It Hits the Fan
| "It Hits the Fan" | |
|---|---|
| South Park episode | |
| Episode no. | Season 5 Episode 1 |
| Directed by | Trey Parker |
| Written by | Trey Parker |
| Production code | 502 |
| Original air date | June 20, 2001 |
"It Hits the Fan" is the first episode of the fifth season of the American animated television series South Park, and the 66th episode of the series overall. It first aired on Comedy Central in the United States on June 20, 2001. In the episode, the word "shit" is said uncensored on television on the crime show Cop Drama. After this, everyone starts saying "shit" over and over, which eventually brings over a mysterious plague that unleashes the ancient Knights of Standards and Practices, and only Chef and the boys can save the world.
The episode was written by series co-creator Trey Parker and is rated TV-MA-LV in the United States. Throughout the episode, the profanity "shit" or "shitty" are exclaimed uncensored a total of 162 separate times; in syndicated or re-aired versions of this episode, a counter in the bottom left corner of the screen counts the number of times the word has been uttered. The written occurrences are not counted, but "shit" is written 38 times, which puts the "shit"s up to an even 200. "Shit" is uttered roughly once every eight seconds; one such count includes the episode's theme song in the calculation.
Kyle has tickets to go to The Lion King on Stage, but Cartman tells him that the HBC crime show Cop Drama is going to use the word "shit" uncensored. The broadcast of the show leads to widespread acceptance of the word, even in schools, causing people to use it constantly, in casual and often out of context during conversations. Furthermore, Ms. Choksondik is forced to clarify the acceptable context of the word — as a noun or adjective meaning bad, or as an exclamation of disappointment, the word is acceptable, but as a noun or adjective referring to feces, it is apparently unacceptable—thoroughly confusing the children (this is a reference to the real-life FCC standards of indecency). A strange illness that causes people to spew up their intestines and die suddenly rises in South Park, so action is taken.
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