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Thursday, May 5, 2011

The Dalek Invasion of SOUTH PARK


All right, maybe it wasn't the Daleks, per se, but it was pretty damn close.

On last night's South Park episode, "Funnybot," the "handi-capable" stand-up comedian wannabe character of Jimmy Valmer creates South Park Elementary's first annual Comedy Awards and gives an award to the nation of Germany, declaring them to be "the least funny people in the world."  Germany is highly insulted, of course, and creates a joke-telling robot named Funnybot to prove that Germany has a sense of humor.

Designed as a deliberate homage/parody of the classic Doctor Who enemies the Daleks, Funnybot uses similar vocal patterns and body movements and even has a Dalek toilet plunger...errrrr, manipulator armAlthough it may not have been an intentional linking to Germany, it's widely known that Dalek creator Terry Nation grew up during World War II and consciously based the Daleks on the Nazis.

And yes, the Daleks' most famous catchphrase even gets some love with the lines "I am taking comedy to the next level, the extermination of all biological life on Earth!" and "Attention, humans!  I am Funnybot!  The extermination of all life on Earth shall now commence!"  The big payoff, though, comes with the lines "It is the ultimate joke.  Humans make comedy, humans build robot, robot ends all life on Earth, robot feels awkward...Exterminate!"

The depiction of Funnybot also gives some heavy nods to Nomad from the classic Star Trek episode "The Changeling," the IT-O interrogation droid from Star Wars, and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.  If you're interested in checking out the full episode, you can view it here.

Fingers crossed that the Cybermen turn up next.

3 comments:

  1. Rats. I didn't realize SOUTH PARK had resumed.

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  2. Yep, last week. Now you're two episodes down.

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  3. Oh, so I'm not too far behind. A chip in my head normally activates when a new season starts. Didn't happen this time. I watched this one last night (thanks for the linkage). I'll find the preceding episode, then all will be well.

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