Original air date: 11/14/2007
The girls at school have made a list that ranks all the boys' looks from cutest to ugliest. Once they take a look at it, Kyle is left depressed with the results. To help Kyle out of his funk, Stan goes to Wendy and she takes him to the club that made the list, "Please N' Sparkles".
Tropes
- Abusive Parents: Stephen and Linda were planning on grounding Butters if he were to be chosen as the ugliest of the boys.
- Accidental Murder: When trying to shoot Wendy while struggling with her, Bebe's gun goes off and she accidentally ends up killing Kenny. This also marks the second time Bebe has killed Kenny in the show.
- Acquired Situational Narcissism: Clyde becomes a snob after he's voted the cutest boy. Butters (who's the 11th) bullies Kyle for being voted last.
- An Aesop: True Beauty Is on the Inside, and unlike outer beauty, it won't fade with time.
- All Women Love Shoes: To a flabbergasting degree. The high-ranking members of the Pleases and Sparkles Club forged the list in order to put Clyde at #1 in an attempt to get free shoes from him, since his father owns a shoe store at the mall. Even Wendy, when railing against Bebe for fixing the list, get distracted by one pair of shoes Bebe shows off. She even confiscates them while Bebe gets arrested.
- Artistic License – Physics: The pistol bullet Bebe fired wouldn't have gone as far as it did (reaching a faraway ghetto neighborhood) in real life.
- Beauty Breeds Laziness: Abe Lincoln's ghost points out that beautiful people end up not growing as people due to having everything handed to them, while ugly people do due to having to work for the things they want.
- Beauty Is Bad:
- More like "beauty is boring" The ghost of Abraham Lincoln visits Kyle while he's depressed and takes him on a journey to show him that ugliness can be more of a blessing than a curse. First, they visit an older woman named Nancy Pinkerton, who was considered the most beautiful girl around when she was younger. Everything was handed to her, and boys would constantly tell her she was special, funny and interesting, but none of it was sincere. She was only told those things because of her looks, but she never realized that was the reason. So she never tried to put any effort into being more than what she was, and went through life believing that she was interesting and special for no reason. It wasn't until Nancy reached middle-age and her looks began to fade that she realized there wasn't anything interesting or special about her at all. And now without her looks to coast on she has no real meaning or substance in her adult life. Next, they visit one of Kyle's new ugly friends named Jamal who is learning to play the piano. Abe tells Kyle that Jamal may be struggling now, but the struggle will pay off when he's an adult. Since ugly people have nothing handed to them and are given no special treatment, he'll have to put in work in order to make people appreciate him and as a result, he will develop character, something that people who are hot rarely do.
- A straighter example would be Clyde. Once he finds out he's number one on the list, he begins acting like a conceited douche, something that Abe also points out.
- Big Bad Friend: Bebe to Wendy.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: The high-ranking members of the Pleases and Sparkles Club are shown to be this.
- Brick Joke:
- Cartman's initial plan to steal the list from Nelly was to have Butters kick her in the "balls". It fails when the boys discover that girls don't have balls. Later on, Wendy steals the real list from Lola by kicking her in the crotch which incapacitates her, possibly implying that she has balls. Either that, or Wendy simply just kicks much harder than Butters.
- Cartman mocks Kenny's poverty by saying he eats Pop-Tarts for dinner. Later on when Bebe's stray bullet hits Kenny at the dinner table, his family is eating cereal and Pop-Tarts.
- Butters mentions that his parents would ground him if the girls were to name him the ugliest of the boys. Later on when Butters tells his parents that he wasn't placed last on the list, Stephen tells Linda that they won't have to ground him for not being last on the list.
- Bebe shows Wendy the shoes that she had gotten while dating Clyde, while Wendy expresses some interest in them. Later, as Bebe gets arrested, Wendy is seen happily admiring the shoes.
- Bullying a Dragon:
- Lola tries to do this to Wendy to get her to back down when Wendy discovers she, Bebe and the others are behind the corruption of the fake "cutest boys" list. For her efforts to discourage and intimidate Wendy, she gets a violent kick to the crotch for her troubles.
