Recap / South Park S15 E14 "The Poor Kid"

Original air date: 11/16/2011

Kenny and his siblings are put in foster care after their parents get arrested for domestic abuse, and end up in a fundamentalist agnostic foster home. Meanwhile, Cartman scrambles to find a new poor kid to tease, since Kenny's absence now makes him the new poor kid.

"The Poor Kid" contains examples of:

• 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: The Giant Reptilian Bird that attacks the kids and eats Kenny is a fully three-dimensional model instead of being in the standard two-dimensional style.
• Abusive Parents:
  • Kenny's parents, per usual. This time they get arrested not only for domestic abuse but also for having a meth lab.
  • Mr. and Mrs. Weatherhead (the fundamentalist agnostics) spray their adopted children with hoses because they said they saw an angel, and they only stop after Mr. Adams comes to visit the house along with Cartman, who told him that the Weatherheads only give them Dr. Pepper.
• Accidental Nightmare Fuel: In-universe, the "Safe Room" is filled with images of clowns that are meant to be comforting to children. They instead leave the kids incredibly unnerved and confused (including Cartman).
• Adults Are Useless:
  • Subverted. Mr. Adams is a dimwitted man who tells jokes about the Jerry Sandusky/Penn State scandal rather unnecessarily when he should be helping children, but when he sees how bad the Weatherheads are, he is very ashamed for having put them there, which is more than can be said about the other adults on the show. He does put the children back into their original homes, but only because he felt the system couldn't help them.
  • The Principal in Greeley also subverts this, punishing Cartman for making fun of an incredibly poor kid.
• Apple of Discord: Pabst Blue Ribbon, which, according to White Trash in Trouble which is sponsored by Schlitz turns whoever drinks it into white trash. Mysterion uses it to his advantage to bring down the already-abusive Weatherheads.
• Big Brother Instinct: Kenny, as Mysterion, jumps to Karen's defense when she's being bullied by Jessica Pinkerton at their new school.
• Cannot Tell a Joke:
  • Mr. Adams keeps telling Jerry Sandusky jokes, which nobody finds funny... Except for Cartman at the last one, which, ironically, Mr. Adams didn't want anyone to laugh at.
  • Inverted when Cartman keeps telling "Your mama's so poor" jokes about himself. People laugh, but he takes it very seriously.
• Department of Child Disservices: Zigzagged. Mr. Adams does genuinely care for abused kids (though he also constantly cracks jokes about child sexual abuse), but he doesn't do enough research on where he sends them, resulting in them ending up with even more abusive foster parents. At the end of the episode, however, he sends them back to their original homes and apologizes deeply for his negligence.
• Diabolus ex Nihilo: Just as Kenny and Cartman are settling back into their original lives, a giant bird breaks through the roof and devours Kenny, putting Cartman back into the school's (relatively) poorest student.
• Disappeared Dad: Jacob Hallory's dad died 5 years prior to the events of this episode.
• Dude, Not Funny!: None of the people Mr. Adams meets up with are amused by his Penn State jokes.
  • No one in Greeley Elementary is amused with Cartman picking on Jacob Hallory.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: How did everyone find out that Cartman was the new poorest kid in school? Cartman loudly announced it. Why? Because he naturally assumed that Kyle would have tracked this information down and wanted to preempt him.
• Evil Is Petty: Cartman frames his mom for running a meth lab and gets her arrested just so he won't have to be "the poor kid" at school anymore, and thus be able to find a new kid to pick on for being poor.
• Expy: Mr. Adams is closely based on Due Date's Ethan Tremblay, who regularly thinks of himself as a comedian and gives his audience signed photographs of himself.
• Foreshadowing: The ending with the reptilian bird was foreshadowed by the agnostic parents' motto.
