Original air date: 7/17/2002
Bebe develops breasts, and the boys in class befriend her, as they think she's "cool." Things start to get out of hand once the boys start battling each other like apes over the debate of whomever gets to hang out with Bebe. Meanwhile, Bebe gets ostracized by Wendy and the other girls and tries to figure out how to get rid of her boobs because she doesn't like the attention she's getting.
Tropes:
- A-Cup Angst: Wendy gets so jealous of Bebe having all the boys' attention she sizes up her own breasts. In the end Wendy now suffers from D-Cup Distress now that the boys grow contemptuous of breasts.
- A Day in the Limelight: Bebe, a relatively minor character, is the main protagonist of this episode.
- Adults Are Useless: While Randy subverts this, this is played straight with both Bebe's mom and the surgeon. The former is a quintessential Dumb Blonde, while the latter seems completely flabbergasted at the idea of breast-reduction surgery and finds doing it to be against the laws of nature... but is perfectly okay with giving massive breast implants to an eight-year old in the most reckless and violent cosmetic surgery imaginable.
- Aesop Amnesia: The boys agree not to glamorize breast size anymore, but they don't find ridiculing huge breasts to be just as disrespectful to Wendy as pursuing and fighting over them is to Bebe. Though the boys did learn not to let womens' breasts have any power over them, so instead they mock Wendy for her implants, which proves that they learned their lesson and don't act primal like they did around Bebe.
- All Men Are Perverts:
- The boys prove they've never even known about breasts until this episode.
- The surgeon is shown to be a complete pervert, favouring a nurse with a large bust size, but angrily dismissing a flat-chested nurse. He also won't allow Bebe to have her bust size reduced because he doesn't consider it ethical, but he happily offers to increase it immediately after. When Wendy goes to the surgeon to have hers increased in order to get the boys to treat her the same as Bebe, he gives her massive breasts.
- Answer Cut: Cartman decides that, after the trial run with Butters and settling on Tweek to replace Kenny in the group, the role should ultimately go to Bebe. When Stan rejects his attempts to kick Kyle or Tweek out of the group, Cartman demands how they expect to make room for Bebe. Cut to the show's customary bus stop establishing shot, with Bebe having replaced Cartman.
- Be a Whore to Get Your Man: Wendy tries this by developing huge tits via plastic surgery over her jealousy of Bebe's appreciation from the boys (and because Bebe is hanging out with the boys all the time rather than her friends), especially since her boyfriend Stan is ignoring her for Bebe. But she arrives once the boys have already learned their lesson and they all laugh at her rather than appreciating her like they did with Bebe.
- Butt-Monkey: Both Wendy and Bebe because the boys are way too judgmental of breast sizes.
- Buy Them Off: In order to have her bust size increased, Wendy must pass a medical exam first. However, the instant Wendy says that she has three thousand dollars in cash the surgeon dismisses this point completely and procceeds with the operation.
- *Cough* Snark *Cough*: The girls cough "slut!" at Bebe due to jealousy of the attention she gets.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Stan quickly takes care of the other boys with a bone spear randomly lying around in a fossil cabinet, knocking out all of the others with barely any effort. He even smacks some of them all the way across the basement!
- D-Cup Distress: First Bebe because the boys were too heavily into them, and then Wendy because the boys are now against them.
- Did You Get a New Haircut?: Stan asks this about Bebe, since the boys all of the sudden think she's "cool."
- Driven to Suicide: The two astronauts that crash in front of Bebe's house shoot themselves upon seeing the 4th-grade boys acting like neanderthals, believing that the Earth is now ruled by apes.
- Dude Magnet: Bebe's breasts cause all of her male classmates to pay her too much attention for her liking. Wendy then tries to invoke this by getting huge breast implants, but Bebe has already taught the boys their lesson by the time Wendy got her giant boobs and they only cause her to be laughed at by the boys.
- Dumb Blonde:
- Bebe's mother. She insists that all the women in their family have been given special attention because they're "really smart," but then Bebe asks her what six times eight is.Bebe's Mom: Oh, sweetie, those are two completely different numbers.
- Bebe herself is actively trying not to be this, saying if everyone gives her whatever she wants because of her boobs, she'll grow up to be a horrible person. She also correctly answers what 6 times 8 is earlier in the episode.
- Bebe's mother. She insists that all the women in their family have been given special attention because they're "really smart," but then Bebe asks her what six times eight is.
- Et Tu, Brute?:
- Even Stan laughs at Wendy's expense to Cartman's "dork alert" taunt and later her breast implant humiliation.
- Bebe's friends, especially Wendy, label her a slut simply because her developed breasts have caused the boys to pay all their attention to her.
