I just loved the south park world of warcraft episode and had to write about it.
World of Warcraft is a computer game that’s captured the interest of people all over the world. It’s a fantasy based role playing game in which players learn skills and complete quests to level up, get better gear, and earn gold and goodies within the game.
In a nod to the popularity of the game, Comedy Central’s animated show, South Park, aired an episode that centered around World of Warcraft. The episode aired in October of 2006. The South Park World of Warcraft episode ran as the premiere episode of the second half of the show’s tenth season.
For this episode, the creators of South Park collaborated with Blizzard, the company behind World of Warcraft, to mix the standard South Park animation with in game footage of World of Warcraft to show the characters and environment throughout the episode.
The basic plot of the South Park World of Warcraft episode is that there is a player named Jenkins, which is a reference to Leroy Jenkins, who is terrorizing all the other players in the game. This has made it impossible for them to continue playing.
Out of frustration, Cartman plans for all the boys to log into the game and kill Jenkins, but they’re easily massacred. The other boys want to quit, but Cartman rallies them, and convinces them that if they hide from Jenkins, they can build their strength in the game and, together, can take him on.
For two months, the boys spend every available moment they have playing World of Warcraft, killing low level boars to build their skills. As they level, the Blizzard executives take notice, and decide to give the boys the fabled “Sword of a Thousand Truths,” located on a one gigabyte USB flash drive, to help them in their quest to kill Jenkins.
When they arrive at Stan’s house to give it to them, however, the boys aren’t there. Randy, who has taken an interest in the game, says that, though he is a “noob,” he can give the sword to his son in an in game trade. They race to Best Buy where Randy logs online using a demo computer and though he gets the sword to Stan, he’s attacked by Jenkins.
The boys manage to kill Jenkins, and Stan rushes to Randy’s side just before his character dies. Once it’s clear that Jenkins is dead, other characters emerge from the woods and celebrate that they, too, can play the game again.
The South Park World of Warcraft episode was very well received by both South Park fans and World of Warcraft fans. In 2007, the episode received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program.
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