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Recap / South Park S17 E5 "Taming Strange"

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Original air date: 10/30/2013

Kyle is worried when his brother, Ike, hits puberty and becomes rude and horny — and things get worse when Ike violates Foofa during a live Yo Gabba Gabba! show and prompts her to rethink the way she entertains audiences. Meanwhile, Mr. Mackey installs a computer program in the school that will help kids with lunch, nurse's office appointments, and counselor appointments, but, like the Obamacare website, it's filled with technical glitches that plague the school.


This episode contains examples of:

  • Driven to Suicide: The Intellelink Centurion package, which calls for having the repairman uninstall everything and then shooting himself in the head.
  • Gray Rain of Depression: An artificial variant, as sprinklers going off uncontrollably at the scene where Mr. Mackey realizes his errors of using Intellilink, which he has dozen times convinced to his colleagues that it will work, despite its numerous flaws, said sprinklers being one of them, and has invested so much in upgrading it which only produced even more worse problems. "The Heat is On" of Beverly Hills Cop fame and frantic alarms in the background only adds a layer of humiliation he gets from this.
  • Here We Go Again!: Ike returns to his normal kid-voiced self. However he speaks in his kid voice about taming Dora the Explorer's strange.
  • Hotter and Sexier: Foofa of Yo Gabba Gabba! fame decides to quit the show and branch out into older, sexier territory after Ike "tames her strange," à la Miley Cyrus.
  • Jerkass Ball: Ike and Mr. Mackey.
    • Ike verbally abuses his brother and becomes obsessed with sex to the point of grinding on Foofa during a live show.
    • Meanwhile, Mr. Mackey gets very defensive over Intellelink despite how horribly glitchy the system is and berates anyone who tells him that they should get rid of it.
  • Know When to Fold Them: After dealing with Intellilink's ridiculous glitches throughout the episode, Mr. Mackey decides to sign for the Centurion package, which just destroys the entire system.
  • Laxative Prank: Tom Brady's pants overflow with crap from taking laxatives that were meant for Ike. note 
  • Lost in Character: It's heavily implied that the actors of Yo Gabba Gabba see themselves as the characters they play as, as Foofa's actor never drops her character despite the Hotter and Sexier direction she's heading towards.
  • Miss Conception: The Canadian Health Control Head believed queefing into a man's face results in having a baby because his wife told him that and he didn't know it was supposed to be sarcastic.
  • Never My Fault: Mr. Mackey initially defends Intellelink when other characters rightfully point out how broken it is. He goes as far as cussing out anyone who criticizes it and takes until the final moments of the episode to admit that it has failed.
  • Sex Miseducation Class: Exaggerated! Kyle makes Ike watch a Canadian puberty video, where the Canadian Health Control Head, Terry, claims a man and a woman make love by the man farting into the woman's "strange", filling it with air so she can queef in his face so a baby can be born When one of his assistants informs him the of the truth and realizes that its just a sarcastic joke from his wife, the video trails off and shows Terry and his wife in a marriage counseling session over the incident, much to Kyle's confusion.
  • Shout-Out
    • During Foofa's montage of being an adult performer, she can be briefly seen riding on a wrecking ball like in the uncut version of Miley Cyrus's music video "Wrecking Ball".
    • Ike is watching Dora the Explorer at the end.
  • Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome: Ike is shown aging into a teenager despite Kyle not aging at all. Justified, since Canada's Intellelink-controlled health care sent him hormones meant for Tom Brady by mistake instead of the laxatives he ordered. He's back to normal at the end.
  • Strange Minds Think Alike: Mr. Mackey and the Canadian Health Control head act very defensive towards Intellelink despite all the insane glitches and people telling them it's a bad idea.
  • Take That!:
    • Mr. Mackey and Terry defending Intellelink controlling Canada's health care despite all the obvious glitches and bugs is a big one towards Obamacare.
    Terry: Anyone who thinks streamlining health care into an integrated system would go smoothly deserves a queef in the face.
    • Foofa deciding to aim for an adult audience with sex appeal is a reference to Miley Cyrus doing the same, right down to performing a sexy number at the VMAs.
    • The Laxative Prank on Tom Brady, mainly because Trey and Matt have on occasion stated they are hardcore Denver Bronco fans.
  • Vocal Dissonance: Though Ike's body remains small through his puberty, save for the acne and facial hair, his voice becomes that of Matt Stone, making for some moments of Acting for Two between him and Kyle.

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