South Park jumps the shark

I am a devoted South Park fan. I love the way the creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, poke fun at political and controversial issues. Last night, however, they went to far and jumped the shark.

For those who aren't familiar with the term, "jump the shark" is a reference to the tv show Happy Days when the Fonze jumped a pool of sharks while he was on water skis. The term comes to mean that a show is pulling some crazy storyline to garner interest in a show that is starting to go downhill.

Last night South Park aired an episode that was parodied the exaggerations James Frey wrote in his book, A Million Little Pieces. So first off, the show was a bit dated. It only takes 6 days from start to finish on the show, so I thought it was weak picking an issue that was several months old. Secondly, the show was pretty flat and not very funny. But what really got me last night was that more than half the episode featured Oprah Winfrey's talking minge (vagina) and anus.

Evidently the minge was upset that Oprah is a workaholic and doesn't pay him much attention. He tries to discredit her by showing how the book is a fake. When that doesn't work, he takes hostages and shoots a cop. Most of the show shows a close-up of Oprah's groin area (abet fully clothed).

I just think it was in bad taste, and as I said, wasn't funny. Also, when South Park lampoons someone, they usually deserve it -- people like Paris Hilton. It was almost like they had to use Oprah because she was part of the book controversy, but didn't have anything to really make fun of her, so they used her vagina.

The main character in last night's episode was Towlie, a towel. He couldn't come up with an idea unless he was high, yet every time he was high, he came up with bad ideas, like faking his autobiography, A Million Little Fibers. I think maybe Trey and Matt had been smoke the weed when they came up for the idea for last night's show.