"Fuck you, Cartman."
Original air date: 4/18/2012
The boys go to the Colorado Mountains to go ziplining, and find themselves fighting for survival when they discover that ziplining causes literal death from boredom.
"I Should Have Never Gone Troping":
- Affectionate Parody: The episode as a whole plays off I Shouldn't Be Alive, to the point of getting some of the same crew to help with the joke.
- Art Shift: The scenes inside the boys' bodies are rendered in CGI.
- Bait-and-Switch: Stan, tearfully recalling Kenny's death and using his friends to get an iPod Nano: "The hardest part about it is knowing you can't take it back. I mean, it was a fifth-generation Nano, so I can't trade it in anywhere."
- Big Damn Heroes: The boys are saved by Mr. Hankey at the end.
- Comically Missing the Point: Cartman just doesn't get that Diet Double Dew is just regular Mountain Dew.
- Continuity Nod:
- In the montage at the end, the narrator explains that Stan held a seminar about boredom and when it failed, once again jacked off in San Diego, a nod to the previous episode "Butterballs".
- One of Mr. Hanky's rescue vehicles is the Poo-Choo Express, referencing the Poo-Choo Train from "Red Sleigh Down".
- Dawson Casting: The real life segments have the ten year olds played by actors clearly in their 20's. The narration never hesitates to keep calling them "These fourth graders..."
- Despair Event Horizon: The boys are stranded at sea, Kenny dies of boredom and herpes and it's revealed Stan took them on the trip so he can get an iPod Nano.
- Deus ex Machina: Mr. Hankey arrives as the last hope to get the kids back to town safely, complete with a poop themed helicopter, plane and train.
- Fake-Out Opening: The opening scene makes it seem like the boys would get into bloody ziplining accidents. As the episode continues, it becomes clear that there were no accidents — the ziplining was just made significantly less fun due to an insufferable tour group.
- Felony Misdemeanor: All the small (but admittedly relatable) annoyances that befall the boys on the trip are treated as serious dramatic tragedies by the narrative.
- Foreshadowing:
- It's easy to miss but the scene of Cartman saying that ziplining is a great idea, he's looking at Stan.
- Kenny is the only boy to not be interviewed. The third act reveals why.
- Gasshole: Cartman's poor diet and excessive drinking of Diet Double Dew has him farting all episode long.
- Heroic BSoD: The group eventually succumbs to this after they learn why the ziplining trip was suggested.
- Hypocritical Humor: Cartman mocks Kenny for having herpes and saying it's a cold sore. At the end of the episode, after being treated for herpes, he winds up saying the same thing.
- Large Ham: The live-action actors for the boys all heavily overact their roles, with sole exception being Kenny's who portrays him as a Cold Ham.
- Medium-Shift Gag: As the boys go further on their adventure, the show becomes a "dramatization" with the boys being portrayed by live actors.
- The Millstone: The same irritating camper is constantly halting the group, arriving half an hour late to the trip and constantly asking questions to the guides. The narration makes clear that the boys are seriously holding themselves back from telling this guy to go fuck himself.
- Padding: In-Universe. The episode plays a lot with the excessive graphics and time wasting elements done with TV documentary shows, including a CGI render and narration of Kyle's facial muscles forcing a half-hearted smile.
- Pooping Where You Shouldn't: Cartman has an upset stomach, so Kyle suggests crapping in the woods. Cartman turns this down, saying that it'll attract beavers. Later, when the boys are on a boat, Cartman defecates off the side and into the water, and it indeed attracts beavers.
- Running Gag: Every utterance of "To make a long story short...", which the zipliners and horseback riders flippantly say as an indication that their story is actually going to go on even longer.
- Shout-Out: The whole episode is a parody of the reality show I Shouldn't Be Alive, complete with the same narrator.
- Snap Back: Cartman's back to insulting Kyle for being Jewish.
- They Killed Kenny Again: Kenny dies of boredom on a slow boat in a live-action sequence.
- Toilet Humor: Most of Cartman's scenes. Especially the live-action version of him crapping on the side of the boat.
- Wham Line: "You sold us out for an iPod Nano?"
- What Could Possibly Go Wrong?: Stan says this line when he decides to go on a boat ride instead of enduring horseback riding any longer. This also cues the switchover to the dramatized footage.
- What the Hell, Hero?: When the rest of the boys learn that Stan sold them out for an iPod Nano, they are not happy.
- "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: Kyle spends several weeks in a hospital getting all of Cartman's fecal matter out of his nose, Stan gives a seminar tour on boredom, only to go insane again and start jacking it in the streets of San Diego, and Cartman continues to drink Diet Double Dew because he refuses to do the math.
