A Million Little Fibers
Template:Infobox South Park episode "A Million Little Fibers" is episode 1005 of South Park which aired on April 19, 2006.
Plot
Template:Spoiler In this episode, Towelie gets fired from his newest job at P.F. Chang's (for constantly being high) and (while high) comes up with the idea to write his own memoirs, which he writes (while high), and submits for publishing; however, the publisher tells him no person would be interested in a towel's story, so Towelie (while high) decides to change the memoirs to be exactly the same, except that he changes the story to make himself a person and takes up the pen name Stephen McTowelie. He then goes on The Oprah Winfrey Show, where she loves and promotes his book. Meanwhile, Oprah's vagina, Mingey—which apparently is imbued with sentience—is depressed that the overworked Oprah never pays attention to him anymore—the vagina persona sounding completely male with an Cockney accent. Gary, her anus (with a Liverpudlian accent), conspires with him to get Oprah fired. As Mingey realizes that Towelie is not a person ("a minge knows a towel when they hear one"), they call Geraldo Rivera and give him the information. Subsequently, Towelie is interviewed on Larry King Live, during which Geraldo Rivera calls in from Afghanistan to reveal that the author of the book is a towel.
When the truth comes out, mobs congregate to protest wildly; Oprah invites Towelie back on the show, saying that he can explain that he wanted to make the book more relevant and easily understandable. However, instead she erupts in anger, calling on the audience to lynch Towelie. Towelie is cornered at the Bank of Chicago, but Mingey—taking sudden and desperate advantage of the opportunity—tears through Oprah's pants with a gun. Taking hostages, he kills a police officer and begins making demands in preparation for an escape to France (Gary the anus having always wanted to see Paris). Towelie struggles to think of an idea to deliver himself and his fellow hostages to safety, resisting the temptation to get high as he realizes that any stoned idea will only "get him into trouble."
Towlie's solution: using his inherent flatness, Towelie slips into the bank and allows the hostages to enter through the previously locked doors. The hostages being cleared from the area, police snipers open fire on Oprah's nether region and accidentally hit Gary instead of Mingey. Seeing his only friend slain and his hopes shattered, Mingey turns the gun towards himself and joins the departed Gary. Oprah is rushed to the hospital, with police informing Towelie and the hostages that Oprah will be fine—though the same can't be said for either her anus or vagina. Towelie learns not to get high for ideas, but to use drugs as a reward after he comes up with them.
Quotations
This section should be transwikied to Wikiquote.
- Publisher, "I have to ask you, you're not a towel are you?" Towelie's response, "No, If I were a towel, why would I be wearing this hat, and this fake moustache?"
- Member of the audience in the Oprah Winfrey Show: "Burn that which lies to Oprah!"
- Towelie: "[stoned] How spicy would you like your Chang sauce?"
- Police Officer: "We don't have any time. This is the most unstable vagina I've ever talked to."
- Oprah Winfrey's fan: "Yeah, it sure was [a good idea]. Sorry we tried to burn you and murder you before."
- Gary: "Mingy! They got me!"
- Towelie: "I learned that I shouldn’t get high to come up with ideas. I should come up with ideas and then get high to reward myself!"
- Geraldo Rivera: "No sir, you're a towel" Towelie: "Well, you're a beaner towel."
- Mingy: "I wanna chopper, and a jet waiting at the airport to take us to France...plus we need some fresh knickers right away....Gary's drowning in his own sick!"
- Towelie: "No... you're a towel"
- Towelie: "Don't call me shoeless! YOU'RE shoeless!"
- Mingy: "I'm a minge, minges know a towel when they hear one."
- Mingy: "[about Oprah] ...can't take it anymore... All she ever does is work, work, work - never pays attention to the ol' minge... I'm always trapped in these stuffy pant suits! I want attention... I'M BLOODY BORED!"
- Gary: "I want to travel! I want to see Paris! I thought life was going to get betta', but Oprah's always busy, workin' and workin', dietin' and not dietin'. I'm either pukin' up mounds of chocolate cake or teaspoons of wheatgrass!"
Trivia
- This episode parodies the events that happened with James Frey's novel, A Million Little Pieces.
- The bank robbery scene at the end is reminiscent of "Dog Day Afternoon" starring Al Pacino.
- This is the first time in the show overall that none of the recurring South Park characters except Towelie and the redhead woman extra in a blue shirt (who is a hostage) appear in this episode.
- This is the third episode not to feature any of the four main boys, the first two being "Terrance and Phillip in Not Without My Anus" and "Pip". Additionally, the boys appeared only very briefly in the episodes "Butters' Very Own Episode","Erection Day,"Krazy Kripples", and "Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset", and were not involved in the plots of these shows to any significant degree.
- This marks the first time that Stan is absent from two consecutive episodes.
- This is Towelie's first appearance since he appeared as an extra in the episode "Red Man's Greed", which aired April 30, 2003. This is his first appearance with dialogue since "Professor Chaos", which aired April 10, 2002.
