Original air date: 11/10/1999
A homeschooled boy decides to go to public school after winning the town spelling bee, much to his overprotective parent's fear. Meanwhile, Kyle falls for the boy's sister.
This episode provides the following:
- 555: The Hooked on Monkey Fonics cassette advises calling 1-800-555-4500 to replace the monkey if it arrives dead in the box.
- Adults Are Useless: Mr. Cotswolds has this attitude towards the other dads turning a blind eye to Mark being bullied. On the other hand, they point out this is standard behavior for kids and that they can't control every single action, then turn around and do the same to him when bringing up his preference towards wine coolers. Of course, Cotswolds never bothers to voice his complaints to the principal or teachers, despite the bullying occurring on school grounds.
- An Aesop: Mark observes that kids can't be taught social skills; they need to learn them by being around other kids and school is the best place for that.
- Berserk Button: Jimbo takes offense when Mr. Cotswolds reveals he prefers wine coolers to beer.
- The Bet: Jimbo bets on Kyle to win the spelling bee, and gets pissed when he fails to spell the word krocsyldiphithic.Jimbo: You little bastard, you cost me fifty bucks. Why don't you run away and join the circus, you stupid little son of a bitch?!
- Beware the Nice Ones: Despite spending most of the episode getting pushed around, Mark proves he has some bite by beating up Kyle for supposedly corrupting his sister.
- Bound and Gagged:
- The boys plan to duct tape Mark to the school's flagpole during the dance, but change their tune when he calls out Kyle. Earlier they also do the same to him on a bench.
- Their dads also get in on the action with Mr. Cotswolds, first by duct-taping him to a table after he says he prefers Wine Coolers. Then later take him out to the flagpole at the dance.
- Bubble Boy: Subverted. Mark Cotswolds, who spent most of his life in homeschool, arrives at South Park Elementary School as this because of his parents' fear about public school.
- Character Tics: Rebecca bites her lips and clasps her hands together in most of her scenes. When she spells, she whispers the letters into her hand first.
- Characterization Marches On: Butters is one of the main instigators of Mark's torment.
- Child Prodigy: Mark and Rebecca are incredibly smart, spelling complicated words at the spelling bee without a care. Rebecca is also able to replicate brain surgery despite being only eight.
- Corrupt the Cutie: After kissing Kyle, Rebecca goes from a sweet nerdy girl to a promiscuous "whore" who flirts with every boy at the dance.
- Decoy Protagonist: The episode seems like it's going to be about Cartman when it opens up with him getting a Hooked on Monkey Fonics kit to train for the spelling bee (and for which the episode is named). After that, however, he ends up having a very minor role in the plot, the monkey is relegated to a background (and Kenny-killing) gag, and the episode ends up being more about Mark than anything.
- Description Cut: "I wonder how Cartman's getting on with his homeschooling?"
- Epic Fail: Cartman struggles to spell the word chair.Cartman: "Chair." C-H-A-R-E. (buzzer) God dammit, how come I get the hard ones?!
- Freeze-Frame Bonus:At the party, Kevin Stoley can be seen upset near Red, who is dancing with Tolkien. Clyde can also briefly be seen smiling at Annie as the latter looks down, shy.
- Generation Xerox: Immediately after the kids plan how they're gonna prank Mark and leave, the corresponding adults enter the scene and plan to do the same to Mr. Cotswolds.
- Homeschooled Kids: Mark and Rebecca enter the South Park Elementary spelling bee and win. Mark then decides he wants to go to public school. Hilarity Ensues, of course, along with a Hard Truth Aesop that homeschooling is bad because kids need to socialize more. The B-plot involves Cartman getting his mom to homeschool him. Of course, since his mom is an Extreme Doormat, he just winds up lounging in bed all day.
- Hypocrite: Mr. Cotswolds criticizes the other dads' parenting skills after Mark gets duct taped to the bench, then takes offense when they criticize his approach. He even told him he won't tell them how to raise their kids, when he literally just did that seconds ago.
- I Just Want to Have Friends: Mark wants to go to regular school because he's fascinated by how other children interact with each other, whereas he and his sister are continually cooped up in their house.
- Insufferable Genius: Downplayed with Mark. He's easily the smartest kid in Mr. Garrison's class, but he doesn't flaunt it or lord it over anyone. However, the kids hate him anyway since he shows them up by correctly answering a question and threatens to upend the grading curve.
- Literal-Minded: When Kyle asks Rebecca to go to the dance, she thinks he's just asking her to go by herself, not go as a date.Kyle: Rebecca, there's this dance, see, the South Park Elementary Bay Of Pigs Memorial Dance, and uh, now I was wondering if you wanna go.Rebecca: Hhm. Alright, I guess I'll go.Kyle: You will?Rebecca: I guess. Are you gonna go? Maybe I'll see you there.Kyle: No no. I mean, go with me.Rebecca: Oh, I'm sure Father will give me a ride. [walks away]
- Manchild: The dads bully Mr. Cotswolds just like the boys bully Mark.
