Cartman Gets an Anal Probe/Trivia

Trivia

 * This was the first full episode of South Park. It was also the first appearance of many characters, including but not limited to:
 * Ike
 * Chef
 * Mr. Garrison
 * Officer Barbrady
 * During the opening sequence you can see part of the fight between Jesus and Santa from the second short on a road side billboard.
 * During the opening sequence you can also see part when Frosty killing Eric Cartman; who was originally named "Kenny" from the first short on a T.V. set in front of the City Hall and Jimbo's Guns.
 * This episode made #9 on the list of 10 South Parks That Changed The World.
 * Though the entire series appears to be made of construction paper and stop-motion, this is the only episode that was actually animated with those techniques; every single episode (including extra scenes produced for this episode which were not featured in the original pilot) starting from "Weight Gain 4000", with the exception of a brief scene in "An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig" used computer animation.
 * This is the only episode in the series to not be animated using computers.
 * In a pan shot of the cafeteria, a voice identical to Kyle's cousin, Kyle Schwartz can be heard, talking about his bad gas, coming from a Jewish kid with stringy black hair, which is not what Kyle Schwartz looks like. Cousin Kyle would not be introduced until four seasons later.
 * This is the first time Cartman says his catchphrase, "Screw you guys, I'm going home."
 * Two Hasidic boys can be seen in the cafeteria, one of which resembles Jason, who was formally introduced in season 6. They would make a reappearance in "An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig", when a deleted scene from the original pilot wound up recycled.
 * Bebe Stevens and Red are shown on the bus, wearing different outfits than what they would wear for the rest of the series.
 * Stan is the first character to ever fart in the show, he does so on the bus and Kyle replies with "You farted!", in which Cartman replies with "Somebody's baking brownies!".
 * Officer Barbrady's police car in this episode says "To Patronize and Annoy"
 * This was the only episode where Mr. Hat has no eyes.
 * The music that plays during the cafeteria scene where Stan sees Wendy is from "Romeo and Juliet" by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, an extremely popular romantic piece of classical music.
 * This is one of the two episodes Kyle calls Cartman by his first name, the other being "Quest for Ratings".
 * When it first aired, this episode was originally given the TV-14 rating. This is likely because in 1997, the TV Parental Guidelines were recently created, and many were worried that a TV-MA rating would not attract as much viewers. However, the rating was later changed to the customary TV-MA rating.
 * In the new HD remastered airings of this episode, all the scenes are still formatted in construction paper.
 * When you see Cartman's house from the inside. A picture of Matt Stone's sister can be seen.
 * The milk on the trays in the cafeteria reads "Parker's Milk", which is a reference to the shows co-creator Trey Parker.
 * This is the only episode on South Park Studios that's permanently free.

Mr. Garrison's Learning Plan

 * According to Mr. Garrison, Christopher Columbus discovered America and was "good friends" with the Indians, that he had helped them win a war against Frederick Douglass, then apparently freed the Hebrews from Napoleon and discovered France, all this before the year 1492.
 * On the chalkboard, the following sentences are present: "Johnny threw the red ball", "I ate too much cous-cous", "Don't make fun of my grandpa", and "I'm not positive, but I think Cathy Lee Gifford is much older than she claims to be". Mr. Garrison tries to kill Kathie Lee (whose name he misspelled) in the next episode.

Differences from the The Unaired Pilot

 * In the original pilot of this episode, Chef allows the boys to sneak out by giving them super hot tamales. Stan, Kyle and Kenny give their tamales to Cartman whom the Sixth Graders bully into eating all four, This gives him the power to fart fire as opposed to the anal probe doing that in the aired episode.
 * In the original pilot, Wendy Testaburger and Pip Pirrup are nowhere to be found in the classroom, another red-haired girl and a blonde girl filling their respective seats. In the aired version, the two girls remain in the classroom until Cartman farts fire, and are replaced by Wendy and Pip after that.
 * In the original pilot, Pip is flung off a slide, where he hits his head on a pole, and Kenny laughs the same way he laughed when he told Stan something he could do on his date. When that scene happens when he tells Stan, he laughs differently.
 * The little hearts that dance around Stan's head originally just rose up and started hovering, however in the aired version, they were just there already, followed by Stan's humongous smile.
 * The original pilot was 2 minutes longer than the released pilot.
 * Kenny appears alive at the end of the episode.
 * All the recurring female characters are voiced by Kari Turner.
 * In the classroom scene, Kyle says "Fuck Mr. Hat" and Mr. Garrison replies by saying "No no no no, fuck you" which shocks the whole class.

References to Popular Culture

 * When Officer Barbrady investigates the mutilated cattle, the farmer mentions seeing black CIA and army helicopters in the area. Black or unmarked military helicopters (usually belonging to some US government department) are common trademarks of UFO and alien abduction lore, that suggest that the UFO phenomenon is being covered up by the government. This is also where stories of "Men in Black" come from.
 * When Stan sees Wendy in the cafeteria, his smile is similar to Charlie Brown's smile when he sees the Little Red Haired Girl in Peanuts.
 * "I Love to Singa", the song that plays when Cartman and Officer Barbrady are being put under alien control, is originally from a Tex Avery Merrie Melodies short. The song was written by Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg.
 * This episode was parodied in other cartoons, Arthur titled "The Contest", Beavis and Butt-Head, and Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist.
 * Cartman says that the crop circle looks like Tom Selleck, the actor best known for playing the character Thomas Magnum in the show Magnum P.I.
 * When seeing Cartman farting fire, Wendy says that he's "just like Rudolph!", referring to Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer the popular Christmas character that had a nose that would shine red light.
 * When Chef is calling out to the aliens to visit him, he asks them to hurry up because the TV show "Sanford and Son" is about to come on. This show was produced by Norman Lear who went on to be a future staff writer for South Park.
 * To goad Ike into jumping out of the alien's UFO, Kyle tells him to do an impersonation of David Caruso's career. At the time this episode was made, David Caruso had just recently ended an successful stint on the TV series "NYPD Blue".
 * At the end of the episode, Cartman claims that actor Scott Baio, who got his claim to fame playing Charles on the TV series Charles in Charge, was aboard the UFO and gave him pink eye.
 * The quote "Cows on a people train" is from an obscure Dr. Seuss book entitled "In A People House," which he wrote under the pseudonym "Theo LeSeig"

