Pinkeye

"Pinkeye" is episode 7 of Comedy Central's series South Park. It originally aired on October 29, 1997.

Synopsis
The Mir space station crashes on top of Kenny the day before Halloween. A fluke accident involving Worcestershire sauce at the morgue turns Kenny into a zombie, causing most of the town to eventually turn into zombies as well.

The rest of the boys are too busy preparing for Halloween and the big costume contest to realize that Kenny is a zombie, but end up saving the day anyway.

Plot
The Mir space station crashes onto Kenny at the bus stop on October 30, killing him. He is taken to the morgue where he is drained and filled with embalming fluid, however, the coroner's bottle of Worcestershire sauce falls into the embalming fluid and turns Kenny into a zombie. He breaks out of the morgue, biting the two coroners on his way out.

The next morning, Kenny shows up at the bus stop as normal while the boys are waiting to go to school. Each boy is dressed up for the costume contest at school (for which the top prize is two tons of candy). At the local doctor’s office, the morgue workers have apparently turned into zombies, however the doctor diagnoses it as pink eye.
 * Stan is dressed up as Raggedy Andy
 * Wendy is supposed to dress as companion Raggedy Ann, making them a shoe-in for the candy.
 * Kyle has on a store bought Chewbacca costume.
 * Cartman is dressed in a Hitler costume his mom made him.

The kids arrive at school only to discover everyone in the class, including Mr. Hat and Wendy, have dressed as Chewbacca save Mr. Garrison who is dressed as Marilyn Monroe. Seeing Wendy as Chewbacca angers Stan, who is now forced to go around as Raggedy Andy all day long.

Meanwhile, at the Cartman house, Eric’s mom decorates the house and yard for Halloween, completely oblivious to the zombies attacking people on the street.

Back at school Kyle, disgruntled that he has the same costume as everyone else, decides to work up a new costume for the contest while Principal Victoria and Chef are upset over Cartman’s costume. Principal Victoria makes Eric a ghost costume to amend the problem (however it ends up looking like a Klu Klux Klan robe instead. Meanwhile, Kenny attacks and bites Clyde when he walks past him.

Kyle arrives at the costume contest in the gym with a new costume, a working model of the solar system, but Wendy’s Chewbacca costumes earns her first place and the two tons of candy (which she promptly gives to starving children in Nairobi). The judge awards gives Kenny second place for his "Edward James Olmos" costume (his zombie state) and Stan "worst costume ever" for his "stupid clown thingie". As Mr. Garrison says "Let's bob for stupid apples" zombie Clyde drowns Bebe who is bobbing for apples as the zombies run out of control.

Across South Park the zombies continue to attack, although everyone still believes it is simply pink eye. As night falls on South Park the boys prepare to go trick-or-treating, with Kyle now dressed as Count Dracula, just as Chef realizes that the pink eye epidemic is actually a wave of the living dead. Wendy tries to apologize for humiliating Stan, but Stan rejects her. Wendy herself is later turned into a zombie.

Chef goes to the doctor seeking help and attempts to explain what’s going on, but the doctor doesn't believe him. Chef leaves (and the doctor is eaten by zombies) for the Mayor's office to warn her and Officer Barbrady (who are up to something kinky), but they don't believe him either.

As the zombies continue to ravage the town, the boys, also oblivious of the zombies, head off to go trick-or-treating. However, Kenny keeps biting everyone before they can get any treats, so the boys ditch him on the way to Chef’s house. Chef pulls the boys inside and after some discussion head to the morgue to get to the bottom of the zombie matter.

While at the morgue they discover the bottle of Worcestershire sauce as well as an issue of "Crack Whore Monthly" magazine with a picture of Cartman's mom on the cover. The zombies (led by a zombie version of Pip) eventually find a way into the morgue and turn Chef into a zombie (who then goes into Michael Jackson's Thriller mode). The zombies then pursue the boys, who are forced to fight them off (except Chef, who is busy reading "Crack Whore Monthly"). Through the commotion, Kyle calls the hotline number on the bottle of Worcestershire sauce for assistance. He is put through to the hotline number's offices.

The hotline operator tells Kyle "not to kill zombies willy nilly", but to kill the original zombie (Kenny) in order to turn all the other zombies back into humans. As zombie Wendy heads towards Stan he can't bring himself to kill her, but she is returned to normal when Kyle quickly cuts Kenny in half with a chainsaw. All around them the dead limbs of the towns people begin to turn back to normal flesh ones.

Cartman cries at Kenny's grave while with Stan and Kyle. He then stops and Stan and Kyle say they're going to Cartman's house to find more naughty pictures of his mom.

Kenny suddenly comes out of his grave but a statue from another grave crushes him, then a jet smashes into it.