- Earlier in the episode, Red used the same tactic, and to be fair, it actually succeeded in intimidating Wendy on the spot. Then again, Wendy was likely just shocked that one of her best friends suddenly got in her face like that. While both girls have demonstrated some level of toughness in the show, Wendy has been shown to probably be the better fighter and would likely have won if the two actually got into a fistfight there and then.
- Butters tried the same crotch kick to Nelly that Wendy used on Lola in order to steal the girls' list from her, but his kick wasn't strong enough to do any damage. He tried attacking her again, but she wasn't fazed. Cut to the next scene where Butters has a black eye and a broken arm for continuing to provoke her.
- Character Catchphrase: The girls in the List Committee have "If it pleases and sparkles..." and "sunshine!"
- Continuity Nod:
- Bebe gets back together with Clyde, whom she previously went out with in "Clubhouses".
- Stan and Wendy get back together since breaking up in "Raisins". Also, Stan vomits on Wendy again when they are about to kiss, a Running Gag that had not been used in a while.
- Damned By a Fool's Praise: Gerald and Sheila, in a bid to make Kyle feel better about himself tell him he is as handsome as his father with Sheila's nose. The two are clueless as to why Kyle would be upset about this.
- Disproportionate Retribution:
- Kyle attempts to burn down the school because the girls placed him last on the forged list. Granted, many of his classmates were bullying him for it.
- Butters says that his parents will ground him if they find out that the girls placed him last on the list. Stephen confirms it when Butters tells him he wasn't placed last on the list.
- Elmuh Fudd Syndwome: Jamal, the ugly kid who talks about burning the school talks this way.Jamal: I hate coming to this school, it makes me angwy. Sometimes I want to burn it down, burn the whole school down to the gwound!
- Evil Gloating: Lola and Jenny when they Trash Talk Wendy and explain how they, alongside Bebe and possibly other girls, forged the list so that Clyde would end in spot #1 to boost his popularity and get free shoes from him.
- Female Groin Invincibility: Butters kicks Nelly in the crotch twice, but she doesn't react to the kicks other than angrily saying "Ow!" and calling him an asshole.
- Averted later on when Wendy kicks Lola in the crotch, as it actually incapacitates her and causes her to drop the folder with the real list.
- Fighting Your Friend: Bebe and Wendy, who are friends, engage in a fight.
- Foreshadowing:
- Cartman tells Kenny that no girl would want to go out with someone who eats Pop-Tarts for dinner. Cut to the episode's climax, where Bebe attempts to shoot Wendy but instead shoots Kenny through the McCormicks' kitchen window, Pop-Tarts pop out of his family's toaster.
- When Abe Lincoln takes Kyle to Clyde's house, Clyde himself is sitting on the couch talking to Red on the phone promising he'll buy her new shoes.
- Gold Digger: A variation. Bebe, Lola, Jenny, Red and some of the other girls want to date Clyde in order to get free shoes from him.
- Gonk: The ugly kids Kyle briefly hangs out with.
- Groin Attack: Happens twice.
- As part of Cartman's plan to obtain the list from the girls, he has Butters kick Nelly in her "balls", only for this to backfire once they realize that females do not have testicles.
- Wendy does this to Lola when trying to get the real list from her, and it actually works.
- Hard Truth Aesop: Beauty fades. You're not going to stay as attractive as you were in your youth for your entire life, you need to work to actually make yourself interesting otherwise when your looks go all that will be left is a very dull person.
- Hate Sink: Red, Lola, Jenny, and Bebe show their darkest side in this episode. First, they corrupt the list so that Clyde is the at the top of it, when he was really in the bottom five of the list, all to justify dating him (because he wasn't popular enough for them before) and get free shoes from his father's store. Though the former three only resort to empty threats, Bebe sinks to further depths when she threatens to kill Wendy (her best friend), Stan, and Kyle (her former crush) when the former two uncover the scheme, with Wendy almost getting shot during the ensuing fight. Bebe gets arrested for her actions, but the other girls all get away with it, unless Wendy said something to the police (who seemed to take the subject very seriously).
