Woodland Critter Christmas

"Woodland Critter Christmas" is episode number 814 (the season 8 finale, and the 125th episode overall) of the Comedy Central series South Park, and originally aired December 15, 2004. It was that season's Christmas episode.

Synopsis
This episode, which like many Christmas shows has an anapestic rhyming narration and storybook style, begins in the forest, where "the boy in a red poof-ball hat" — a.k.a. Stan — discovers a group of talking animals building a Christmas tree. They convince a confused Stan to help make a star for their tree before he goes home. That night, they wake him in his room and explain that one of the animals, a porcupine named Porcupiny, is pregnant with the creatures' Savior. Stan agrees to help them build a manger for the baby. They then enlist his help against another problem: every year, they explain, one of the animals conceives their Savior, but every time a mountain lion kills it before she gives birth to the baby. They insist that Stan is the only one capable of helping them. Exasperated, Stan manages to kill the beast, but is dismayed to find that the lion was the mother of three now-orphaned cubs. Returning to the critters, Stan is further horrified to discover that the woodland critters are, in fact, Satan worshippers, and that their Savior is actually the Antichrist, not an animalistic Son of God. (The animals point out that this is obvious, because God would never have sex with a porcupine.) The animals celebrate by sacrificing Rabbitty the Rabbit and devouring his entrails, which is immediately followed by a blood orgy.

Stan tries to stop the animals himself, but they rebuff him with their Satanic powers, cheerfully conjuring up fire and demonic beasts. After he learns that only a mountain lion can kill the Antichrist, Stan returns to the mountains to enlist the orphaned cubs, and takes them to an abortion doctor to teach them how to perform abortions (against his will — the narrator forces him to). Meanwhile, the animals are searching for a human host for the Antichrist to possess when born — the person in question must be a non-baptized non-Christian. They discover Kyle, who is Jewish, and kidnap him to serve their purpose.

Stan arrives in time to discover that the Antichrist — a strange, vicious little creature — has already been born, and that his best friend Kyle is tied to a Satanic altar to receive the evil creature. Santa Claus suddenly arrives and, when he learns what is happening, pulls out a SPAS-12 combat shotgun and slaughters all the creatures. He is about to kill the Antichrist, but Kyle — now free from the altar — declares that he wants the Antichrist to possess him, so that he can make the world better for the Jews. He allows the demon to possess him, and is about to unleash a devastating blow on the world when...

...the story suddenly cuts away to Mr. Garrison's fourth-grade class, where it is revealed that everything that had happened so far in the episode was merely a Christmas-themed story Cartman was reading to the class. Kyle angrily objects, claiming that it is nothing more than Cartman's attempt to once again mock his religion at Christmas time. Mr. Garrison, fearing complaints from Kyle's mother, forces Cartman to stop. The other boys, however, plead with Kyle to let Cartman continue because they want to hear the ending; Kyle objects that the ending is obvious, that Kyle (in the story) will merely be killed by Santa Claus so that Christmas is saved. Cartman says that is not the ending, and as the other boys persist, Kyle angrily allows Cartman to continue.

Back in the story, Kyle suddenly declares that he can now feel that the Antichrist is pure evil and wants it out, while Stan responds, "What did you expect dude? It's the son of the Devil!" Santa, however, says that they have no choice but to kill Kyle, before the Antichrist can consume his soul and unleash his reign of terror. Stan, however, has the mountain lion cubs perform an abortion on Kyle's anus, removing the Antichrist, which Santa unceremoniously smashes with a sledgehammer. Santa gives Stan a special Christmas wish, and Stan uses it to have Santa resurrect the mountain lion cubs' mother. Everyone then goes home to a happy Christmas.

The narrator then concludes the story by stating that "they all lived happily ever after... except for Kyle, who died of AIDS two weeks later." The episode ends with Kyle's angry objections ("Goddammit, Cartman!").

Production
According to this episode's mini-commentary, this episode was one of the most difficult to make. After making the feature film Team America and the 13 other episodes in South Park's 8th season in the same year (a year which Trey Parker and Matt Stone describe as "The Year from Hell"), Parker, Stone and the show's other writers were completely drained of ideas. The staff tried to come up with an idea, but nothing came up through Thursday and Friday which is considered a huge drawback with South Park's rushed production. On Saturday afternoon the staff decided to just do the idea of spoofing John Denver's Critter Christmas holiday special, which had been in gestation for some time. With some doubt, the show developed into an episode involving a rhyming narration and ending with it being a story by Cartman, the creators ended up quite satisfied with it.

The episode has special bumpers, announcing it to be "A Woodland Critter Christmas," with Squirrelly then saying in a cheerful voice, "Hail Satan!"

South Park continuity
As this episode is eventually revealed to be a story, this episode has an unusual place in South Park continuity — nothing in the story really happened, though the "Create Your Own Christmas Story" assignment actually occurred, with Cartman actually reading his story. This would later come up in episodes two and three of the "Imaginationland" story arc in season 11, in which the Woodland creatures appear as evil imaginary beings that exist in the magical realm of Imaginationland. The woodland critters quickly prove to be the most evil characters in Imaginationland, performing horrific acts on their enemies. Even the other evil characters (who include Freddy Krueger, Pinhead, the Headless Horseman, the Joker, Cthulhu, the Green Goblin and Khan Noonien Singh) are apprehensive of the critters. Jason Voorhees even declares, "Man, I do not want to meet the kid who dreamt those things up", referring to Eric Cartman.

On the subject of continuity, the Woodland Critter Christmas episode contains a possible continuity error. The character of Rabbity Rabbit is sacrificed to Satan early in the episode. However, during the later scene in which the Antichrist has been born, Rabbity Rabbit appears in one shot. This could be chalked up to a mistake by the show's makers, or in the alternative could be intentional, if Cartman meant the critter to be undead or reincarnated.

Cultural references

 * The character designs of the woodland critters is meant to spoof the overly cute look of animals from the stop motion Rankin/Bass holiday specials of the 1960s and 1970s.
 * When Cartman goes to continue reading his Christmas story, you can hear the sound of a book opening, the same sound clip used in both the Baldur's Gate, and the Elder Scrolls series.
 * Initially the animals claim Porcupiny was a virgin when the Savior was conceived; later they claim Satan had sex with her to conceive the Antichrist. They also refer to the conception as "immaculate", confusing the Immaculate Conception of Mary with Jesus' Virgin Birth.
 * According to the South Park commentary with Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the blood orgy is a reference to the science fiction film Event Horizon.
 * In the blood orgy scene celebrating Porcupiny's pregnancy, the critters sacrifice Rabbitty. This is in reference to a rabbit test where after confirming a pregnancy, "the rabbit dies".
 * The scene where the mountain lion falls off the cliff resembles a similar scene in The Lion King.
 * When the animals use their Satanic powers, "Ave Satani" ("Hail Satan," the theme song to The Omen) plays in the background.
 * When Santa Claus draws a shotgun and begins firing on the critters, the music of "Adrenaline Horror" from the Half-Life soundtrack plays briefly.
 * When Stan is watching TV, The Jeffersons theme song is playing.

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