Pre-School

"Pre-School" is episode 810 of the Comedy Central series South Park. It originally aired on November 10, 2004.

Plot
Stan, acting in panic, announces to the boys that Trent, a classmate from their preschool years, has just been released from juvenile hall. This causes the boys to worry and devise a plan to defend themselves from Trent's anger.

The boys recall the incident from their pre-school days. In their flashback, they get the idea of playing 'fireman', starting a real fire and extinguishing it. They just need someone to start it, so they ask Trent Boyett, the toughest kid in pre-school, who gladly does. When the fire first starts, the boys urinate on it, trying to put it out. However, the fire gets out of control, and when their teacher, Miss Claridge, tries to extinguish it, she too becomes engulfed in the flames. The boys then run over to her and urinate on her to try and make her flames go out. Shortly aftwerwards, the police arrive and instead of taking what might have been the easier route by saying it was an accident, the boys use Trent Boyett as their scapegoat - Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny lie and say they weren't involved, and Butters doesn't speak up in Trent's defense. Trent is sentenced to five years in juvenile hall, and the boys forget it ever happened until now, five years later.

Miss Claridge is burned so badly that she is forever confined to a sort of iron lung / motorized wheelchair, like the hideously injured Star Trek character "Captain Pike" in "The Menagerie". She can only communicate by using an electronic beep: once for "yes", twice for "no."

Butters, desperate, plans to hide from Trent in his room, indefinitely. His parents Chris and Linda finally force him to go out and play, locking him outside, where Trent gives brutal payback. The boys visit Butters in the hospital; he is severely injured. Meanwhile, Miss Claridge's motorized wheelchair runs out of juice and stalls in the middle of the street. Since her drained battery renders her unable to respond by beeping, the South Park townspeople assume she has become despondent.

To avoid Trent doing to them what he did to Butters, the boys go to the sixth graders for help. When they arrive at the hangout, the sixth graders say that they'll only defend them if they get a picture of Stan's mother's breasts. Stan, reluctant to ask his mother, even with Cartman's attempts to teach him how to reason with his mother, instead takes a photo of Cartman's butt with nipples drawn-on. The sixth graders buy it, and agree to help them.

However, when the sixth-graders tell Trent to stay away from the boys, an angered Trent severely beats all of the sixth-graders. Now, not only do the boys no longer have defence, Trent also knows they sent the Sixth Graders out to get him, which makes him angrier. With no one left to ask, the boys ask Stan's sister, Shelley, to defend them, but she demands that they first tell Miss Claridge that they are the ones truly responsible for her disability.

The boys meet Miss Claridge, who is still stuck in the middle of the street and attempt to make peace with her. At this moment, however, Trent arrives to finish business. The boys try to talk with him, but Trent still does not want to settle, and adds that once his retribution is over the matter will be solved for good. Once again instead of taking the easier route, Cartman takes out his mom's taser stun-gun, and fires it at Trent, but it shocks Miss Claridge instead, recharging her wheelchair to such a degree that it goes out of control. The wheelchair spins in place then crashes into a propane shop, causing an explosion which destroys the shop and sets Miss Claridge on fire. Ablaze once again, Miss Claridge crashes into an hydrant, where the flames are put out.

The police ask Miss Claridge if Trent tried to kill her again. She replies "no" with two beeps; the police misunderstand ("Yes, yes.") and arrest Trent. The boys are saved, and relieved that they won't have to worry about this for another five years. Cartman goes on to moon and taunt Trent. However, he still has the nipples drawn on his butt. Just as he does this, the sixth graders come back and see the whole thing. Cartman thinks he's in trouble, but the sixth graders are once again fooled into thinking they are boobs and take Cartman with them.

Cultural References

 * Trent Boyett's character and his quest for revenge are both references to the 1962 film Cape Fear and the 1991 remake of the same name.
 * Miss Claridge's wheelchair and condition are based on that of the fictional Christopher Pike from the Star Trek episode, "The Menagerie."
 * The police's misunderstanding of two beeps meaning "yes, yes" was previously parodied in an episode of Futurama ("Where No Fan Has Gone Before"): Zapp Brannigan tells Fry that one beep means "yes", two beeps means "no", and then when asking Fry if he's guilty, pronounces "a double yes" after Fry's two beeps. In DVD commentary for this episode, Parker and Stone indicated they were not aware anyone else had done such a joke at the time, but were disappointed when they learned someone else had done it. Humorously, neither one of them could remember which show had used the joke, thinking it might have been The Simpsons. Both Futurama and The Simpsons were created by Matt Groening.
 * The "Little Gas Shack" into which Miss Claridge's out-of-control wheelchair crashes sells "Propane and Propane Accessories", a reference to Hank Hill's job at Strickland Propane in the animated series King of the Hill. Mike Judge, creator of King of the Hill, is a close personal friend of South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and previously provided the undistorted voice of Kenny in South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut. Judge's previous animation, Beavis and Butt-head, was part of the inspiration for South Park, and the characters - and the controversy that surrounded them - is spoofed by Terrance and Philip in South Park.
 * Trent's release from prison mimics Joliet Jake Blues' release from prison in The Blues Brothers, specifically the mentioning of items on his person.
 * In order to make the photograph of the breasts, the boys consult Madonna's Sex.
 * The theme of an escaped prisoner taking his revenge on the people who falsely accused him, as well as a paralyzed person using a "once for yes, two for no" system was pioneered by Alexandre Dumas in his classic novel The Count of Monte Cristo.

Trivia

 * According to the commentary, Matt Stone and Trey Parker state that even though the child was not actually speaking profanity, they purposefully bleeped Trent Boyett's preschool voice to make it appear he had said something offensive.
 * Trent Boyett mentions meeting Mr. Hankey, fighting Barbra Streisand in "Mecha-Streisand" and the boys' journey to Afghanistan in "Osama Bin Laden Has Farty Pants" as examples of their adventures.
 * Due to the fire incident taking place before Mr. Slave appears, Mr. Hat can be seen with Mr. Garrison during the flashback when Ms. Claridge is taken away. This is Mr. Hat's last appearance.
 * The character of Miss Claridge had appeared in one more episode other than this one, specifically The Death of Eric Cartman, where Eric attempts to atone for his actions by giving her a fruit basket.
 * This episode features children being sent to the hospital after falling victim to school pranks. Made-up pranks are the Polish bike ride and the Texas chili bowl (the latter involving tabasco sauce, a telephone, and the anus and the former having no cure).
 * This is one of the few episodes in which the boys very clearly haven't learned anything from their adventure by the end; despite having been told flat-out that they "can't hide from their pasts" by Shelley, the boys readily make the same mistake at the end of the episode they did five years earlier.
 * When Ms. Claridge is being loaded into the ambulance, you can clearly see Esther in the background. In Marjorine, she is seen again, so she should be in grade 6, 7 or 8. Esther, is also shown a few times in Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset.
 * Trey Parker and Matt Stone discuss making this episode on DVD commentary on episode 503 Cripple Fight, which, if accurate, was recorded on Friday, November 5, 2004, when this episode was being made.
 * The boys will be 14 years old when Trent gets out of juvenile hall, although he likely won't get released again in the series, as characters don't age. (However, they would have been 14 in 2003)