• The Fundamentalist: Unusually, the Weatherheads are fundamentalist agnostics, setting strict rules in the foster home revolving around their beliefs in uncertainty. The only beverage the foster kids are permitted to drink are Dr. Pepper, as they don't know what flavor it is. They force their militant beliefs on their adoptive children and when one of them mentions Karen having a guardian angel, they punish the children by waterboarding them with Dr. Pepper.
• Heroic BSoD: Mr. Adams when he sees he put children into an abusive foster home.
• Hypocritical Humor: The entirety of Cartman's "Yo Mama So Poor" jokes. When it's someone else who is the "poor kid", Cartman riffs on them to no end and calls it 'teasing'. When he himself is the "poor kid", he does it as some form of pity and thinks it's horrible for anyone to laugh at him.
• Ignored Epiphany: Despite ALL that happened to him, Cartman neither learns to be sympathetic to the less fortunate, nor to have appreciation for what he has.
• Image Song: Cartman's "The Poor Kid School" song is basically him singing about how great things are now that he is not the poor kid at school anymore, while inserting "Yo Mama" jokes to the actual poor kid. He starts singing it when he found out Jacob Haley was the poor kid at the school at Greeley. He sings it again at the end when Kenny is back in South Park Elementary, only to be cut short...
• Informed Poverty: Played for Laughs. It turns out that Cartman is technically the poorest kid in school once Kenny and his siblings leave, despite living in a nice house. Lampshaded by his mom, who points out that they don't make much less than the other families in town.
• Internal Deconstruction: The McCormick family's poverty, violence, and borderline criminality are often Played for Laughs. In this episode, it leads to the McCormick parents being arrested with Kenny and his siblings shipped off to a new foster home.
• It's All About Me: Cartman was upset Kenny left because he can't make fun of him for being poor anymore and is now the poor kid. And at the end Cartman only cares that he's not the poorest kid at South Park Elementary and after Kenny's killed starts crying because he's the poor kid again until Kenny comes back to life.
• It's Been Done:
  • Cartman points out that the jokes Mr. Adams keeps telling are just old Catholic priest jokes with Jerry Sandusky/Penn State subbed in.
  • Mr. Adams fires back by saying that "Yo Mama" jokes have been around since the '50s.
  Greeley Elementary Principal: (pounds both fists on the desk) What the hell does this have to do with anything?!
• Jerkass:
  • Cartman who compulsively feels the need to bully poor kids, to the point where he bullies himself.
  • The Weatherheads who horribly mistreat the children in their care.
• "Just Joking" Justification: Cartman is sent to the principal's office and admonished for mocking Jacob Hallery's home life, he defends his behavior by claiming his remarks were for the sake of humor.
• Kaiju: Befitting its name, the giant reptilian bird that eats Kenny is enormous, with its neck long enough to reach into the school and grab him.
• Kick the Dog: Cartman displays an almost pathological need to bully those he thinks are poor, which includes himself when he finds out that he's "the poor kid" in his school despite being fairly well-off in-context.
• Laser-Guided Karma:
  • Cartman frames his mother for running a meth lab, leading to her arrest. Near the end of the episode, Cartman himself is arrested for filing a false police report. This episode wasn't the first time both of them got arrested.
    • Likewise, Cartman gets his mom arrested so he could live in luxury, only to get relocated to anything but a luxury.
  • Jessica Pinkerton, the girl who was about to beat up Karen also got what was coming to her by Mysterion.
  • The Weatherheads get arrested by the police for their horrible actions towards the foster kids.
• Literal-Minded: As soon as he realizes that he's "poor", Cartman sees his life as total squalor to everyone else's and thinks foster care would be better.
• Monster Clown: Inside the 'Safe Room' where kids are supposed to feel safe in the police station, there are many posters of extremely creepy clowns hitting the Uncanny Valley perfectly. Once in there, Kenny, Kevin and Karen keep glancing around them nervously, and even Cartman, mean as he is, seems rather unnerved at the posters.
