Original air date: 4/14/2004
Cartman dresses up as a robot from Japan, sent to Butters. He tricks him into believing it and can't give away his identity because he finds out Butters has a video of him dancing to Britney Spears while dressed as her, and grinding on a Justin Timberlake cardboard cutout! It gets even more out of hand as the military decide to try to capture 'the robot' to make it a weapon.
Awesom-O contains examples of:
- Adults Are Useless: Zigzagged. Butters' family knows immediately that AWESOM-O is just Cartman in disguise. However, the movie executives and especially the military, fall for the disguise completely, even as Cartman tells the military repeatedly that he's not a robot.
- Agent Mulder: The military. A robot designed to be a war machine against terrorists and make movie ideas right on the spot apparently makes perfect sense. This same robot being able to make farts that smell is apparently preposterous.
- All for Nothing: Cartman is forced to maintain his robot disguise for days, subject himself to all sorts of discomfort and humiliation, is nearly sexually assaulted, and nearly dies of everything from starvation to being impaled by a giant drill, and he still isn't able to prevent Butters from showing the Britney Spears tape to everyone.
- Ass Shove: Cartman is forced to administer Butters' suppository.
- Asshole Victim: Cartman clearly had it coming for what he did to Butters in previous episodes and was planning to do in this one. Even within the episode, once he's allowed a man to die rather than reveal the secret to Butters, he's lost any sympathy.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Butters has a devastating revenge planned against Cartman should he ever be pranked again. He makes good on his threat in the end.
- Biting-the-Hand Humor: Catamount Studios is a parody of Paramount Pictures, a sister company to the home network of South Park, Comedy Central.
- Black Comedy Rape: Cartman (while disguised as AWESOM-O) is nearly raped by a movie executive and it's Played for Laughs.
- Call-Back:
- Cartman's plan to exterminate the Jews from "The Passion of the Jew" is mentioned.
- Butters mentions his birthday is on 9/11. It ties in with the fact Butters said his birthday was in a week in "Proper Condom Use" which took place two episodes before "Osama Bin Laden Has Farty Pants" which was all about 9/11.
- Butters mentions several of the pranks Cartman has pulled on him, including tricking him into a bomb shelter and pretending to be him on the phone and getting him severely punished by his parents.
- Cassandra Truth: Cartman tells the military and the scientist that he is not a robot, just a kid in a costume. They, however, believe he is just in denial about being a robot.
- Dark Reprise: A third verse of "My Robot Friend" from Butters falls under this trope when AWESOM-O is taken away.
- Didn't Think This Through: Cartman has a pretty major one. In order to try to learn embarrassing secrets about Butters, he pretends to be the titular robot, who is supposed to be Butters’ very own servant. What Cartman doesn’t realize is that being a robot is very different from being human. Since Butters knows an embarrassing secret about him and will tell the school if he does anything mean to him again, Cartman is forced to keep up the charade. This means that he can’t eat or take off his hot robot costume, making him extremely sweaty. Hilarity Ensues, and eventually the military tries to dissect him. Of course, Butters eventually finds out the truth, and just to add insult to all of Cartman’s suffering, the entire school, as well as the military, learn all about his secret.
- The Dog Bites Back: For all the times Cartman had ridiculed and humiliated him, Butters finally manages to retaliate by showing everyone his embarrassing video.
- "Everybody Laughs" Ending: The episode's final scene shows the entire town of South Park along with the military officers laughing hysterically at Cartman's embarrassing video.
- Facepalm: Stan, Kyle and Kenny only appear in three scenes in this episode (and only have dialogue in the second). In the first, they are watching Butters and AWESOM-O play basketball with expressions of utter disbelief, culminating in Stan facepalming in despair at Butters' gullibility.
- The Freelance Shame Squad: When Butters shows Cartman's Brittney Spears tape to the school, the Hollywood producers and the military are also present to laugh at Cartman.
- Friendship Song: "My Robot Friend" by Butters Stotch.
- Humiliation Conga: The entire episode is this to Cartman, especially at the end. To maintain his facade, he is forced to stick his hand up Butters' butt, do all his chores, nearly die of heatstroke and starvation in a plane, and is forced to give over 2300 movie ideas to Hollywood, with Butters keeping all the money and donating it all away to needy children (and with being paid $100 per idea, Butters made $230,500), accosted by a Robosexual, captured by the military, and almost cut into and experimented on. Finally, after revealing the ruse, a video of him dressed like Britney Spears and dancing with a Justin Timberlake cutout is exposed to the school, the whole town, and the military. Compared to most examples, he deserved every bit of it.