- Maniac Monkeys: Phonics Monkey proves to be this when he flips out and beats Kenny to death.
- Mood Whiplash: Just as Mr. Cotswolds appreciates Mark's speech about social skills, the other dads duct tape him to the flagpole.
- Misplaced Retribution: Played with. When Mark sees his sister dressed provocatively and acting promiscuous with the boys at the dance, he blames Kyle at first and attacks him in a fit of rage. But when Mark delivers An Aesop of the episode, he recognizes that his parents are at fault. Pointing out that they tried so hard to keep her from anything sexual, that receiving one innocent show of affection from Kyle was all it took to turn her wild enough to kiss and flirt with every boy she met.Mark: You tried so hard to keep her from anything sexual, and now look at her. She's a goddamned whore Papa.Butters: She sure is.
- My Girl Is Not a Slut: Despite being attracted to her for most of the episode, Kyle is horrified to see Rebecca turn promiscuous after their dance.
- My Sister Is Off-Limits: Mark positively freaks when he sees what becomes of Rebecca.
- New Kid Stigma: The episode has a homeschooled boy named Mark Cotswolds attending South Park Elementary out of curiosity, only to end up earning the irk of every other boy in the 3rd grade when he outshines everyone in the class. However, he manages to win their respect in the end after beating up Kyle in a rage when the latter allegedly turns Mark's sister Rebecca into a "whore".
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: The character of Rebecca is based on Rebecca Sealfon who won the 1997 Scripps National Spelling Bee. She is one of the most well-known spelling bee winners, spelling her final word, "euonym," by screaming out each letter. She also displayed the odd habit of covering her mouth and whispering each letter before saying it, which was parodied in the episode as well.
- No Social Skills: Mark and Rebecca both frequently miss social cues when interacting with other children. Mark doesn't understand why friends would be mean to each other or recognize when he's being bullied, and Rebecca doesn't understand when Kyle flirts with her.
- Oblivious to Love: Rebecca doesn't recognize Kyle's attempts to flirt with her for most of the episode. Justified in that she doesn't understand the idea of love.
- Oh, Crap!: The Cotswolds when they hear that Rebecca is "playing doctor" with Kyle, thinking they're exploring each other's bodies, before they find out that Rebecca is actually playing as a brain surgeon.
- One-Shot Character: Downplayed with Mark, who only had a major appearance in this episode, but appears in crowd shots in later seasons. Rebecca, however, never appeared after this episode in any capacity despite transferring to South Park Elementary at the end.
- Perfectly Cromulent Word: When he becomes a finalist at the spelling bee, Kyle has to spell "Krocsyldiphithic" (which is not a real word in the English language). When he asks for its definition and to hear it used in a sentence, all he gets is: "Something that has a Krocsyldiph-like quality" and "Krocsyldiphithic is a hard word to spell."
- Playing Doctor: Kyle and Rebecca engage in this game, to the horror of the latter's parents. Of course, being the incredibly precocious child that she is, it ends up being a lot less perverted than they thought.Rebecca: (while wearing scrubs and a surgical mask as she cuts away at Kyle's hat) I have to extirpate a lesion in his cerebral cortex, or risk infection to the synaptic responses.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: The other dads act friendly towards Mr. Cotswolds and are willing to talk out his concerns, but then he mentions his preference for wine coolers and they duct tape him a table.
- Shout-Out:
- Cartman asking Mark if he's in a plastic hamster ball because he has "John Travolta disease" is an implied reference to the 1977 Made-for-TV Movie The Boy in the Plastic Bubble.
- Kyle's talk with Rebecca is taken word for word from "The Gamesters of Triskelion". A musical cue often used in romantic scenes during Star Trek: The Original Series can also be heard during this scene.
- Kyle's love confession and kiss with Rebecca parodies a scene between Judah Ben-Hur and Esther in Ben-Hur (1959).
- At the dance, a kid is doing a Peanuts dance.
- Silly Simian: The titular "Hooked on Monkey Phonics" learning program, which uses a trained monkey to teach pronunciation by playing the rhythm of a word on a drum. Cartman tries to uses it to cheat on the spelling bee, but the monkey pleasures himself instead.
- They Killed Kenny Again: Kenny is done in by the Phonics Monkey.Stan: Oh my God! Fonics Monkey Killed Kenny!Cartman: (Impressed) You're damn straight he did.
- Took a Level in Badass: Mark beats the shit out of Kyle after he accidentally turns Rebecca into a slut.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Mark is puzzled by how the other kids claim to be friends but insult each other constantly. His early attempt to emulate it fail, but he does pick it up in the end.
- What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?: When Kyle brings up the subject of love, Rebecca has no idea what it is. Her closest understanding of romance is the expectancy that her "provider" will select a "mate" for her to "increase the herd."
