Original air date: 11/28/2001
Saddened at being the sole rich kid in South Park, Tolkien arranges for dozens of wealthy families to relocate, which earns the ire of the largely lower-classnote townspeople.
"Here Comes the Neighborhood" contains examples of:
- Call-Back: When Ms. Choksondik gives Cartman a check-minus, he mutters "I'll make you eat your parents."
- Curse Cut Short: After the rich people leave, Mr. Garrison states they can now become rich themselves by selling the homes only for the others to point out that what they did was meaningless since there will still be rich people in South Park, and he'd become the very thing he hates. Garrison responds, "Well, at least we got rid of those damn ni—" (cue credits).
- Mr. Garrison, by then the President of the United States, would finally get to say the N-word uncensored 16 years later in "Doubling Down".
- A Day in the Limelight: The episode is about Tolkien and his reaction to being teased for being rich.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: The entire joke is South Park's mostly poor and white residents saying and doing intolerant things towards their new black and rich residents out of resentment to their wealth that just happen to resemble racism towards Black people. Then Double Subverted by Garrison's Curse Cut Short.Jimbo: I remember back in the day, rich folk weren't allowed in South Park! Now they're movin' here in droves!
Skeeter: They're gonna be sending their kids to our schools, and mixin' them with our pure, non-rich kids!- Later in the episode the "Richers" march down the street singing "We Shall Persevere"
and bribe Chef (who is black) and "several thousand Mexicans" to join them in their "Million Millionaire March"
- Later in the episode the "Richers" march down the street singing "We Shall Persevere"
- Fantastic Slurs: The people of South Park refer to the rich people as "richers" and "cash chuckers".
- Fictional Counterpart: J-Mart. South Park would get its first Wal-Mart years later.
- Genre Savvy: Tolkien sees the "stick of gum" prank from a mile away, and only goes through with it to get Aslan to stop badgering him.
- Groin Attack: The "I'll kick you in the nuts" game.
- Hates Rich People: Pretty much the entire adult population of South Park. An influx of rich people suddenly move into the town much to residents' chagrin, which prompts them to begin discriminating against the wealthy in a variety of ways. These include forcing them to sit in the front of the bus where the first-class seats are, prohibiting them service in the working class bars, calling them slurs like "richer" and "cash chucker," and burning big lower-case Ts on their lawns (for "Time to leave"). The fact that all of these behaviors resemble racist practices against black people in the past and all the rich people are coincidentally black never enters anyone's head.
- He Who Fights Monsters: Discussed. After scaring off the rich folk, Mr. Garrison then suggests they sell off their now abandoned mansions and become rich themselves. The rest of the adults refuse this, lest they become rich like the people they hated.
- Incredibly Lame Fun: While the rich kids play polo, the "normal" kids amuse themselves by running around and kicking each other in the balls.
- Also what finally drives Tolkien away from the lions; they play a bunch of childish pranks that aren't nearly as amusing as they think they are.
- Jerkass Has a Point: While the real reason Cartman got a bad grade was that he forgot about the class assignment and made a poorly constructed project at the last minute, he's right that the only reason Tolkien was able to make his impressive weather projections project was because his family's wealth gave his access to expensive technology such as a projector and laptop.
- Lightbulb Joke: Jimbo tries to make one.How many rich people does it take to screw in a light bulb? None! They can hire people to do it for them!
- Mistaken for Racist: Inverted when the townspeople trying several things that could be seen as racist (burning "lowercase Ts" for "Time to leave", dressing like "ghosts" that more than resemble KKK membersnote ) to get the rich people to leave, but the "richers" all see these as exactly what they were intended to be.
- Non-Standard Character Design: Aslan the lion is animated in the style of the 1979 The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe Animated Adaptation.
- Only Sane Man: Inverted. Once the rich people flee town and Mr. Garrison proposes they sell their houses to become rich themselves, the other men wisely point out that doing so would mean there were still rich people in South Park and they would become the very thing they hated.
- Strange Minds Think Alike: When the townspeople do things like burning "lowercase Ts" for "Time to leave", the rich people see them exactly as they were intended.
- They Killed Kenny Again: Kenny dies at some point in the episode, as his corpse is seen towards the end of the episode, but we never see how he died. Notably, this is his final death before his "permanent" death in the next episode, "Kenny Dies." At the time, Matt and Trey were running out of ideas on how to kill Kenny in each episode, so perhaps they purposely decided to not even show how he died in this episode.
- Translation Convention: Subverted. Tolkien, whose favorite movie is The Lion King (1994), goes to live with zoo lions, and when he understands what they're saying he thinks this trope is happening, but it turns out the lions just have the ability to communicate with humans.
- Upper-Class Twit: The rich children are a snobby and elitist bunch who play typical "upper class" games like polo and find snowball fights barbaric. It's for this reason why the more down-to-earth Tolkien finds he can't fit in with them despite coming from a rich family as well.
- Unishment: The one instance where the exclusionary methods proved to be this was when poor people at the back of a bus object to Bill Cosby and his kids sitting down next to them, and the passengers make them sit in the front in much more comfortable chairs. They obey, and then a passenger tries to taunt Cosby by sarcastically remarking how pleasant it must be sitting up there - only for Cosby to sincerely tell him that, yes, in fact, it is.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Discussed. At the end of the episode, the boys explain to Tolkien that sure, they rip on him for being rich, but that's because they rip on everyone, even their own friends. They rip on Kenny for being poor, they rip on Kyle for being Jewish, they rip on Stan for going out with a girl, they rip on Cartman for being stupid, they rip on Cartman for being fat, they rip on Cartman for having a whore for a mom, and they rip on Cartman for being a sadistic asshole...and they're now going to rip on Tolkien for being a pussy since he couldn't take the previous insults.
