Cancelled/Trivia

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"Cancelled/Trivia"

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This page contains trivia for "Cancelled". Remember, trivia must be factual, provable, and it is always best to cite your source for not-so-obvious trivia. If you would like to dispute a trivia point, please discuss it in the talk page.

Trivia

• At the beginning of the episode, the overuse of profanity appears to be a reference to the writing of the first season, which was criticized for its frequent swearing and rude humor, more so than other seasons.
• The Joozians are based on stereotypical images of American Jews, as characterized by their huge noses and speaking mannerisms. The fact that they "control all the media in the universe" is also a popular stereotype/conspiracy theory. It is joked that Kyle may have some Joozian ancestry.
• The two Joozian executives are often compared to real-life Hollywood executives and brothers Harvey and Bob Weinstein (also of Jewish origin) considering their lavish lifestyles and sexually explicit acts in private; the former is especially infamous for his accusations and convictions of various sex crimes starting from 2017 to the present. Although the episode first aired over a decade before Weinstein's trials took place, it is very possible the Joozians are indeed parodies of the brothers, since the stories of their crimes were well-known in the industry as far back as the 1990s.
• A obviously larger version of Tiny Alien can be seen among the patrons of Maroni's restaurant.
• The idea of this episode is a reference from "Free Hat". In that episode, it was mentioned that the creators of South Park would remake the pilot episode in the next season.
• "Cancelled" was meant to be the 100th episode of South Park to air, but due to a scheduling shuffle, "I'm a Little Bit Country" got the honors.^{[citation needed]}
• According to the DVD commentaries, Trey Parker had wanted to put the joke "Oh my God! There's a huge crack goin' right down the middle!" in an episode for over a year, but was not able to.

References to Popular Culture

• The NASA scientist, Jeff, is a parody of Jeff Goldblum's character in Independence Day, who occasionally goes off on a tangent while deducing portions of the developing plot, much like the movie's character. Also, the scene where the scientist develops a plot to disable the aliens' ship using a computer virus parallels a similar scene in the movie.
  • It is possible that he is also a parody of Dr. Ian Malcolm, a mathematician that Jeff Goldblum played in the film Jurassic Park. Dr. Malcolm specialized in Chaos Theory. Jeff's constant word association is based on this idea.
• Jeff explains to Chef about Chaos Theory, which is a real branch of mathematics that focuses on apparently random or unpredictable behaviors in systems governed by deterministic laws.
• The people unknowingly being stars of a television show is a reference to the movie The Truman Show.
• When the NASA scientist reverses the polarity on the signal and a blackout occurs, a number of doors can be heard being opened in the background, which coincidentally feature the same opening and closing door sounds from the popular Doom series.
• The line "Reverse the Polarity" was a line popularly used by the Third Doctor in Doctor Who.
• This is the second time where someone hated the movie Contact. The first being Mr. Garrison in "Tom's Rhinoplasty".
• The stock footage of the people running across the bridge is from the movie Reptilicus.
• The narrator talking during the freeze frames of the car chase is a reference to the TV show The Dukes of Hazzard.
• When Najix changes forms to visually appease the boys, the celebrities and fictional characters shown include:
  • Santa Claus
  • Michael Jordan
  • Don King
  • Mr. Roarke and Tattoo from the television show Fantasy Island
  • George Burns
  • J.J. Evans from the television show Good Times, using his catchphrase "Dy-no-mite!"
  • Saddam Hussein, singing "Hello! Ma Baby"
  • Missy Elliott performing her rap song "Work It"
  • Frank Sinatra
• Jeff mentions the 1980s TV sitcom Punky Brewster.
• While Najix takes the boys on a tour of the studio there are posters that parody actual reality TV shows:
  • "Who Wants to Marry A Gelgamek?" (Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire)
  • "Antares 6 Millionaire" (Joe Millionaire)
  • "Get Me Outta Here, I'm A Klingnanian!" (I'm A Celebrity Get Me Outta Here!).
• In the audio commentary for this episode, Trey mentions that television writer and producer Norman Lear was credited as a staff writer for this episode as he gave them the idea to mock reality television shows during one of their writers' retreat. He also mentions that Archie Bunker from Lear's show All In the Family served as the inspiration for Eric Cartman.

