Original air date: 11/3/2004
When a new superstore comes to South Park, the townsfolk are torn between their love of the store's low, low prices, and their anti-corporate hatred of the retail giant which has turned the center of South Park into an abandoned ghost town.
Episode contains examples of:
- A Form You Are Comfortable With: Parodied. Wall-Mart claims it's doing this in the form of a mustached old man. It shows off other "forms" it can take by putting on different hats. When Wall-Mart unleashes its "true form", it simply removes the mustache and does a goofy dance while laughing evilly.
- Adaptational Abomination: Walmart in Real Life is just a store-chain. Here it's the vessel of a corrupting eldritch horror from beyond.
- Bait-and-Switch Comment: Randy's response when Stan asks him how Wall-Mart can afford to price their goods so low.Randy: It's simple economics, son. I don't understand it at all, but God I love it.
- Bland-Name Product: Wall-Mart is an obvious spoof of Walmart.
- Blatant Lies: When Cartman pretends that he wants to help his friends stop Wall-Mart, Kyle calls him out for his lies every step of the way, only for Cartman to deny it every time.
- Collapsing Lair: The Wall-Mart collapses after the mirror gets destroyed.
- Dramatic Thunder: Rolls when Randy appears before the boys with an ax.
- Genius Loci: Wall-Mart isn't just a store; it's a living, breathing, Eldritch Abomination that has grown too strong for its original founders to control. And like most living things, it craps itself when it dies.
- Genre Savvy: Kyle knows Cartman too well and sees his inevitable betrayal coming when he suddenly switches gears and decides to help them undermine Wall-Mart. The only reason why he even lets Cartman tag along is because Stan doesn't want them to waste time bickering over it.
- Ghost Town: The main street becomes this as Wall-Mart drives the smaller stores out of business. Butters wanders the street and pretends to be a monster to parody this trope.
- Gilligan Cut: Kyle asks that customers to use self-control and personal responsibility in pursuit of their goal to shut down Wall-Mart. Cut to the Wall-Mart building on fire.
- Go Through Me: Said by Cartman when trying to stop the others from reaching the heart.
- Hand Rubbing: The director of South Park's Wall-Mart does this while overlooking the market and calling the customers fools.
- Hard Truth Aesop: Ultimately, it is the customers that are responsible for the power of large retail businesses. If people just accept the inconveniences that come with smaller businesses and stop giving the giants their patronage, they will lose their influence. Furthermore, just boycotting a single business for a single competitor will ultimately just result in that business becoming just as big and capable of corruption as the business it replaced. They are still a business after all, all businesses, regardless of size, are motivated by profit, and power itself corrupts. The episode ends with Wall Mart "defeated" but in it's absence everyone decides to simply shop at Jim's Drugs. It expands to the same scope as Wall Mart did, and likely committed the same bad business practices they did, and the citizens of South Park burn down a Jim's Drugs franchise, not realizing their own involvement in how their blind consumerism allowed it to become just as bad as Wall Mart was.
- Hearing Voices: Cartman acts under the influence of a voice telling him to stop the group.
- Here We Go Again!: Pulls it off twice in the same minute. After finally getting rid of the Wall-Mart and accepting the need to pay higher margins to keep their small-town charm, the whole town decides to go shop at Jim's Drug. This goes on to becomes as huge as Wall-Mart due to the increased sale revenue, so the town burns it down, agrees to not make the same mistake again, and all decide to go shop at Tru-Value instead.
- Ignoring by Singing: Cartman does this in his final confrontation with the group.
- Insane Troll Logic: Cartman is excited when he sees that you can buy three DVDs of Timecop for $18. Kyle asks why he would want three copies of the same movie and Cartman tells him that one copy is $9.89, so you save money. Kyle points out you only need one copy, grabbing a single copy to make his point... and then realizes he doesn't even want a copy of Timecop.
- It's the Journey That Counts: Subverted. The boys are told that in order to destroy Wall-Mart, they have to find and destroy its heart. Stan and Kyle make their way to the TV section (where the heart is said to reside) and encounter the Anthropomorphic Personification of Wall-Mart itself, who directs them to a small door. They open the door and find a mirror, which Wall-Mart says is "the heart" of Wall-Mart, i.e., the consumers. Stan and Kyle, however, take the instructions to "destroy the heart" literally, and smash the mirror, causing the building to implode.
- My God, What Have I Done?: One of Wall-Mart's creators exclaims, "Jesus, what have we done?", and then proceeds to shoot himself. And then crap himself.
- No Dead Body Poops: Massively Averted as a Running Gag.
- The Rest Shall Pass: Kenny takes on Cartman while Kyle and Stan continue to the Heart of Wall-Mart.
- Running Gag: Kyle not believing that the last thing people do before they die is crap their pants, only for him to be proven wrong by several characters doing so prior to their deaths, and even the portal Wall-Mart gets sucked into shoots out some turds before disappearing.
- Predatory Business: While Wall-Mart is the physical shell of an Eldritch Abomination, the boys make the argument that if the citizens of South Park really don't want it to succeed over the local "mom & pop" stores... stop shopping there. This is reflected by the core of the Wall-Mart being a mirror, so the boys (who were told to destroy the core) see themselves in it. So then they just break the mirror which causes the Wall Mart to collapse into itself.
- Series Continuity Error: Grandpa Marsh is referred to as Sharon's father in this episode, even though he's Randy's father in other episodes.
- Skewed Priorities: Cartman is less concerned about multiple people committing suicide than he is about the fact Kyle owes him money for being proved wrong about No Dead Body Poops.Cartman: [to Kyle after the first suicide] Ha! You owe me five bucks, Kyle!
Cartman: [After the second suicide] Ha, ha ha! That's ten bucks you owe me, dick-face! - Shout-Out: Wall-Mart's human form evokes The Architect from The Matrix Reloaded.
- Take That!: After the argument listed under Insane Troll Logic occurs, Cartman mockingly tells Kyle to buy a single copy of Timecop instead of three. Kyle goes to do so, but then realizes he doesn't even want a copy of it.
- This Was His True Form: Parodied when the Anthropomorphic Personification of Wall-Mart, after the boys destroy its "heart", it menacingly reveals his "true form" for one final rampage. Said "true form" just the same human form but with its moustache peeled off.
- Verbal Backpedaling:Cartman: You fools have no idea that I will never let you hurt the Wall-Mart.
Kyle: I heard that!
Cartman: Heard what?
Kyle: You said we have no idea that you will never let us hurt the Wall-Mart.
Cartman: I didn't say that! - Wimp Fight: Kenny engages Cartman in a slap fight to stop him from interfering with the raid on Wall-Mart.
