Ass Burgers
| "Ass Burgers" | |
|---|---|
| South Park episode | |
| Episode no. | Season 15 Episode 8 |
| Directed by | Trey Parker |
| Written by | Trey Parker |
| Featured music | "Landslide" by Fleetwood Mac |
| Production code | 1508 |
| Original air date | October 5, 2011 |
"Ass Burgers" is the eighth episode of South Park's fifteenth season and the 217th episode of the series overall. It first aired in the U.S. on October 5, 2011, on Comedy Central. The episode picks up where the previous episode, "You're Getting Old", left off. Stan's cynicism is mistakenly blamed on his recent vaccinations and diagnosed as Asperger syndrome, a criticism of anti-vaccination proponents. Cartman mishears the condition as "Ass burgers" and opens a food stand in which the secret ingredient involves stuffing his underwear with hamburgers. The episode is rated TV-MA-L in the United States.
Trey Parker and Matt Stone considered alternative story lines, but decided it would be best if the show "reset" back to normal. They both noted doing the opposite would have put too much emphasis on drama, rather than comedy. The writers had had the idea to center an episode on the "Ass Burgers" pun for several years, but did not think discussion and awareness of the disorder had entered pop culture to the extent that enough people would understand the joke.
The episode received mixed reviews from television critics, who either praised the show's return to form or criticized it for becoming formulaic. In its original American broadcast, "Ass Burgers" was watched by 2.941 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research. "Ass Burgers" was released on DVD and Blu-ray along with the rest of the fifteenth season on March 27, 2012.
Following "You're Getting Old", Stan is attempting to adapt to his parents' divorce while his cynicism causes him to explode in class out of frustration. Stan's depression is mistakenly diagnosed as Asperger syndrome because he received a flu vaccination a year earlier. Taken to an Asperger's Group Therapy Center, Stan is greeted by a doctor who introduces him to the other patients, all exhibiting an assortment of odd behaviors. When left alone, however, all the people quickly drop their act, and the false doctor reveals that not only do none of those present have the condition, they do not even believe that it exists. Stan learns that the center is actually a front for cynical self-perceived freedom fighters who believe that the world really has turned into feces, and that some kind of supernatural force is preventing the rest of the world from noticing. The leader, who is a parody of Morpheus from The Matrix, gives Stan a glass of Jameson Irish Whiskey as a "serum" so he can interact with the "illusion world", and charges him with convincing others to see the world as they do.
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