Volcano/Trivia

Trivia

 * Randy Marsh debuts in this episode but is not revealed to be Stan's dad until "An Elephant Makes Love To A Pig". Ned also debuts.
 * The third episode of the series, this is also the first episode to feature a variation on the "They killed Kenny" routine.
 * In the Spanish dub, Scuzzlebutt's leg is replaced with Ricky Martin instead of Patrick Duffy. In the Hungarian version it is replaced with Tom Cruise.
 * The song Hot Lava that Chef sings is on the album Chef Aid: The South Park Album.
 * When Chef talks to the mayor, he refers her to "Mr. Mayor" even though she is a female.
 * When Ned vows to never use a gun again, the rifle he uses is on its holding position, but his hands are not in any place of the gun.
 * When Stan kills Scuzzlebutt, Patrick's head is dislocated from his neck, but when it faces to his dramatic moment, its back on his body as normal.
 * When the guys are looking for Cartman, they see a ram. Jimbo starts shooting at it, but when the camera changes views, Kenny is the one shooting at the ram.
 * This is the second episode to be animated to resemble cardboard. The episode is actually computer animated.
 * Eric Cartman pretends he is in Vietnam when he is given a gun and claims to have flashbacks. In "The Mexican Staring Frog of Southern Sri Lanka", he is shown to know nothing about Vietnam. However, Mitch Conner, his alter-ego, had a flashback of the Vietnam War in "201".
 * When Uncle Jimbo notices the deer, he says, "looks like a 46-gauge" he is then seen with a rocket launcher. The shotgun gauge system works such that smaller numbers describe larger barrels, so a 46-gauge would actually be very small.
 * This was the first episode to be rated TV-MA.

References to popular culture

 * Happy Tarts are a product that were mentioned in the film Orgazmo, which was a film created by Matt Stone and Trey Parker.
 * Jimbo and Ned both participated in the 'Nam, a.k.a the Vietnam War. Cartman said he fought in it as well, but he's making that up. Ned asks Cartman if he was stationed in Da Nang, which was the location of a major U.S. Air Force base in Vietnam during the war.
 * Jimbo blames the strict hunting and conservation laws in Colorado on the Democrats. The Democrats were in power federally in 1997, the year this episode was produced.
 * Cartman starts having "flashbacks" from 'Nam, telling somebody named Danforth to watch out for "Charlie". "Charlie" is a slang term for the phrase "Victor Charlie" which was the NATO phonetic alphabet name for the Viet Cong Army.
 * Cartman tells Stan to "Go back to Woodstock" if he can't shoot anything. This is in reference to the original Woodstock Music Festival of 1969, who's major attendees were Hippies.
 * When Ned lights himself on fire, Jimbo tells him to "Stop-Drop-And-Roll", which is the catch phrase fire safety measure.
 * Mount Evanston is named after the real Mount Evans located in the state of Colorado.
 * When warned of Mt. Evanston's impending eruption, the Mayor tells her aide to call Inside Edition (A magazine series that featured crime, celebrity gossip and human interest stories), Rescue 911 (A television program that featured reenactments of real stories of 911 phone calls, hosted by William Shatner), and Entertainment Tonight (A TV series centered on celebrity gossip.)
 * The monster known as Scuzzlebutt is missing a leg, in its place is actor Patrick Duffy. When Cartman tells this legend to his friends, they don't find it very scary, to which Cartman responds by saying "What do you mean? Have you ever seen Step By Step?". Step By Step was a sit-com which starred Patrick Duffy.
 * The song that Ned sings on his "cancer kazoo" is "Kumbaya", a popular Christian folk song.
 * Ned and Jimbo hope to get on the cover of "Guns & Ammo", a.k.a Guns and Ammo Magazine, a publication for gun enthusiasts.
 * The towns people are shown an educational video titled Lava and You which is a parody of Duck and Cover, a nuclear explosion safety technique that suggested ducking and covering yourself would protect you from a nuclear bomb, much like how Lava and You suggests doing the same thing will protect you from lava.
 * "It's coming right for us!" references an incident in Colorado in which a man shot three Rocky Mountain black bears (a protected species) down from a tree. His excuse: They were coming right for us!

Goofs

 * Randy Marsh is missing eyebrows for (almost) the entire episode. They appear near the end.
 * At the beginning, Jimbo calls Ned 'Dan'.
 * At the end, Ned can't shoot Scuzzlebutt because he is out of ammo, but later, he drops his gun and it shoots Kenny.
 * South Park has some tough snow. When the boulder of lava lands in front of Kenny, there's neither steam nor melting snow around it.
 * When the boys are hunting in the forest, then they start to crawl after the rabbit. However, the background behind them is static as if they were crawling in place.
 * When Jimbo is apologizing to the boys for almost getting them killed, his left hand moves to his mouth independently of his arm.
 * At the nighttime fire scene, you can see the fire standing still, but then it is seen moving again.
 * In Cartman's tale Scuzzlebutt's left hand was a stalk of celery, but when he personifies Scuzzlebutt, his hand is not celery; Scuzzlebutt holds celery in his right hand. When Scuzzlebutt came to rescue the camping party, his right hand was a stalk of celery.
 * While Eric Cartman tells his Scuzzlebutt tale, Stan's arm is missing. It later reappears.

Kenny's death
Ned dropped his gun and it fired by mistake, killing Kenny.

Continuity

 * Ned mentioned that he took part in the war in Vietnam. This was the report given to children by Mr. Garrison in "The Mexican Staring Frog of Southern Sri Lanka". When they came to Jimbo and Ned, Uncle Jimbo was telling the story about the times he and Ned spent in Vietnam during the war.
 * The reused clip from this episode was shown in The South Park Clip Show.
 * In Randy's laboratory in "Spontaneous Combustion", the poster behind him says "Volcano alert".
 * A man with Scuzzlebutt on his t-shirt was seen behind the boys in The Wacky Molestation Adventure. This man reappeared again with the same t-shirt in "Scott Tenorman Must Die".
 * An issue about Scuzzlebutt was published and now shown in local Gazette office, as seen in "Stanley's Cup".