Original air date: 4/2/2003
The boys cover their art teacher's house in toilet paper after getting detention for molding a penis out of clay, but Kyle starts feeling guilty about it and Officer Barbrady summons help from a Hannibal Lecter-esque boy named Josh Meyers (not to be confused with Seth Meyers' real-life brother and former cast member of MADtv (1995) and That '70s Show).
"Toilet Paper" contains examples of...
- An Aesop: Subverted. While in detention with the others, Cartman gets as far as, "Sometimes you—" before Kyle interrupts him, accusing him of not learning anything.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Cartman, upon realizing all the boys want to confess to their crime and he won't be able to stop them, ends up confessing first. He still gets punished for it, but he gets a reduced one-week detention while Stan, Kyle, and Kenny get a full two-week sentence.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Josh keeps trying to Hannibal Lecture Barbrady into revealing deeply personal tidbits about himself. The second time he does this, where Barbrady reveals his dad used to make him dress up like a girl and sit on all his uncles' laps unnerves Josh so much he actually drops the Hannibal act for a few seconds.
- Blatant Lies: Josh denying to the Juvenile Hall supervisor that he was doing the "Silly Voice" for Barbrady.
- Consulting a Convicted Killer: Officer Barbrady consults Josh Meyers, locked up for toilet papering houses, to help him with a similar case.
- Cover-up Purchase: Parodied when the boys buy a trolley load of toilet paper ready to TP their art teacher's house. Kyle is worried this will look suspicious, so Cartman balances it with one stick of gum. The cashier nonchalantly checks through roll after roll of toilet paper not suspecting a thing, ironically only being skeptical of the gum, warning the boys not to stick it under tables.
- Death by a Thousand Cuts: What Cartman hopes to achieve when all he has to kill Kyle (and later the rest of the boys) is a wiffle bat.
- Disproportionate Retribution: The whole reason the boys TP the art teacher's house is because she rightfully punished them for making an obscene clay model in class.
- Epic Fail: Cartman attempts to silence Kyle on the boat, but he could only afford a wiffle bat, so it goes as well as you'd expect.Stan: (arrives with Kenny as Cartman continues hitting Kyle) Cartman, what are you doing?
Cartman: I'm getting rid of our problem. Kyle will be dead in a matter of hours. - Even Evil Has Standards: When Officer Barbrady admits his second secret — that his father forcibly dressed up him as a little girl and made him sit on all of his uncle's laps — Josh drops his smug smile for just a brief moment and lets out a genuinely shocked "Wow!"
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Cartman gets a migraine trying to understand why Kyle, Stan and Kenny would want to confess to their TPing even after Butters confesses to it.
- Fake Alibi: Cartman comes with with a very complicated one for the night of the TPing. To avoid clogging the page, see it at Seamless Spontaneous Lie.
- Faux Final Line: Cartman does this when Mr. Mackey opens his office door after the boys discuss how to lie about their toilet paper act.Cartman: And so I said, "That's a terrific joke, Wendy. Tell us another one."
- Faux Horrific: To cross examine the cashier, Officer Barbrady brings out a body bag that's filled with toilet paper from the crime scene. They both treat the used paper as if it was a corpse, with the cashier vomiting at the end of the scene.
- Felony Misdemeanor: TPing is treated as if it were a horrible crime in story. Josh Meyers is convicted for a TP related crime, sentenced to a special cell like Hannibal Lecter and denied toilet paper even for personal use... for three weeks.
- Groin Attack: Kyle kicks Cartman in the balls for insulting him. Unlike most examples, Cartman's response is rather realistic, grunting in pain and having trouble talking for the rest of the scene.
- Guilt-Ridden Accomplice: Kyle becomes frightened that he was involved with the TPing prank, so much to the point where he had nightmares about it and deeply regrets agreeing to pull the prank.
- Motor Mouth: Cartman's Seamless Spontaneous Lie to cover up the incident when the gang is sent to the Principal's office.
- Never My Fault: The boys TP the art teacher's house because she put them in detention, but ignore the fact that they were fooling around and made a clay model of a penis which is what got them in trouble in the first place.
- Non-Standard Character Design: Downplayed with Josh Myers, he's shaped like the rest of the child characters although his eyes are spaced apart unlike most of the characters and when he talks, his head stays still and doesn't bob around.
- Offscreen Romance: Butters mentions that he has a girlfriend from Michigan named "Carrie", but she never appeared in the series nor was their relationship looked into any further. However, this could've been a case of Girlfriend From Canada.
- Oh, Crap!: When Barbrady's personal revelations get a little too real for Josh, he drops the Hannibal act for a few seconds.
- Only Sane Man: The art teacher's husband isn't worried about his house being TPed, saying that it's natural for young boys to do pranks like this and that he used to TP houses when he was a kid.
- Plea Bargain: Discussed and Played Straight. Before being questioned about the TPing of their teacher's house, Cartman tells the others Mr. Mackey will be interviewing them separately to see if one of them screws up the story Cartman made as their alibi, and more importantly, will be willing to rat on the others in exchange for a less severe punishment (and threatens Kyle to not do so). At the end, when the other three decide to confess to ease their guilt, Cartman, seeing the writing on the wall, confesses to Mackey before they do and only gets a week of detention to the others' two weeks.
- Seamless Spontaneous Lie: Cartman delivers one in Motor Mouth fashion when fabricating a cover for their eponymous incident:note Cartman: Okay. Last night, all four of us were at the bowling alley until about 7:30, at which time we noticed Ally Sheedy, the Goth chick from The Breakfast Club, was bowling in the lane next to us, and we asked her for her autograph, but she didn't have a pen, so we followed her out to her car, but on the way we were accosted by five Scientologists who wanted to give us all personality tests, which were administered at the Scientology Center in Denver until 10:45, at which time we accidentally boarded the wrong bus home and ended up in Rancho de Burritos Rojos, south of Castle Rock, and finally got a ride home with a man who was missing his left index finger, named Gary Bushwell, arriving home at 11:46.
- Serious Business: Officer Barbrady treats the TPing of the art teacher's house as an actual murder case.
- Shout-Out:
- The Josh Meyers subplot is a pastiche of Silence of the Lambs and Manhunter; the look of Josh's cell block, his blue prison scrubs, and the restraints he's transported in are taken from Silence, but the way he assists Barbrady (complete with receiving the case files through a sliding partition) is much closer to Manhunter, and Josh's slicked jet-black hair and "silly voice" are taken from Brian Cox's Hannibal.
- Kyle's line "You didn't say nothing about no kids, man" is from Scarface (1983).
- Kyle's dreams involve first the audio, then actual footage of when Nancy Kerrigan was attacked.
- Both times Cartman tries to kill Kyle and the others is taken from the scene in The Godfather Part II when Michael orders his brother to be killed.
- Toilet Paper Prank:
- The main plotline involves the boys TPing their art teacher's house to get revenge on her for giving them detention.
- Josh after escaping proceeds to do this on The White House.
- Touché: When brought to Mr. Mackey's office, the boys decide to let Cartman do all the talking. However, Mr. Mackey invites each of them into his office one at a time rather than all at once, which Cartman immediately realizes is a method to see if there are inconsistencies in their story and if one of them confesses for a better deal.Cartman: Touché, Mr. Mackey, touché.
- You Are Grounded!: Butters gets grounded for confessing to a crime he didn't commit. Again.