Continuity

 * Half of the scene which takes place in cafeteria was cut and later used in An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig.
 * When Wendy remembers the times when Stan throws up in front of her in Tom's Rhinoplasty, clips from previous episodes are shown, including the one from this episode.
 * In "Mecha-Streisand", before the helicopter lands at the bus stop, Cartman grabs his butt and screams, "Aliens!"
 * Reused clip from this episode appears in The South Park Clipshow (a.k.a. "City on the Edge of Forever").
 * In the end of "Cow Days", Cartman comes to his friends, Stan and Kyle, to tell them about his 'dream' until realizing that it was real events when he dressed like a prostitute. It is a reference to this episode.
 * In "Free Hat", Trey and Matt made fun of South Park, promising that they'll redo the pilot episode, again.
 * In a later episode, "Cancelled", the first part of this episode is redone, with harsher language and more elaborate animation (such as Ike getting kicked and Cartman getting dragged down the alien hallway), with the boys thinking that they are experiencing déjà vu. Cartman also mentions about his 5th visit in the outer space (two of them were in this episode).
 * "I'm sure glad that's over with" - This exact phrase was spoken in the early "The Spirit of Christmas" shorts.

Goofs

 * Kyle tells Cartman not to call Ike a "dildo" but doesn't know what it is.
 * When Cartman finishes talking about his dream in the beginning, Chef drives up and you can see his hat sticking out the top of the car.
 * This is intentional, as it can be seen in the opening intro as well.
 * When the bus pulls up. The braking sound plays earlier before actually stopping.
 * When Cartman is tied up at the tree, you see Cartman "far away" three times. The first and second time, Cartman says "Really? Uh... I don't think I have to fart anymore tonight" And "I don't wanna", and in the background, it is seen small stars, but in the third, when he says "Ok... that does it", you see a big star between the small.
 * When Stan asks, "Cartman, are those the same visitors you saw?" Kenny blinks twice and both times his closed eyes can be seen popping out of his hood.
 * When Kyle shouts to the visitors "COME DOWN HERE, YOU STINKING ALIENS!" his voice sounds exactly like Stan's. The same mistake was also made in Bebe's Boobs Destroy Society and Something Wall-Mart This Way Comes.
 * Snapshot_024.png before Kenny dies, when the space ship is lowering down, for one of the frames it looks as if the Spaceship was falling apart, but only for one frame.
 * Red can be seen two places at once in the classroom. Later on, she's not there and the two sides where she was, she's replaced by Pip and Wendy.
 * When Officer Barbrady gets hit by the cow's device that was given to them by the visitors, his inner left ear turns pink.
 * When Cartman sets Pip Pirrup on fire, the caption says that he is a girl.
 * When the boys first get on the bus, girls similar to Bebe and Red have no mouths. The same girls also disappear when the camera pans back onto their seat, then reappear moments later, then disappear again.
 * Wendy's voice is a little deeper pitched in this episode than in the episodes following this one.
 * In one scene where the kids are trying to figure out how to get out of school, two kids are seen standing in the cafeteria line. When the camera zooms back, they aren't there anymore.
 * The laces on Kenny's parka are not present in the opening scene. However, they appear when the boys get on the bus.
 * As Kyle runs down the bus shouting, we see that it is quite populated, though these children aren't present in the shots immediately before and following this one - only the boys are there.
 * This is actually because the camera angle is different -- Instead of the whole bus, only the rear half is seen.
 * Jason is seen talking with another boy in the lunch hall, a Jewish child. But when the boys see Wendy, he is shown sitting with a blond-haired boy.
 * When Chef comes out from behind the cafeteria counter, the flaps on Kyle's hat are in front of the main portion of his hat. This is not the case in any other shot of the back of his head.
 * Chef's apron goes from upper case to lower case in this episode.
 * When Ms. Crabtree turns the school bus sharply and the frame rotates, the table the animation is being done on can be seen in the bottom right corner.
 * Wendy's hair switches, in some scene's if you look closely at her fringe, it's on reverse.
 * A desk leg is missing on Stan's desk but later appears, along with the desk behind him to the right.

Kenny's Death

 * The Visitors' UFO blasts Kenny after Kyle throws a rock at it, and Kenny is flung into the road. He survives, but a herd of cows run him over. He survives that, but Officer Barbrady runs him over with his police car and kills him. The boys later mess with Kenny's bloodied corpse, with Stan tapping it with a stick while Kyle removes his head, trying to convince Cartman that he's dead. Rats then come and start eating Kenny. In the unaired version, Kyle says "Rats!" when he and Stan leave the corpse.

Hidden Visitor(s)
The visitors appear many times in the episode but the hidden visitor appears on the tray in the cafeteria on the far left.