Recap / South Park S 8 E 8 Douche and Turd

Original air date: 10/27/2004

After PETA attacks the school for having a cow as a mascot, administration decides to hold an election for a new non-animal mascot. Kyle and Cartman tamper with the votes to get two joke mascots on the ballot; Giant Douche and Turd Sandwich respectively. Stan's refusal to vote for either results in extreme consequences.

"Douche and Turd" contains examples of:

• All Elections Are Serious Business: The election is a student election on what is going to be their new school mascot, yet all of South Park seems virulently interested in it. When Stan shows apathy to the whole thing, P. Diddy tries to kill him, his parents get on his case and eventually the entire town has him banished because of it.
• All for Nothing: After Stan spends the episode exiled from the town for not voting, he outright asks if all his struggles were this when his vote is revealed to have no impact as the result was a landslide. Randy attempts to admit it was the effort that counted... and that moment is when the news of the PETA massacre hits them and, knowing they won't protest anymore, the school chooses to keep the Cows nickname anyway, rendering the election pointless.
  Randy: (to a silent, but visibly infuriated Stan) Now your vote doesn't matter.
  
• An Aesop:
  • Don't pressure people to vote in elections especially when they refuse to vote. If you want to get them to vote, try empathy rather than coercion.
  • Elections are always between terrible candidates. They're the only kind of people who suck up enough to make it far in politics. The best thing to do is vote for who you consider the lesser of two evils.
• Animal Wrongs Group: PETA, of course.
• Artistic License – Law:
  • It doesn't take a lawyer to explain that "the right to vote" doesn't translate to "vote in an election or suffer judicial consequences" in real life, especially in a democratic election that has no governmental impact like a student-election over a school mascot.
  • P. Diddy's literal "Vote or Die" campaign is actually voter intimidation, which is illegal.
• Ask a Stupid Question...:
  Puff Daddy: Apparently, you haven't heard of my "Vote or Die" campaign. (holds up a shirt with the slogan on it)
  Stan: "Vote or Die"? (upset) What the hell does that even mean?!
  Puff Daddy: (whips out a gun from his back pocket, cocks it, and aims it at Stan) What you think it means, bitch!
  Stan: Aaaah!
• Ax-Crazy: P. Diddy tried to kill Stan for not voting, and murdered a bunch of PETA members for splashing him with blood.
• Bad People Abuse Animals: Cartman admits that he broke Kenny's cat's leg the week before.
• Bait-and-Switch: When PETA finds Stan tied to a horse with a bucket over his head, they rush to help the poor, lonely, abandoned thing... and yell at Stan to get off the abused animal already!
• Bestiality Is Depraved: The PETA village must really love animals, to the point that one of them has had sex with an ostrich and conceived a child. The resulting abomination is desperately begging to be killed.
• Blunt "Yes": When Mr. Garrison announces the school will be electing a new mascot, Stan protests that if they bend to PETA's demand because of their harassment, it's like letting the terrorists win. Garrison simply replies that, yes, the terrorists won.
• Call-Back: P. Diddy continues the trend set in "Here Comes the Neighborhood" of rappers talking in a posh accent when not actively rapping.
• Cruel Mercy: P. Diddy kills everyone at the PETA compound except the half ostrich baby who was begging to be put down.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: P. Diddy and his goons gun down all of the PETA members with ease.
• Disproportionate Retribution:
  • Stan gets beaten up, expelled, banished and nearly killed just for not wanting to vote for a giant douche or turd sandwich.
  • P. Diddy kills the entire PETA compound just because one member threw blood on him.
• Double Standard: Wendy points out that if using a cow as a mascot is offensive, then using a Redskin or an Indian as the new mascot should be too. Mr. Garrison, then tells her it's okay because PETA cares about animals, not people.
• Election Day Episode: This episode’s plot revolves around a school election for choosing a new mascot thanks to PETA hijacking a pep rally. This episode also aired shortly before the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election Day took place.
• Half-Human Hybrid: The ostrich-human baby, and it's begging for someone to Mercy Kill it.
• Hybrids Are a Crapshoot: Played for Laughs when it is revealed that members of PETA frequently have intercourse with animals, resulting in Half Human Hybrids; one of them, which seems to be part-ostrich, pleads to everyone who passes by to kill him.
• Hypocritical Humor: When Stan talks about how stupid voting is, his parents tell him about how important voting is. In seconds, this devolves into an argument about which candidate is best that causes everyone but Stan and his grandpa to leave the table in anger.
• Irony: It's PETA, of all people, who calmly tell Stan why he should vote even if the candidates are terrible.
• Jerkass Ball:
  • Kyle has P. Diddy threaten Stan so he can vote for Giant Douche and goes along with the town in exiling him when he tries to vote for Turd Sandwich.