• Mr. Exposition: Butters reveals his computer knowledge when he helps Cartman research who would be the poorest kid in school after Kenny.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Mr. Adams is horrified when he found out how abusive the Weatherheads are to the foster kids he put there.
• Nice Guy: Although he's not very good at it, Mr. Adams is a very nice guy who tries to be comforting to the foster kids and make them feel safe.
• Oh, Crap!: The look on Kyle's and Stan's faces when Kenny dies. Instead of their catchphrase, Stan just says "What the fuck?"
• Only Sane Man: Kenny compared to his family. They're full of various quirks and problems; he's completely relaxed and sensible.
• Parents as People: Discussed. Karen sadly wonders why her parents needed to be locked up. Mysterion gently tells her that sometimes parents can do stupid things and forget about the important things in their lives.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: This episode has Cartman takes his classism to obsessive levels not seen since Poor and Stupid.
• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • Mr. Adams. His irreverent Penn State jokes notwithstanding, he genuinely tries to help the kids find a safer home and is absolutely horrified upon learning what type of people the Weatherheads truly are. He decides to simply send them off to their original homes. When he finds out Cartman bullied a poor kid, he assumes Cartman is lashing out and gently tells him off for bullying a kid.
  • Greeley's principal, who reprimands Cartman for bullying a child who was down on his luck.
• Running Gag:
  • Mr. Adams cracks jokes about Penn State throughout the episode.
  • Cartman keeps making Your Mom jokes about poor kids.
  • One that is a series wide joke, Greeley, Colorado is once again portrayed as an even worse place to live in than South Park.
• Shout-Out:
  • White Trash in Trouble parodies programs like COPS and Campus PD.
  • The foster parents, Mr. and Mrs. Weatherhead, exhibit abusive and strict behavior similar to horrible caregivers in James and the Giant Peach and Harry Potter.
  • There's a guy wearing a Diablo II shirt watching the McCormicks get arrested.
• Status Quo Is God: Of course, instead of relocating Kenny to a better foster home, Kenny's siblings just get sent back to their parents.
• Sudden Downer Ending: Kenny ends up being devoured for all his troubles, just as he was settling back into his normal life which unfortunately included being regularly killed.
• Take That!:
  • Greeley, Colorado is portrayed as a less-than-ideal farm town to live in and is described as the exact opposite of Hawaii.
  • Pabst Blue Ribbon beer is portrayed as only being a beer for violent white trash hicks. See Apple of Discord above.
• They Killed Kenny Again: Kenny is killed by a reptilian bird that smacks him against the lockers and then eats him. All Stan can ask is "What the fuck?" in response.
• This Is Gonna Suck: Kenny, when he sees the police on TV, who are actually right outside his house.
• Troubling Unchildhood Behavior: Kenny's brother Kevin doesn't look more than a year or two older than him, but he's apparently already started drinking like his father.
• Worrying for the Wrong Reason: Cartman in tears after seeing a giant bird randomly busting in the school ceiling and killing Kenny right in front of him. Not because his friend died or how close he was to death and MIGHT encounter it again... he cries cause now he is "poor" again.
• Wretched Hive: Greeley is a gloomy town in poverty, and a number of kids wear torn clothes and have dirty faces. Even the town sign makes it clear that it is not Hawaii, much to Cartman's disappointment.
  Welcome to Greeley, "The Exact Opposite of Hawaii". Please drive safely.
• You Are Not Alone: Mysterion assures Karen of this on the first night that they're at the foster home.
• Your Mom: Cartman keeps telling "Yo Mama so poor" jokes throughout the episode, most of which are aimed at himself due to being the poorest kid in school (or at least in 4th grade) after Kenny. Once he finds out that there's an even poorer kid in the new school near the foster home, Cartman targets him instead, resulting in the following:
  Principal: "A 20-minute song and dance number featured with 47 "Yo Mama So Poor" jokes directed at Jacob Hallery, which ended in a finale with fireworks."