- Insane Troll Logic: The army believing a cardboard box robot has the ability to be a war machine that can come up with movie ideas, yet it would be impossible for it to make smelly farts. Just the first part alone would qualify.
- Just Think of the Potential!: Said by the unnamed general who wants to turn "AWESOM-O" into a weapon.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: After getting away with humiliating Butters in previous episodes, Cartman is forced to pretend to be the boy's robot slave to avoid humiliation, only for Butters to get his revenge anyway after discovering he was tricked again.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Cartman's plan to embarrass Butters backfires over and over.
- Lost in Character: Butters' family thinks Cartman is just really serious about playing robot.
- No Sympathy: Despite rescuing Cartman from almost being killed, Butters still reveals his secret.
- Oh, Crap!: Cartman is about to reveal that he is AWESOM-O and has just tricked Butters into revealing embarrassing secrets to him when things take a sudden and horrifying turn for the worse for him, and it's all he can do to keep pretending to be a robot:Butters: Yeah, and he's never gonna get me again! 'Cause what Cartman doesn't know is that I know one of his secrets!
Cartman: [quietly, in his normal voice] ... what?
Butters: When Cartman is all alone in his back yard, he likes to dress up like Britney Spears and pretend he's her! He sings and dances around with a life-size cutout of Justin Timberlake.
Cartman: ... you saw that?...
Butters: Yeah! And I videotaped him doing it!
Cartman: [struggling to put on the AWESOM-O voice] Nuh-uh.
Butters: I've got the whole thing on tape! Even him making out with the Justin Timberlake cutout!
Cartman: No way.
Butters: Yeah! And if Cartman ever messes with me again, I'm gonna show that video to everybody! Then I'll have my revenge, boy howdy!
[Cartman is too shocked to speak for a moment] - Out-of-Character Moment: Liane surprisingly had grounded Eric for trying to restart the Holocaust two weeks ago (two episodes earlier) and Butters' parents are fully aware that AWESOM-O is really just Cartman in a costume when, most times, the adults of South Park would fall for the trick.
- Out of Focus: Stan, Kyle and Kenny only appear for a quick reaction shot during the montage of Butters playing with "AWESOM-O", a brief scene where they stop at Butters house to find out why Cartman is still doing his scheme, and the end when they laugh at the video of Cartman.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: The other kids and Butters' family are aware that AWESOM-O is just Cartman in a cardboard box. And yet his costume fools not only the naïve Butters, but also Hollywood and the U.S. military.
- Robo Sexual: The CEO of Catamount Pictures that tries to rape Cartman/AWESOM-O.
- Robosexuals Are Creeps: Cartman disguises himself as a robot, and he and Butters eventually get taken to a film studio. One of the producers mistakes Cartman as a "pleasure robot," so Cartman freaks out and flees the studio's boardroom.
- Running Gag: Whenever things go south for Cartman in this episode, he shouts Lame!, both in and outside of costume.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: For Cartman. All the shit he went through to find the tape with the embarrassing footage turns out to be in vain when his trick is found out and Butters shows it to everyone.
- Shout-Out:
- The studio executive asks AWESOM-O if he's a "pleasure model".
- AWESOM-O is a reference to/parody of Honda's ASIMO
humanoid robot.
- Skewed Priorities: Once Butters enters the scene, Cartman continues his AWESOM-O guise despite the military threatening to kill him, while also causing the death of the scientist trying to save him.
- Smart Ball: Butters' relatives are able to recognize that "AWESOM-O" is just Cartman in a cardboard costume.
- Spanner in the Works: Cartman was about to reveal his trick and gloat when Butters mentioned having a certain video tape.
- Spotting the Thread: "Did that robot just fart?"
- Stopped Caring: After everything he went through, Cartman just watches the embarrassing video of himself with a bored expression while everyone laughs.
- Take That!: Plots for Adam Sandler movies are considered so threadbare and interchangeable that a 9-year-old can come up with dozens of them off the top of his head.
- This Is Gonna Suck: Cartman after Butters' relatives invite him to LA, preventing him from finding the tape and forcing him to continue the ruse.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Butters finally gets back at Cartman for years of bullying and makes over $230,000 — most of which he donates to charity.
- Tough Love: After finding AWESOM-O make a mess of his room, Butters slaps him and tells him he did it because he loves him. Thing is, the slaps were so weak that it probably wouldn't even faze the boy inside the suit.