- The manner in which Towelie has conversations with his joints is highly reminiscent of the way in which Mr. Garrison spoke to Mr. Hat in early episodes.
- Geraldo Rivera made an appearance in Episode 102, "Weight Gain 4000" which aired August 20, 1997. In "Weight Gain 4000", however, he was much less detailed and now looks more like the actual Geraldo.
- The publisher that rejected Towelie's book is called Porcupine Press, whose logo bears a striking resemblance to that of the publisher Penguin Books.
- One of the publishers of Towelie's book is called "Arbitrary House", a pun on the name of publisher Random House while also making light of the inference that the books Oprah selects for her Book of the Month are random, or at least not particularly exceptional literary works. [1]
- One of the bookstores where Towelie makes an appearance is called "Frontier Books", an allusion to Borders Books.
- The hotel Towelie is staying at after appearing on Larry King Live is called the Marryot, a pun on the actual hotel chain Marriott.
- Towelie's hotel room has a picture of Wrigley Field on the wall.
- During the Geraldo Rivera phone call there are numerous pictures of Geraldo at locations he has never been to. This is an allusion to Geraldo's many sensationalistic stretchings of the truth (some might consider them to be lies), for example during the Afghanistan campaign he claimed to be reporting on the aftermath from the location of a friendly fire incident:
- There is a picture of Geraldo Rivera opening Al Capone's vault on the wall. The vault, however, is not empty.
- There appears to be a picture of Geraldo parachuting into Afghanistan (although he did visit Afghanistan, he did not arrive via parachute).
- A picture of Geraldo at the International Space Station.
- A picture of Geraldo in front of an M1 Abrams main battle tank, an allusion to when Geraldo was in Afghanistan and claimed to be receiving friendly fire with the unit he was embedded with when in fact he was nowhere near such an incident.
- A picture of Geraldo inside of one of Saddam Hussein's palaces showing no sign of destruction.
- A picture of Geraldo wearing the Papal Tiara as if he were the Pope himself.
- A picture of Geraldo wearing a turban as though he was a Sikh or Arab.
- A picture of Geraldo in front of the Eiffel Tower wearing a beret.
- A picture of Geraldo in front of Moscow's Kremlin wearing a ushanka
- Towelie calls Rivera a "beaner," a slang usually used for Mexicans. While Rivera is half-Hispanic, he is Puerto Rican, not Mexican.
- P.F. Chang's is an actual restaurant chain, based in Scottsdale, Arizona, with restaurants in 35 states.
- The music played during the title card of The Oprah Winfrey Show is the same as the music played during many points of Maury in Episode 602, "Freak Strike" which aired March 6, 2002.
- The members of Oprah's studio audience receive torches under their seats to help them participate in the lynching of Towelie. Normally, Oprah's guests (and audience members at many other daytime talk shows) receive things like DVDs, CDs, and books, depending on who the show's guest is, and audience members are told to find these items under their seats.
- Oprah's minge has what sounds to be a cockney accent, while Gary, her asshole, has a Liverpudlian accent. Both also sound like the escaped convict and Joe, from "Pip", another episode featuring little to no recurring characters (with the exception of Pip).
- The voices of Mingy and Gary can also be compared to the voices commonly used by Terry Jones and Eric Idle of Monty Python's Flying Circus, respectively. Jones used the gruff "Mingy" voice when he was playing a criminal and Idle used a "Gary" voice when he his role was either an effeminate man or a woman. Matt Stone and Trey Parker have gone on record as big fans of Monty Python.
- "Gary" is Cockney rhyming slang for the anus. Gary Glitter = shitter.
- The relationship between Oprah's minge and asshole is similar to that of George and Lennie in John Steinbeck's novel Of Mice and Men, including "Mingy"'s description of Paris before "Gary"'s death in comparison to George's description of owning their own farm before Lennie's death.
- A protest with signs reading "Viva Mexico" can be seen, a reference to illegal immigrant rallies occurring during the days around its original airing. Other Spanish protest signs say "No Viva La Toalla" ("Not Long Live the Towel"), "Tu eres una toalla" (You are a towel), "Mata la toalla" (Kill the Towel), "Beaners es rascisto" (Beaners is racist, although the correct spelling in Spanish is "racista"), and "Hola Mama" (Hello mom).
- In contrast to Tom Cruise, Geraldo Rivera responded positively to his depiction on South Park, seeming flattered, almost thankful that they parodied him so well.
- This episode's central theme, that creativity is hampered by drug use, seems to be self-effacing on the part of Parker and Stone. In "Quest for Ratings," as in this episode, they portray the writing staff as getting itself in trouble by abusing drugs for inspiration. In this episode, Towelie clearly states that writing while he was high got him in trouble, and South Park had indeed gotten in trouble with many people in the months leading up to this episode.
- Towelie is seen eating Chiporitios brand potato chips, a parody of Doritos brand potato chips. However, the book publisher says that Towelie wrote about Doritos in most of his book.
- This episode is often said to be one of the worst by South Park fans.
- Some of the authors of the Beat generation are particularly familiar of writing their books inebriated.