Something Wall-Mart This Way Comes
| "Something Wall-Mart This Way Comes" | |
|---|---|
| South Park episode | |
| Episode no. | Season 8 Episode 9 |
| Directed by | Trey Parker |
| Written by | Trey Parker |
| Production code | 809 |
| Original air date | November 3, 2004 |
"Something Wall-Mart This Way Comes" is the ninth episode of the eighth season of the American animated television series South Park, and the 120th episode of the series overall. It originally aired on Comedy Central in the United States on November 3, 2004. In the episode, a Wall-Mart is built in South Park, and the people start to get addicted to shopping from it, due to its irresistibly attractive bargains, thus leading many businesses in South Park to close down. The four boys have to fight against Wall-Mart and to find a way to stop it from taking over the entire town.
Its title and theme were inspired by the 1983 Disney movie Something Wicked This Way Comes based on the 1962 novel by Ray Bradbury.
The episode begins with Cartman betting Kyle five dollars that when people die they "crap their pants". Kyle says it is a stupid idea. In the meantime, a Wall-Mart opens in South Park (where Stark's Pond used to be) with much fanfare and everyone in town starts shopping there. Cartman is especially delighted that one can buy three copies of Timecop for $18 instead of just one for $9.98, though Kyle wonders why one would need three copies of the same movie. The popularity of Wall-Mart forces the local businesses to shut down, including Jim's Drugs, within minutes of Kyle's declaration that he will now take all his personal shopping there. Local residents, including Stan's father Randy, soon start to work at Wall-Mart for minimum wage and an extra 10% employee discount on store purchases which according to Randy, evens out the wage.
South Park turns into a ghost town, and the townspeople decide they no longer want the Wall-Mart in South Park. They fail to resist, as they start to miss the bargains (Randy's frenzied case of impulse buying notably re-opens at dinner the first day after the self-imposed ban when Stan accidentally breaks his milk glass), so they (in the form of a vigilante mob) ask the Wall-Mart manager to have the location shut down. Terrified, he asks them to meet him outside in five minutes. As the people stop outside his office, the manager is thrown through the office window in an apparent suicide by hanging, and then voids his bowels (to the viewer, the force of defecation is so strong that his pants are blown off). Cartman gleefully tells Kyle he owes him $5.
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