ManBearPig

"ManBearPig" is the sixth episode in the tenth season of the American animated television series South Park. The 145th episode of the series overall, it first aired on Comedy Central in the United States on April 26, 2006. In the episode, Al Gore visits South Park to warn everyone about a creature called ManBearPig, an allegory for global warming.[1] Gore then gets Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny trapped inside the Cave of the Winds.[2] The creature is actually a homage from the eco-horror cult film Prophecy directed by John Frankenheimer wherein the film's monster is a result of environmental contamination.

"ManBearPig"
South Park episode
Episode no.Season 10
Episode 6
Directed byTrey Parker
Written byTrey Parker
Production code1006
Original air dateApril 26, 2006

Plot

Al Gore (voiced by Trey Parker)[3] visits South Park Elementary and warns the school's students about ManBearPig, an imaginary monster which roams the Earth attacking humans. Gore describes the monster as “half man, half bear, half pig.” While Gore continues to spread awareness of the fictional cryptid, Randy advises Stan and the boys to not be involved with Gore as he is only seeking attention. One night, Gore calls Stan about ManBearPig and Stan tries to turn him down gently; Gore weeps from this rejection until Stan changes his mind. Gore then persuades Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny to attend a ManBearPig meeting, where Gore states that the creature is hiding in the Cave of the Winds. The boys agree to assist Gore in his hunt for ManBearPig in exchange of being officially dismissed from school that day.

In the caves, the echo sound the cave is named for causes Gore to mistaken the sound for the creature. He fires a shotgun wildly, which causes a cave-in that leaves the boys trapped in the caverns; all others escape before the cave-in and Gore believes ManBearPig is at fault. While the boys search for a way out of the cave, Cartman discovers a small cavern filled with what appears to be treasure. Greedily, he starts swallowing the treasure piece-by-piece to smuggle it out of the cave.

As a rescue team assembles outside the cave to find the boys, Gore diverts the flow of a nearby stream in order to cause a flood which fills the cavern in an attempt to kill the still-unseen monster. The boys manage to escape just as a memorial service is being held for them. Stan angrily yells at Gore and calls him a "loser", who is unfazed as he is certain that he killed ManBearPig. Cartman tries to walk away, but he does not get far before he begins painfully defecating pieces of treasure. It is revealed to Cartman that the treasure was a prop used for tourist photo ops and is only worth about $14; this upsets Cartman as he continually defecates the fake treasure and Kyle angrily admonishes him for all the trouble of trying to save him. Gore announces his plans to make a film starring himself and dons a cape before pretending to fly away.

Reception

Eric Goldman from IGN gave the episode a score of 6.0 out of 10. He thought it was a superior episode compared to "A Million Little Fibers", the previous episode of the season, but still called it an "okay, middle of the road" episode.[4]

Home release

"ManBearPig", along with the thirteen other episodes from South Park's tenth season, was released on a three-disc DVD set in the United States on August 21, 2007. The set includes brief audio commentaries by series co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone for each episode.[5]

Legacy

ManBearPig is one of the antagonist characters shown in the "Imaginationland" trilogy in the eleventh season of South Park.

The episode is notorious as an allegory for climate change denial because Trey Parker and Matt Stone were initially unconvinced about Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth. In apologies for their treatment of the issue at the time, Al Gore and ManBearPig return in the sixth and seventh episode in the 22nd season of South Park, "Time to Get Cereal" and "Nobody Got Cereal?", which first aired on Comedy Central in the United States on November 7 and 14, 2018.[6][7]

gollark: I don't think that works for the AI unless this situation is repeated somehow. It may not work at all, since you can't actually tell if it is torturing you or not, from outside it.
gollark: Oh, oops, I got the lever direction mixed up, sorry. I meant that if you left it trapped then it wouldn't have reason to torture you.
gollark: And you can verify that.
gollark: Unless it can somehow precommit to torturing the simulations.
gollark: If it values suffering for its own sake it might as well do it anyway, but I don't think doing the torturing would advance other goals.

References
  1. "Fan Question: What's the story behind Al Gore and ManBearPig?". Southpark Studios.
  2. Parker, Trey; Stone, Matt (2006). South Park season ten DVD commentary for the episode "ManBearPig" (DVD). Comedy Central.
  3. ManBearPig on IMDb
  4. Goldman, Eric (April 27, 2006). "South Park: ManBearPig Review". IGN. Retrieved October 26, 2016.
  5. Iverson, Dan (November 22, 2006). "South Park: The Complete Tenth Season DVD Review". IGN. Retrieved April 30, 2017.
  6. Miller, Matt (15 November 2018). "In a Rare Move, South Park Admits It Was Wrong About Climate Change". Esquire. Retrieved 7 May 2020.
  7. VanDerWerff, Emily (14 November 2018). "12 years after mocking Al Gore's fight against climate change, South Park reconsiders". Vox. Retrieved 7 May 2020.
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