Original air date: 3/21/2012
Cartman launches a gemstones network show and creates a very lucrative business. Stan searches for the real value of a piece of jewelry that was a gift from his Grandpa. Meanwhile, Cartman's lucrative new business preys upon an extremely vulnerable clientele.
Tropes:
- 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: The jewelry wheel, along with the various bits of jewelry at the end is in full 3D, contrasting against the show's usual flat style of CGI.
- Artistic License – History: In-universe, the bolo tie Marvin gives Stan is passed off as a replica of a bolo tie worn by King Henry V of England... who died in 1422, whereas the bolo tie is believed to have been invented in the 1940s. Also doubles as Blatant Lies.
- Asshole Victim: Dean, the shopping network host, gets a very bitter end: while Stan's threatening advice didn't work before when he told him to go kill himself, at the end of the episode three different elderly people phoned him, saying that Stan was right and that he should kill himself and they even go as so far to egg him on. This results in him saying that this incident is "the straw that broke the camel's back". He ends up going through with it after being told to "put the barrel to (his) temple and pull the trigger". Seeing how he preyed on vulnerable, Alzheimer's-afflicted old people for their money for a long time, nobody is gonna mourn for him.
- Author Filibuster: Stan's "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Dean is very clearly dripping with all of Matt and Trey's real-life disdain for people like him who scam the most vulnerable of society and how they truly believe the world would be better off if such people were to die.
- Bait-and-Switch:
- After snarking that Mrs. Appleby must like fucking little boys after she bought a gaudy ring from him for $79.95 (never mind that he only paid $3 for it), Cartman congratulates himself on his acting, and says he should win an award. Cut to a shot of an Oscar... that is being melted down by a gold smelter, not awarded to Cartman.
- Randy tells Marvin he shouldn't be spending money on frivolous things...mainly because Marvin should be saving that money to leave to the family when he dies.
- Beware of the Nice Ones: As pleasant as Stan is in most episodes, swindling from his grandfather is actually a perfect way to get on his bad side. In this case, he goes as far as calling the shopping show and telling the shopping network host to flat out kill himself.
- Brick Joke: Early in the episode, Cartman notices Stan's bolo tie and after a series of sarcastic compliments, he tells him that it's "fuckin' gay as fuck." Near the end, Marvin, who forgot that he gifted Stan the tie, says that the bolo tie is "fuckin' gay as fuck."
- Driven to Suicide: Dean shoots himself after receiving constant messages from elderly people telling him to do so.
- Everyone Has Standards: Stan is so appalled by Dean willfully exploiting senior citizens by manipulating those with Alzheimer's that he calls Dean a morally empty, corrupted maggot and repeatedly tells him to kill himself for what he's done.
- Funny Background Event: Each time Dean mentions a dollar value during his hosting duties, the J&G network will take it out of context and adjust the price of the current product accordingly, leading to a ring briefly costing $2.7 million and earrings costing $2.36.
- Hypocritical Humor: Stan berates the child workers at India Manufacturing, Inc. for "exploiting" their "less fortunate" American customers with their tacky products. It never occurs to him that perhaps the child workers are being exploited by being forced to work long hours for very little money so that the manufacturer can save on labour costs.
- Inherent in the System: The actual process of outsourced labor creating goods for consumers is a basic component of economics and industry. A montage is shown of how expensive jewelry is sold in the US on shopping networks, resold to pawn shops at highly discounted rates, shipped to India to be repurposed into new jewelry and shipped back to the US to be sold on shopping networks. At each step, the characters come to realize everyone benefits from this process in some way and shouldn't be demonized for that. They do draw the line at exploitation of nursing home residents as prime consumers.
- Ironic Echo: Cartman, after selling a rock candy jewel ring for $75 to an old woman, tells the buyer that she "fucked him" and asks if she likes to "fuck little boys." When he tries to get stock at a pawn store, the Asian store owner gives a suspiciously generous offer for each piece of jewelry and asks if he likes to "fuck old ladies," which makes Cartman realize that she's trying to exploit him.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Each time the episode cuts to Dean's shopping network, a channel guide pops up and the channel switches to said show.
- Rule of Three: In a spoof of the increasing proliferation of "Cash for Gold" merchants, the third store at which Stan and his friends try to sell the bolo tie is a Taco Bell that doubles as a "Cash for Gold" store. Stan is offered a seven-layer burrito for the tie.
- Suicide Dare: Stan does this to Dean, but it doesn't really work until he starts getting bombarded with calls from elderly people telling him to do it, and the episode ends with him caving in and blowing his brains out just offscreen.
- Take That!:
- When Stan, Kyle, and Kenny visit the gold smelter to determine who is responsible for scamming Marvin out of a fortune, one of the items being melted down is Sean Penn's Best Actor Oscar for Milk. Evidently, Trey and Matt are still angry over Penn's infamous letter over his portrayal in Team America: World Police.
- This episode is an absolutely brutal one towards scam artists that target vulnerable people (in this case senior citizens) to swindle them of their money. The message of the episode is that such scammers should kill themselves because they offer nothing to society and just destroy the lives of others.
