A Ladder to Heaven

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"Child Abduction is Not Funny"

"A Ladder to Heaven"

"The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers"

"A Ladder to Heaven"
[[File:File:LaddertoHeaven08.jpg|250px]]
Episode no.	Season 6 Episode 12
Production no.	612
Original airdate	November 6, 2002
Season 6
List of all South Park episodes

"A Ladder to Heaven" is the twelfth episode of Season Six, and the 91st overall episode of South Park. It aired on November 6, 2002.

Spoiler warning! Plot details follow.

Synopsis

Kenny died with the winning ticket to a candy store shopping spree, so the boys build a ladder to Heaven to reclaim it. Unfortunately, the Japanese start building their own ladder to Heaven, the government intervenes and the event is chronicled in a lame country music song. Cartman realizes that he's had a little bit of Kenny inside him the whole time.

Plot

The boys won an all-you-can-grab candy prize at Lolly's Candy Factory and they have come to claim their prize. However, they realize that they gave the ticket to Kenny to hold on to before he died, because the rest said they would lose it. Upon visiting Kenny's house, the boys find out that Kenny was cremated. Not understanding what this means, the boys hope to find the ticket in the urn that Kenny's parents say he is now in. They steal the urn and are disappointed to find it only contains black powder. Cartman assumes it must be some kind of chocolate milk powder. He mixes the ashes with milk and drinks Kenny.

The boys decide to build a ladder to Heaven to find Kenny so he can tell them where the ticket is. The adults, who think that the boys only want to see their dead friend again, are touched by their concern for their friend. The whole country gets involved in supporting the ladder to heaven, and even Alan Jackson is there to sing his song and "capitalize on people's emotions". When the boys announce they have run out of stuff to build the ladder, the adults consider telling them the truth that they're not actually going to reach heaven. Yet just then the military arrives and starts to build a reinforced tower in order to beat the Japanese to heaven.

Suspicious photos taken of heavenly clouds are reported to the President as indicating a potential factory making weapons of mass destruction run by Saddam Hussein, now dead and permanently living in Heaven. The US decides to bomb heaven, believing Hussein to be building nuclear warheads there.

Meanwhile, Cartman starts channeling Kenny, while the adults try to tell the boys to get back to their lives. When the boys express their urgency to see Kenny, the adults inform them about Kenny's cremation. When they try to show Kenny's ashes, they discover that it has been replaced by kitty litter. Cartman then admits that he drank Kenny's ashes, to the disgust of the others. Now realizing why he has been channeling Kenny, Cartman goes to an abortion clinic in an attempt to get rid of Kenny from his body. His subsequent argument with the nurse there causes a woman to reconsider her own abortion. Cartman ends up getting hit by the woman's boyfriend and remembers where the ticket is. The boys lose interest in the ladder after they get the ticket and their confectioneries.

Meanwhile, it is announced via television that the Japanese have reached heaven, and, although the "heaven" depicted is obviously set in a studio, this convinces the adults that heaven is real. They continue building the ladder and preparing an attack on heaven when they spot the boys. They are disappointed to find out the boys were "only interested in candy", to which Cartman replies, "I've never heard the word 'only' and 'candy' in the same sentence before."

The boys explain that heaven is not some white fluffy place. In fact, Kyle adds, "Maybe heaven is this moment right now." The general responds by ordering his subordinate to hold off on firing on heaven, and instead he issues an order to "Fire on this moment right now." Before he does, Randy Marsh stops him and says, "Instead of waiting to get into heaven, we should be trying to create heaven here on Earth." The crowd sighs in acknowledgment of this pithy truth and disperses, and as result, Alan Jackson blames the boys for ruining his song. As the boys are about to go home to enjoy their confectionery, Kenny starts speaking through Cartman.

The episode ends with a shot of heaven, where Saddam Hussein is in fact building a WMD factory, disguised as "Saddam's Heavenly Chocolate Chip Factory". When God suspects this, Hussein uses reverse psychology by saying, "Look God, if I was building a chemical weapons plant, I wouldn't make it look like a chemical weapons plant, would I? No! I would make it look like a chocolate chip factory or something," which God promptly falls for. Saddam exits laughing as he mutters "stupid asshole".