only the spoken "shits" would be present and counted properly.

So what the hell is "meecrob"? It's mee krob, and here's a recipe for it. Here another.

Jimbo, Al, and Mr. Garrison are gay, since they can say "fag" without getting bleeped. But who else has said it and gotten away with it on South Park?
Grandpa, in "Quintuplets 2000" - "fag-nasties"
Kyle andn Cartman, in "Something You Can Do With Your Finger" - "faggy"
In the movie, Cartman - "fuckin' faggot."
And maybe Kenny, in "Hooked On Monkey Fonics" - "faggot"

The Hot Lunch Menu on the little blackboard in the kirchen has nothing listed for the day.

Must Shit TV = Must See TV (NBC)
Night of a Million Shits = Night of a Million Bleeps (CC), Night of a Million Laughs (NBC)
the HBC Turtle = the NBC peacock ('90s version)

The Rune of Undoing — the closest thing I've found to that is Hagalaz, the Rune of Destructive Forces. Here's a site that tells more about runes, including Hagalaz.

The same director can have several different voices. This happens a few times in the boardroom.

This makes the second time for Chef and the boys in Las Vegas (their first time was in "Are You There, God. It's Me, Jesus."), the third for Kenny if we include his trip in the Master P video for Chef Aid.

Big Gay Al at Excalibur? No, but one of the Craps dealers looks like him.

Comp meal — complimentary meal

What was the sudden change of expression on the barker's face at the casino a reference to?

Each network has a department of Standards and Practices that makes sure a program abides by the rules set for it by the FCC, depending on the type of program it is.

The sorcerer's book shows seven runes, one for each curse word, but he says there are eight curse words. And meecrob has a stone assigned to it while the other stones don't have words written under them.

I count 161 shits. Amid the string of "shit"s is one gasp the HBC president made to get some air back into his lungs. The counter didn't stop for that, though, and so counted the gasp as "shit" #149.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail references: The red haired man at Excalibur kinda looked like Eric Idle and the wizard there looked like Tim from Holy Grail. And when the knight died he did that long "ahhhhh", like the inscription on a cave wall in Holy Grail when one of the character dies. Or was that Yoda the knight was imitating?

Technical difficulties... When it was time to gauge the New York crowd's reaction to "shit" being aired for the first time on Cop Drama, there's no sound. Saturday - the group is shown cheering, with applause and confetti The knight decapitated the wrong man, and there's no sound to it. There's no indication where the head ended up. When the HBC president is present with his staff at the Drew Carey Show, the decapitated man is there as well, with his head on. Saturday - in a group shot of the entire boardroom, the guy on the lower left is decapitated (same guy, actually - different viewing position), and there is sound. The head lands on the table. And he's no longer on the Drew Carey Show set. Security arrives and shoots at the knight, and there's no sound Saturday - fixed The knight falls out through the window, and there's no sound Saturday - fixed He lands on the street below, without any thud. Saturday - fixed Each time the boardroom doors open, there's no sound. Saturday - fixed As the barker, the boys, Chef, and others walk down the hall towards the sorcerer, a couple of glaring errors show up. Cartman's face changes color to a dark shade of purple, then snaps back to flesh just before the scene ends. Also, the whole scene looks shifted down, revealing a grey bar, and a black one above that. Sort of like the "hall of mirrors" that sometimes appeared in Doom and related games. Saturday - all fixed, including Cartman's color Another knight impales Drew Carey through the face and onto a cubicle wall on his own show, but again there's no sound in the impaling, no sound in Carey and the sword hitting the cubicle wall, and no sound of the subsequent decapitations, including Mimi's. Saturday - fixed A few moments after the president ends his string of "shit"s, before the ground opens up, the studio audience disappears. Saturday - fixed As soon as the geldon rises up behind the Drew Carey Show set, both Mimi and Drew are shown with their heads back on. Mimi tries to runs off the set, but freezes, while Drew drops down under his desk. Saturday - the two of them are not there anymore, so that's fixed. During the kids' speech after the geldon was sent back down below, the kids are smiling, and the smiles are set a little high, which I liked. Saturday - the kids aren't smiling. Their expressions are sober, so that's fixed. Kenny vomits quite a bit when he dies Saturday - ...not as much, but there's more of it Bonus: better color throughout the episode on Saturday.