Kenny's Death
Kenny dies a total of three times in this episode, depending on the definition of death.
 * 1) Crushed by Mir; revived as a zombie via Worcestershire sauce
 * 2) Cut in half by Kyle to end the zombie curse
 * 3) Kenny rises from the dead only to be crushed by a statue and crashed into by a plane

Zombies
Zombies of the following South Park regulars were shown:
 * Kenny- Kenny is the original zombie. He was the first after the MIR space station landed on him. At the morgue Worcestshire Sauce poured into the enbalming fluid causing him to awake.
 * Chef- Chef was caught by zombies and sung a song to the Thriller tune, with him acting as Michael Jackson. He turned back to normal when the curse was gone.
 * Clyde- Kenny bit Clyde after he walked past. Clyde transformed during the costume contest and drowned Bebe while she bobbed for apples.
 * Pip- Pip was caught by zombies and shown breaking into the morgue.
 * Wendy- After Wendy was left behind by Stan zombies emerged from the trees and killed her. Later she appeared as a zombie. Cartman tried to get Stan to kill her saying how she ditched him at the costume contest but he couldn't bring himself to do it. She turned back to normal when the curse was broken.

Trivia

 * This episode features the news reporter Midget in a Bikini. He returned in the same role in the movie South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut.
 * In the scene where Chef is watching the news in his house, a poster of Isaac Hayes (the voice of Chef) can be seen.
 * In the final scene, a tombstone statue of Orgazmo can be seen in the background.
 * "The entire Zombie aspect of this episode is an homage to the movie Return of the Living Dead. Everything from the doctors describing the zombies symptoms to the emergency hotline number on the "embalming fluid" container is a throwback to the plotline of Return of the Living Dead.
 * The "Russian" spoken by the cosmonauts on Mir is in fact vaguely Russian-sounding gibberish. Similarly, Hitler's speech in the video shown to Cartman is a meaningless string of actual German (and some made-up) words. One section sounds vaguely like German for "you have lovely breasts," although this may be unintentional. When Cartman imagines himself as Hitler, his speech is actually made up of backwards English phrases (including "You guys" and "Seriously, you don't know shit") and some more made-up German, ending with the phrase "God-damn it!"
 * This is the episode inwhich Kenny dies the most.

Pop-Culture/Historical References

 * The space station that deorbits and crashes on Kenny at the beginning of the episode is the space station Mir. The Mir station was developed by the former Soviet Union, and launched into orbit in 1988. It was a research station, it eventually deorbited in the year 2000. At the time this episode originally aired, the Mir space station had two accidents. In February of 1996 the station had a fire on board, and later that year June it was involved with a collision with an unmanned space craft.
 * One of the morgue attendants put Worcestershire sauce on everything. Worcestershire sauce was invented 1837 by two British dispensing chemists John Wheeley Lea and William Henry Perrins.
 * Kyle, Wendy and various other children in this episode are dressed up in Chewbacca, who is a character from the Star Wars films.
 * Stan and Wendy were originally going to dress up as Raggedy Ann and Andy, two character from popular children stories written by Johnny Gruelle.
 * Cartman is dressed up as Adolf Hitler, the leader of the Nazi party during World War II.
 * Cartman mockingly calls Stan Howdy Doody and Holly Hobby. Howdy Doody was a freckled marionette and star of a childrens television series of the same name which aired from 1947-1960. Holly Hobby is a fictional character created by an artist of the same name. In the 1970's Holly Hobby became popular when featured on American Greetings brand greeting cards.
 * South Park's doctor believes that the morticians and everyone infected with the zombie virus have pink eye. Pink Eye's official medical term is Conjunctivitis, with any other bacterial infection there are various causes, types of infections, and treatments.
 * Mr. Garrison is dressed up like Marilyn Monroe, who was a famous American actress, model, and sex symbol before her death in 1962.
 * Cartmen mistakenly believes that Wookies like Chewbacca live on the Endor. In Star Wars mythology the teddy-bear like Ewoks live on the moon known as Endor. Wookies live on the planet Kashyyyk. The confusion is a reference to the notorious Star Wars Holiday Special a Star Wars themed Christmas special produced in 1978. The special is centered around Chewbacca and his family, who are depicted as living in a tree-house similar to those built by the Ewoks.
 * Mr. Garrison teachers the class about "horror writer" Jackie Collins. Collins, a novelist, in reality doesn't write horror novels, is a New York Times bestselling author who is known for her overtly sexual romance novels, such as The World Is Full Of Married Men he first novel which was published in 1968.
 * Mrs. Garrison's Halloween decorations include a poster of Richard Nixon, the 37th President of the United States. He was president for two terms between 1969 and 1974. He was most famous for his involvement in the Watergate Scandal.
 * The zombies make comments about eating brains, this cliché of the zombie movie genre was first established in the film Return of the Living Dead. This episode also parodies and uses common elements from the same film.
 * Chef is dressed up like motorcycle stuntman Evel Knievel, Principal Victoria erroneously thinks that it's a costume of musician Elvis Presley. Later in his career Elvis was known for wearing garish outfits that were slightly similar to Knievel's.
 * When Principal Victoria makes Cartman a "scary" ghost costume out of a white sheet, it looks suspiciously white robes worn by members of the Ku Klux Klan an American white-supremacy group that was founded in 1865.
 * In principal Victoria's office there is a poster about "Puffy the Bear" which is a parody of fire safety mascot Smokey the Bear. She also has a picture of Kathy Lee Gifford on her shelf.
 * Kyle later changes his costume to that of Earth's Solar System. It's interesting to note that Kyle's costume includes nine planets, the ninth being Pluto which was classified as a planet until 2006, when scientist redefined the definition of what a planet was.
 * The children's Halloween costume contest is judged by actress Tina Yothers, who was most well known for her role of Jennifer Keaton on the sitcom Family Ties. Many people in South Park believe that Tina Yothers is supposed to be dead, in reality, Yothers is still alive and well, and has last been seen on VH1's Celebrity Fit Club in 2006.
 * Mr. Garrison mistakenly believes the zombified corpse of Kenny to be a costume patterned after Edward James Olmos, an actor who's most well known for his role of Gaff in the film Blade Runner.
 * There is a poster of naked women on the wall in Chef's house, this poster looks very similar to one featured in Stanley Kubrick's 1980 adaptation of the Stephen King novel The Shining. The poster can be seen hanging on the wall in the home owned by the character Dick Halloran (played by Scatman Crothers.)
 * When once again making fun of Stan's costume, Cartman calls him Pippi Longstocking, a fictional character created by Swedish author Astrid Lindgren.
 * Wendy sends all the candy she won to starving children in Nairobi, which is the capital city of Kenya in Africa. While places in Africa are commonly associated as third world and impoverished, the city of Nairobi is actually a well developed city.
 * Officer Barbrady and the mayor's lewd sex act supposedly has nothing to do with the "Japanese Mafia". This is a reference to the Yakuza, which is the traditional name for the original organized crime families in Japan. What the Yakuza could actually hope to gain from the spectacle Chef walks in on is anyone's guess.
 * The fat man handing out candy is ironically wearing a shirt that says "Let's Get Physical". The phrase is from the song Physical a 1981 song written by Steve Kipner and Terry Shaddick and performed by Olivia Newton-John. The music video for the song featured a lot of over-weight men exercising.
 * When the boys trick-or-treat at Chef's house, Chef almost cuts them up with two chainsaws. The chainsaw is the clichéd weapon of choice for killing zombies, made popular by the 1981 cult classic The Evil Dead.
 * When Chef is turned into a zombie, he becomes a parody of Michael Jackson in the music video of the 1984 song Thriller. Chef also sings a song that sounds similar to the Jackson song, as well as gets into a choreographed dance routine with other zombies, just like in the video.
 * At the end of the song when Chef pulls open his shirt and shouts "OOOOOOOOH!" Is another reference to Michael Jackson, however was something that Jackson did in the music video for his 1991 song Black or White. The end of the video featured Jackson doing this same move (along with smashing various objects and grabbing his crotch among other things.)
 * According to the Worcestershire sauce hot-line, to cure people of being zombies you have to kill the original zombie. This is actually more common with Vampire mythology as opposed to zombie lore.
 * One of the tomb stones in the cemetery where Kenny is buried has a statue of Orgazmo the super-hero character from the film of the same name.