Continuity

• The boys say this is their second time visiting outer space. The first time was in "Starvin' Marvin in Space".
• Cartman stating this was his fifth time in space is true. He was abducted twice in "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe" (both events he dismissed as dreams), traveled with the others in "Starvin' Marvin in Space", and recalled how he was abducted again at the beginning of the episode "Cancelled" (dismissing it as another dream). This makes his arrival on the producers ship his fifth time in space.
• In the beginning scene of the episode, one of Stan's lines "It all started when Cartman got an anal probe" has a double meaning, referring to the beginning of the episode and directly to the show. This probably goes back to fact that this episode was supposed to be the 100th episode of South Park. This is also mentioned when the Joozians say that a TV series "shouldn't go past a hundred episodes".
• The planet Marklar is mentioned when the Joozians discuss their idea for a new show where they "take a hundred beings from the planet Marklar and put them on an asteroid with sentient beings from the Horsehead Nebula. It's a riot".
• The Joozian producers mention "Maroni's" when discussing where to go for lunch. Moroni is one of the books of Mormon.
• This is the first time Kyle plays "kick the baby" with Ike since South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut.

Goofs

• In his discussion about chaos theory, Jeff tells Chef that the television sitcom, Punky Brewster was cancelled after 60 episodes. In reality, the show ran for 88 episodes.

Dubbing Changes

International Titles

Language	Title	Translation
Czech	Pořad byl zrušen	The show was cancelled
French	Déprogrammé	Cancelled
German	Wird die Erde eingestellt?	Is Earth getting cancelled?
Hungarian	Emlékezet törölve	Memory deleted
Italian	Cancellato	Cancelled
Japanese	ケツさく! アナから宇宙放送? (Ketsu saku! Ana kara uchū hōsō?)	Ass work! Space broadcast from the announcer?
Polish	Zdjęci z anteny	Taken off the Antenna
Portuguese (Brazil)	Cancelado	Cancelled
Russian	Шоу закрыто (Shou zakryto)	The show is cancelled
Spanish (Latin America)	Cancelado	Cancelled
Spanish (Spain)	Suspendido	Cancelled
Ukrainian	Шоу закрито (Shou zakrito)	The show is cancelled

Common

• List of changes to Chef's lunch menu:
  • Russian (Paramount) and Ukrainian: Specified macaroni for noodles
  • German and Mandarin Chinese: Carried over from "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe". See list.
• Mentions of Helen Hunt are replaced with another personality in the following dubs:
  • Hungarian: Zoltán Ribli, Hungarian chess grandmaster
  • Portuguese (Brazil): Ivete Sangalo, Brazilian singer
  • Mandarin Chinese: Hsu Chun-mei, Taiwanese television personality
  • Ukrainian: An unnamed beauty queen

Italian

• During Stan's line of "Yeah, that's like that stupid movie, Contact" on board the spaceship, an additional dialog from the alien (as Randy) is voiced over.

Japanese

• List of changes in Jeff Goldblum's logic:
  • Translated "fictionalized to heighten drama" as 物語もしくは神話 (Monogatari moshikuwa shinwa, lit. "Story or myth").
  • Established drama students to be from the Kazenoko Theater Company.

Mandarin Chinese

• The opening scene is rewritten from the dubbing of "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe", but retains the key points from the episode such as Cartman being abducted by aliens. The "School Days" song is similarly replaced with a different song from the dubbing, where the boys sing about having Athlete's foot.
• When describing how it feels when his anal probe shoots out, Cartman describes as having taken a shit after eating cranberry Turkish delights.
• The space center is named "拿啥" (Ná shà), parodying NASA.
• There are no references to Contact by Cartman when describing the alien.
• List of changes in Jeff Goldblum's logic:
  • Replaced Chupacabra with the cosmetics brand Revlon.
  • Replaced "folklore" with "direct selling".
• Stan brings up "a World War Three to look forward to" at the restaurant, ahead of Cartman in the English version.
• While snorting powder at Joozineks, one of the Joozian is heard exclaiming "猴鰓雷" (Hóu sāi léi), an alternative form of the Cantonese phrase "好犀利" (Jyutping: hou2 sai1 lei6, translation: "awesome"). This is one of the few scenes where Cantonese is used in the dubbing, the other being "Jakovasaurs".