Freak Strike/Trivia

Trivia

 * This is the first episode to feature Ms. Choksondik in the theme song.
 * This episode features a completely new opening sequence. It replaces the one used since 4th Grade. It features the boys being made out of construction paper while clips are shown. With Kenny being “dead,” Timmy replaces him and sings his name repeatedly. The new theme is a more country-like version. Butters holds “The Butters Show” sign over the “South Park” sign at the end.
 * This is the first time Cartman's mother lies to get him onto/into something. She will later do this in Up the Down Steroid.
 * In Butters' bedroom, two Chinpokomon toys can be seen
 * The Thompsons and Nurse Gollum can be seen in the crowd during the strike.

References to Popular Culture

 * The Geeks who make Butter's fake balls are a parody of The Lone Gunmen from The X-Files. They also appeared in the episode 4th Grade.
 * The scene where a man tells Maury that “the ratings have just started to plummet” is a play on the original Star Trek series, where crew members often viewed computer displays in such a way. The man also bears an uncanny resemblance to Leonard Nimoy.
 * When Cartman appears on The Maury Povich Show and is arguing with the other out-of-control girl about who’s worse than the other, he states he “ran for Congress, won, and then had sex with an intern, killed her, and hid her body.” This is a reference to the Gary Condit scandal.
 * In the circle of picketers, you can spot out a miniature Incredible Hulk walking but not holding a sign.
 * When Cartman is trying to convince his mother to go on the Maury Povich show with him, he says “I have such a pretty mother, such a wonderful mother...” These quotes and this tone were often used by Rhoda, the sadistic little girl in The Bad Seed to win favor from her mother
 * In the crowd of strikers, you can see a character similar to Roy L. "Rocky" Dennis, the subject of the 1985 movie Mask staring Eric Stoltz.
 * The "True Freak Label" video sabotage that the freaks make Butters star in is a shot-by-shot parody of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union commercial from the 70s, which showed the workers singing a song known as "Look for the Union Label".
 * The "out-of-control teens" subject on Maury Povich is a direct parody of the very same subject and the way it’s treated on Povich’s show, and other morning/afternoon talk shows such as Jenny Jones.
 * Vanity's line "You ain't bad! You ain't nothing!" comes from the full-length music video of Michael Jackson's Bad.
 * While waiting in the green room on the The Maury Show, Butters is told a story about a fake "lobster boy", who turned out to be a real lobster. This may be a reference to an incident at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA, where performance arts student William Kofmehl was given a semester-long stipend to live on campus dressed in a lobster suit while living in a self-made shack and remaining mute to the outside world. After a month, the student's shack was destroyed by students on campus, leading to worldwide notice.
 * In the TFU videom there is a deformed man in a football jersey who looks remarkably like Sloth from The Goonies.

Goofs

 * Cartman's mother insists to Cartman that he doesn't seem out of control to her, but in the later episode Tsst, she clearly knew he was out of control, going to great lengths to get his behavior under control. However, she may have only just realized it by then.