- Glamour: Bebe's boobs unintentionally have this effect on the boys, making them suddenly really interested in her and causing them to regress to primitive aggression out of jealousy, retaining no memory of their behavior when they go back to normal outside her presence. Bebe manages to break the spell by wearing a cardboard box over her torso, allowing the boys to realize she hasn't become more cool at all and letting them maintain rational behavior around boobs.
- I Have Boobs, You Must Obey!:
- Defied as Bebe wants the boys to stop treating her like of this and does so by covering her torso with a cardboard box, emulating a flat chest.
- Played Straight with Bebe's mom. She proudly tells Bebe that having boobs will bring woe and suffering to men as they trip over themselves trying to get her attention.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Wendy gets angry at Bebe because of how the boys are reacting to her new boobs and she and her friends treat Bebe pretty harshly, even going so far as to call her a slut when she's not really doing anything. When Wendy comes to class with her huge tit implants in order to one-up Bebe, the boys have already learned their lesson about resisting the power of womens' breasts and they all make fun of her because of how ridiculous and gross they look.Cartman: What a stupid bitch! note
- Male Gaze: A plot-specific one at that! The boys become obsessed with Bebe, eventually regressing to a primal state permanently as opposed to just briefly and obsessing over "ah-tahs" all because they notice that she's developed breasts. The boys go back to normal after Bebe shows up in class wearing a cardboard box to hide her bust size.
- Meatgrinder Surgery: Showing the grisly detail of Wendy getting breast implants, which involves cutting open her chest and comedically & aggressively shoving an implant inside.
- Oh, No... Not Again!: When Wendy shows off her breast implants to get the boys' attention, the boys already learned their lesson and instead laugh at her for how disgusting they are.
- One-Man Army: Stan versus the rest of the boys fighting over Bebe. He even stands upon a mountain of their bruised bodies and bellows triumphantly to complete the mini-homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey.
- Only Sane Woman:
- Bebe, who is surrounded by the boys acting like neanderthals and the girls treating her like shit for something she's not doing on purpose.
- Wendy's mother is understandably worried about her 8-year old daughter wanting to get massive breast implants, but the surgeon just ignores her because Wendy is willing to pay a lot of money.
- Of all people, Randy is given the Sanity Ball as his role in being a good father for once as he lectures Stan about breasts and how he shouldn't let them get in the way of his friends and his life.Randy: Stan, as you get older, boobs -these "at-tah" will start becoming a major part of your life.
Stan: At-tah?
Randy: But Stanley, you can't let them get in the way of your friends. There are a lot of boobs out there, son. But they're just boobs; your friends... are forever.
Stan: (considers each argument) Friends... At-tah...
Randy: I know you think this set of boobs is important now, but those boobs will be replaced by another set of boobs. Boobs will come and go, and then, someday, you'll meet a pair of boobs that you want to marry. And those become the boobs that matter the most.
Sharon: I love you.
Randy: If you can just understand that, Stanley, you'll see that boobs hold no real power at all. - What's more, Randy's lecture actually gets through to Stan when he sees Bebe covering her breasts with a cardboard box, realizing what his father meant about womens' breasts.
- Organ Autonomy: Bebe's boobs are apparently sentient and actively conspire to destroy society. Her mother for her part is perfectly aware of this and further says they feed on the misery and chaos they cause and treats it as a part of her growing up.
- Plastic Bitch: Wendy eventually resorts to getting breast implants in a desperate attempt to get the guys to notice her, resulting in her having oversized breasts at the end of the episode that instead make her a laughingstock when she shows them off due to all the guys having gotten over Bebe by that point.
- Shout-Out:
- The astronauts misinterpret the Earth having become dominated by apes by seeing the boys acting like chimpanzees/monkeys due to Bebe's breasts.
- Stan using a bone to beat up all the other boys scream 2001: A Space Odyssey.
- Sound effects from Cannibal Holocaust is played when the boys are fighting over Bebe.
- Cartman reenacts the famous "it rubs the lotion" scene from The Silence of the Lambs.
- Slut-Shaming: The other girls do to this to Bebe after they grow jealous of the attention she begins receiving from the boys. Subverted in that she doesn't actually do any of the promiscuous things she's accused of.
- Space Whale Aesop: Don't let your hormones control your life. Otherwise, a pair of astronauts might crash land and commit suicide right in front of you.
- Status Quo Is God: Bebe is never depicted with boobs after this episode. Given that she covers them with a cardboard box at the end of the episode, it's possible that she's somehow binding them or wearing baggier clothing to cover them up.
- Straw Hypocrite: The surgeon refuses to reduce Bebe's bust size because he doesn't consider ethical to do so to an 8-year old girl, but he has no problem in dramatically increasing Wendy's bust size in the most reckless way possible. Bebe appropriately tells him to fuck off when he offers to increase her bust size immediately after refusing to reduce it.