Quotes
Coroner #1: You know, I think death is least funny when it happens to a child. [Coroner #2 puts Worcestershire sauce on a hot dog.]

Coroner #1: Marty, do you have to put that stuff on everything?

Coroner #2: I don't know…it just makes everything taste so…so English. Kyle: Cartman, what kind of costume is that?

Cartman: It's an Adolf Hitler costume. Sieg heil! Sieg heil!

Cartman: Kenny's family is so poor that, yesterday, they had to put their cardboard box up for a second mortgage! Cartman: I'm not the one walking around all day like Pippi Longstocking.

Stan: Well, at least my mom isn't on the cover of Crack Whore magazine. Cartman: Too bad drinking scotch isn't a paying job, otherwise Kenny's dad would be a millionaire.

Kenny: [silence]

Cartman: I said, it's too bad drinking scotch isn't a paying job, or else Kenny's dad would be a millionaire!

Kenny: [silence]

Cartman: Your family is poor, Kenny, your family is poor! Officer Barbrady: You're probably wondering why we're standing here with a pile of money and no pants on.

Chef: Actually, uh—

Mayor: Well, I can assure you that it has absolutely nothing to do with the Japanese Mafia.

Officer Barbrady: [wagging his finger] Not a thingy-dingy.

Kyle: Oh my God, I killed Kenny! You bastard! Cartman: Why don't you go back to Endor, you stupid wookie?

Kyle: Wookies don't live on Endor!

Cartman: [day-dreaming while watching a movie, imagining himself to be Adolf Hitler] [German-like accent] You gotta respect my authoritah!

Puffy: So remember kids, dressing up like Hitler in school isn't cool.

Chef: [talking to Cartman who's dressed like a KKK clansman] Remind me to whoop your ass big time next time I see you. Chef: [imitating Michael Jackson's Thriller video clip] I'm gonna make love, even when I'm dead. My body might get cold, but it's always hot in my bed. Make love, don't be afraid. Just because my heart ain't beating, doesn't mean you won't get laid.