  • Sharon also doesn't bother to defend her son when he's sentenced to be banished from South Park because he refused to vote.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Despite his awful behavior throughout the episode, Kyle makes a valid point to Stan that sticking to his guns isn't worth getting banished over, and that it's not that big a deal if he votes. Stan even begins to reconsider. However, Kyle continuing to insist that Stan should vote for his candidate quickly reaffirmed Stan's decision not to vote, even if it means getting banished from the town.
• Karma Houdini:
  • Everyone in South Park. They bully and eventually banish Stan just because he refuses to vote (his family and best friend included), never answer for it, eventually get what they want when Stan gives in to vote, and even get to use their old mascot again once PETA is killed off. Though it wasn't until a few episodes to give Kyle what he deserves.
  • P. Diddy. He threatens and tries to kill Stan, murders dozens of people, and gets away with it.
• Landslide Election: The end results of the election are 36 votes for Turd Sandwich and 1,410 votes for Giant Douche.
• Neutrality Backlash: Stan is exiled from South Park on a horse while wearing a bucket for not wanting to vote for either potential mascot.
• Nominated as a Prank: The top two choices for mascots (the Giant Douche and Turd Sandwich) were both put forward by the students as jokes due to finding the other options boring.
• Noodle Incident; After PETA strikes, Mr. Garrison says that this was the 47th time eco-terrorists attacked the school.
• Not Hyperbole: In real life, "Vote or Die" was a metaphor about how not using your right to vote could result in bad things happening in the future. In South Park, it's not a metaphor, P. Diddy will kill people who don't vote.
• No, You: During the debate between Douche and Turd:
  Douche: I would hope that those students and their parents who question my qualities would simply look at my opponent. He is a turd sandwich.
  Turd Sandwich: You're a turd sandwich.
  Douche: No, sir, if you'll pardon me, you are in fact, the turd sandwich.
  Turd Sandwich: You're a turd sandwich.
  Douche: Sir, you are a turd sandwich.
  Turd Sandwich: You're a turd sandwich.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • The PETA member after seeing P. Diddy wasn't intimidated after being splashed with blood.
  • Also Stan, when he realizes that P. Diddy is not being metaphorical when he tells him to vote or die.
• Pet the Dog: While PETA is portrayed as a maniacal Animal Wrongs Group who care more about animals than people, they do at least take Stan in for a time and treat him with much more respect than everyone in South Park.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Cartman is much nicer to Stan than Kyle is, offering to protect him from the violence Kyle is threatening to bring down if Stan doesn't do what he wants. It has less to do with Cartman being a good guy and more to do with him knowing you attract flies better with honey than vinegar, and Stan sees through it immediately.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: When not talking about protecting animals or trying to convince Stan to have a relationship with his 'step-daughter', the PETA leader is the only adult who actually talks with Stan about why he should vote, rather than just tell him that he 'has' to.
• Serious Business: The whole town ostracizes Stan and banishes him just because he didn't want to take part in an election for a new school mascot. Likewise, when P. Diddy says "Vote or Die," he means he'll kill you if you don't vote.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: By the end of the episode, all of PETA is dead, South Park Elementary can easily go back to being the Cows, and the election is called off, meaning all the grief the town put Stan through was for nothing, and neither was his caving to them with his last-minute vote since his choice lost in a landslide anyway.
• Straw Hypocrite: Kyle continually stresses the importance of the right to vote to Stan and goes so far as to get P. Diddy to threaten him. Of course, he was only doing it because he assumed Stan would vote for his and Kenny's mascot and tries to make him change it when Stan votes for Cartman's mascot.
• Take That!:
  • Towards PETA depicting them as zoophiliacs who care more about harmless issues like using animals as mascots than actual issues.
  • And to tactical voters who attack and shame people that choose not to vote due to their lack of faith in the election process.
• Too Dumb to Live: P. Diddy and his crew show up on the PETA compound pointing guns towards Stan so what does a PETA member do? Throws blood on P. Diddy for wearing animal fur. Do we really need to say what happens next?
• Tranquil Fury: P. Diddy's expression when he was hit with the blood didn't change, but he did respond with massive retaliation.
• Ungrateful Townsfolk: The entire town of South Park. They ostracize Stan, treat him like dirt, and exile him from town all because he wouldn't partake in the school election.
• With Friends Like These...: Kyle, like everyone else, gives Stan endless shit for not voting, then refusing to let him vote for Turd Sandwich and trying to force him to vote for Giant Douche. He even goes so far as to bring P. Diddy in to intimidate Stan into voting for his candidate, and goes along with banishing him.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: After all the trauma Stan goes through, not only is his vote for the candidate who lost in a landslide, the PETA massacre results in the election being voided, meaning all the hell Stan went through was literally All for Nothing.

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