- Hollywood Healing: Butters' attempt at kicking Nelly in the "balls" results in him being beaten up so badly that he has a black eye and a cast on his arm. He's completely fine in the next scene.
- Informed Attribute:
- Both Informed Attractiveness and Informed Deformity come into play. All of the boys have the same face and body shapes aside from Cartman (obese), Tolkien (black), Jimmy and Timmy (disabled).
- Kyle's parents say he looks like his father but has his mother's nose. None of the child characters have visible noses.
- Innocently Insensitive: Clyde doesn't realize his selfishness over boasting about his popularity amongst the girls because he doesn't realize that the list was forged and that he was actually part of the bottom five.
- Ironic Name: One of the ugly kids Kyle meets is a boy named Jamal, which means "beautiful" in Arabic.
- Jerkass Ball:
- After finding out about their newfound "attractiveness", Clyde becomes a total douche who flaunts his body to everyone he encounters.
- Butters didn't make it past number 11, but he relentlessly makes fun of Kyle as well for being at the bottom of the list.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Stan is totally confused when Kyle mentions how Abraham Lincoln was right about looks not mattering.
- Kill the Ones You Love: Bebe nearly does this to Wendy.
- Milkman Conspiracy: Stan wanted to find out why Kyle was placed last on the list, but when he and Wendy investigate the matter they quickly uncover a conspiracy; the higher-ranking members of the fourth grade girls' Pleases and Sparkles Club forged the list so they could put Clyde at the top in order to boost his popularity, be able to date him and convince him to give them free shoes from his father's shoe store, and revealing that Kyle ending up last on the list was simply a coincidence produced by all the tampering. In the end, Bebe, the leader of the committee and mastermind behind the forging of the list, tries to kill Wendy so she won't reveal the real list to the public.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Butters receives an off-screen one from Nelly when the boys' first attempt to steal the list goes array. Judging from his injuries, it was rather brutal.
- Noodle Incident: How the boys do manage to get the list is never shown.
- Only Sane Man: Amongst her female peers, Wendy is the only one who actually cares about the integrity of the "cutest boys" list, rather than just rewriting it to put Clyde on top and make him popular so the girls can get free shoes from his dad's shoe store.
- Pet the Dog: Despite his newfound narcissism, Clyde sincerely feels bad for Kyle and tells Butters off for making fun of him. Unfortunately, his boosted ego causes him to be Innocently Insensitive more than anything.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Cartman and the rest of the boys sans Butters bail when the "kick Nelly in the balls" plan fails.
- Sexiness Score: The boys discovering the girls made a list ranking the boys from cutest to ugliest drives most of the plot of the episode.
- Serious Business: The titular list is taken way too seriously by just about everyone in the episode, in spite of said list being solely based about what a bunch of 8-to-10 year old girlsnote think about their male classmates.
- List making is a very complex task done in a committee and that tampering with a list is a felony. Wendy even calls the police on Bebe and has her arrested for forging the list, and the police are completely serious about the whole situation, taking Bebe to court and all.
- Butters' parents were planning on grounding him if the girls placed him last on the list.
- Clyde being at the top of the list gets him treated like a celebrity, while Kyle (who is at the bottom of the list) gets bullied so badly that he snaps and nearly burns the school down.
- Sudden Name Change: Red is referred to as Rebecca in this episode.
- Status Quo Is God: While Bebe gets arrested at the end of the episode, her very next appearance shows her out of jail, likely because she got a light sentence for such a petty crime.
- The Glasses Gotta Go: Kyle attempts this with the ugly girl, only for him to realize that she's still not very attractive.
- They Killed Kenny Again: Bebe fails to aim her gun at Wendy and instead the bullet goes flying all the way into the window of the McCormicks' kitchen, hitting Kenny while he and his family are at the dinner table. This is the second time Bebe kills Kenny.
- The Unreveal: It isn't shown where Kyle actually was on the list; all we know is that he wasn't last.
- Vomit Indiscretion Shot: To seal the deal of them becoming a couple again, Stan vomits on Wendy like he did in the earlier seasons.
