Reviews

Newsreaders is a spin-off of sorts based on the newsreaders episodes of Children's Hospital, one of the best shows of all time. It's a completely different type of comedy though. The jokes are delivered at blinding speed, sometimes so quickly you don't even have time to register that what just happened is hysterical. The highlight so far is Mine Camp, which focuses on a summer camp for gay individuals. To get to this camp the counselors abduct you from your bed in the middle of the night and stick you in a train car. When you get there you're given a uniform, a gold star, a haircut, a shower, and a barcode is tattooed on your arm. Then you're taught to march and heil. Sounds familiar.... If that doesn't sound funny to you watch the episode and just try not to be amazed.

Newsreaders doesn't just push boundaries, it destroys them like the hulk smashing Loki in the avengers. This show differentiates differentiates itself from the countless other late night comedies is through the expert way in which it delivers social commentary. Taken at face value, it's funny as hell. Think about it a little though, and you'll be shocked by how scathing and true the messages are. The actors all deliver their lines with unshakable stoicism and a childlike naivety which only makes the horrible, awful, offensive, amazing, hilarious things they say that much funnier. This show is the best possible way to spend 15 minutes of your life and you just might take unexpectedly and something away from it. For instance did you know the auto industry created cancer? Or that being gay is a choice, and once you choose you're stuck being gay? Check out Newsreaders is hilarious and that's the bottom line.

*Spoilers, but this is south park so who really cares***

This episode manages to brutally satirize cable companies, the recent trend of procedural crime dramas pregnating TV nowadays at every turn, and minecraft all at once. The bits with the cable company are freaking hilarious! Illicitly implying cable companies, with their ridiculously convoluted and purposeless rules regarding programming packages, gets off on frustrating their customers. The head of the cable network, at the end of the episode, has one of the funniest lines i've heard in south park in awhile as he tells customers in order to get their beloved procedural crime dramas, or murder porn, back they have to pick up an extra 300 channels in Portuguese. Pretty much how cable companies work in real life.

Then there's the minecraft sections. Oh god are they hilarious. "Someone punched all the trees and dug a bunch of holes in one of your neighbors lawns. And someone built a cabin on your other neighbors lawn.". I haven't laughed this hard in a long time. South park brilliantly skewers minecraft by first pointing out how pointless it actually is, then that adults nowadays have severely impaired imaginations, then finally coming full swing and satirizing how addicting it is. Butters dad on his cardboard box castle he built to look exactly like minecraft is not an something I will soon forget.

Brilliant episode, it shows south park is just as sharp and witty, if not more so, 17 seasons in than it was when it was young and fresh. That's something I'm not sure any other show could claim with any legitimacy. 11/10