Towelie

Towelie is episode 508 of Comedy Central's South Park. It originally aired on August 8, 2001.

Plot
While at Stan's house, Cartman discovers a used tampon which he mistakes for an aborted fetus in the garbage. In an effort to get the kids to never mention the tampon again, Stan's mother buys the kids a video game system, the Okama Gamesphere. The boys are completely fascinated by the Gamesphere, and intend to play with it for the entire weekend, without sleeping.

Kyle notes that he has to go to the lake, which interferes with their plan to play the Gamesphere all weekend. As soon as swimming is mentioned, a talking towel who calls himself "Towelie" comes in and reminds them to bring a towel, so they can dry off. An awkward pause follows this advice, and then Towelie asks the boys if they want to get high. When he learns the answer is no, Towelie walks off.

Kyle manages to make an excuse about why he shouldn't go to the lake (date-rape psychosis), but the boys were reminded that they still have to go to baseball practice. While playing the Gamesphere, Towelie shows up, gives them more towel advice, and asks them if they want to get high. Towelie walks off when they say they don't want to. They play all weekend after the boys say they are sick and can't go to baseball practice (Stan tells his mom that Kyle has cancer).

When Monday comes around, the boys are forced to go to school. Because they want to get back to playing their Gamesphere, they are worried that the day will drag on forever. At the bus stop, a car pulls up. A man in the car asks if the boys have seen a talking towel anywhere. When the boys ask if he is talking about Towelie, the man yells into a walkie-talkie, and drives off, watching the boys suspiciously.

After school, the boys run to Stan's house, but the Gamesphere isn't there. In its place is a ransom call, saying that if the boys want to get their Gamesphere, they'll have to take Towelie to a secluded gas station during the night.

Realizing that talking about towel-related subjects is the only way to get Towelie to appear, the boys say they are going to go water-skiing, and Towelie shows up to give them some towel advice. The boys grab Towelie and take him to the gas station. An elderly man is there, and he thanks the boys for bringing Towelie to him. The old man works for the company that made Towelie. When the boys ask for their Okama Gamesphere, the old man realizes that it is a trap, and the United States Military ambushes them. During the fight, Towelie and the boys escape. The military then declares that all towels within 1000 miles of that spot will be destroyed. In a montage, of all of the towels being destroyed, two army men storm Mr. Garrison's bathroom, and take the towel from around his waist. Mr. Garrison then leans up against the wall, and begs the soldiers not to have their way with him (of course he does want them to have their way with him). When he discovers that they have left, he insults them.

Before the episode goes to a commercial break, a fake commercial plays. The commercial advertises Towelie T-shirts. There are T-shirts that say "I love Towelie" for people who love Towelie, and there are T-shirts that say "I hate Towelie" for people who hate Towelie. It also shows a Towelie towel which looks like Towelie and says some of his catchphrases. The commercial assures the audience that the merchandise is not available, but will be sold soon. The phone number shown in the commercial seems to belong to the dating service.

The Towelie Towel from the commercial is actually being sold by Comedy Central here. Towlie actually says "You wanna get High?" when the button on the Towel is pressed.

For the rest of the episode, the boys and Towelie go back and forth between a military base (aptly named "Secret Government Base") and the company that made Towelie in an effort to get their Gamesphere. At one point, Towelie plays the theme to "Funkytown" on a keypad, while trying to enter the base. The plot gets increasingly thick, involving aliens trying to take over Earth and genetically modified Towelies. All throughout the story, the boys say they don't care, and that they just want their Gamesphere; in spite of their utter indifference, the increasingly complicated plot continues to surround them.

In the midst of a confrontation between the military and the company that made Towelie, the boys find their Gamesphere and start playing and become oblivious of the events around them. Before they can play for long, the building is blown up in order to kill the aliens that want to rule the world. The boys end up above a pool of lava. The Gamesphere is below them; close to the lava. The boys are linked up, with each one holding onto another one's ankles, and Towelie sitting on safe ground at the top of the chain.

Kenny falls off and dies in the lava. The boys attempt to swing to the right to get the Gamesphere. Meanwhile, an evil, muscley towel comes and tries to get Towelie to drop the boys by exploiting Towelie's love of getting high. Towelie, however, managed to stretch himself and grabbed the marijuana-therefore being able to get high and to hold onto the boys. A second explosion causes the evil towel to fall into the lava. The boys and Towelie go home and play the Gamesphere.

At the end of the episode, Towelie is very high and has no idea where he is at. This leads Cartman to tell him, "You're the worst character ever, Towelie." Towelie replies "I know".

Origins of Towelie
On the South Park The Hits: Volume 1 DVD, Trey and Matt explain that the origin for Towelie began on a boat trip they took with several writers and friends, where people were constantly telling each other “don’t forget to bring a towel” and the phrase eventually morphed into “Towelie says to bring a towel.” Matt and Trey have asserted (in the VH1 special and elsewhere) that they were becoming increasingly aware as to how heavily merchandised and exploited their creations were becoming. Towelie was their way of poking fun at themselves. They designed Towelie as a shallow, two-dimensional (both literally and figuratively) character who has no real purpose except to spout catch phrases and merchandise the hell out of. This is why they threw in the fake commercial during the show, and also why Cartman calls him the “worst character ever.”

Trivia and Pop Culture References

 * Cartman says a few lines from the movie Sling Blade (“You shouldn’t done that, he’s just a boy” and “poor little feller“) with an accent and all, when referring to Stan’s mom’s tampon he found in the trash.


 * During the development of the show, in the original script, the game console was a PlayStation 2[1]. This was later changed to the Okama Gamesphere. Other video game systems in the show have been referred to directly by name, including the Sega’s Dreamcast, Microsoft’s Xbox and Xbox 360, Sony’s PSP, and Nintendo’s Wii have a strong plot point of various later episodes.


 * The original version of this episode has Comedy Central’s actual phone number (1-800-4-COMEDY) at the end of the Towelie fake commercial. In all reruns and on the DVD version, it is changed to a fake number (1-800-555-TOWL).


 * The fictional military research developer of Towelie is Tynacorp, a take-off on DynCorp, a major supplier to the US Military.


 * The deformed Towelie clone says “Kill me.” This is a nod to a similar scene in the movie Alien: Resurrection when the mutated Ripley/Queen fetus says the same thing. The scene was parodied later in “Douche and Turd.”

Goofs

 * The boys seem to know nothing about tampons in this episode, even though they used them in a previous episode “Are You There God? It’s Me, Jesus” when they mistakenly thought they were having their periods.


 * During one scene when the boys play the Okama Gamesphere, the wire on one of the controllers comes off.


 * The leader of the military group in the episode says to kill all towels in a 1000 mile radius, but later the reporting soldier declares that they had killed all towels in a 100 mile radius.