Christian Rock Hard

"Christian Rock Hard"
[[File:|250px]]
Episode no.	Season 7 Episode 9
Guest stars	Lars Ulrich
Production no.	709
Original airdate	October 29, 2003
Episode chronology Previous Next "South Park is Gay!" "Grey Dawn"
List of all South Park episodes

Christian Rock Hard is the 9th episode of the 7th season, also known as episode 709, of the Comedy Central series South Park. It originally aired on October 29, 2003.

Spoiler warning! Plot details follow.

Plot

When the other boys kick Cartman out of their band, "Moop", for suggesting that they play Christian rock, Cartman forms his own group to make music not for Jesus or spiritual rewards, but to win a bet between him and Kyle. Cartman and Kyle bet each other $10 that their respective band will be the first to go platinum by selling one million records.

Stan, Kyle, and Kenny, seeking "inspiration", decide to download music from the Internet (because CDs are too expensive) and they are arrested by the FBI for illegal downloading. An FBI agent shows them the consequences of downloading. Musicians like Lars Ulrich (drummer of metal band Metallica) and Britney Spears are so affected by loss of income from music piracy that they must substitute ridiculously luxurious purchases for slightly less ridiculously luxurious ones (Lars wanted to have a gold-plated shark tank bar installed next to his pool, but must now wait a few weeks, and Britney is not able to keep a Gulfstream IV, so she replaces it with a smaller Gulfstream III, which doesn't have a remote control for its surround sound DVD system). As budding musicians, Moop decides to go on strike until fans stop downloading and are joined by a large number of pop and rock stars, including Britney Spears, Master P, Blink-182, Metallica, Alanis Morissette, and Skylar's band from the season three episode "Cat Orgy" and the season four episode "Timmy 2000".

Meanwhile, Cartman, Butters, and Token (who, according to Cartman, can play bass because he is black, and it turns out that he can) have rocketed to the top of the Christian rock charts, with Cartman simply tweaking the lyrics of love ballads to include Jesus' name. It turns out to be extremely successful.

Their band, Faith + 1, soon celebrates the sale of its millionth album. Stan, Kyle, and Kenny realize that the satisfaction of having fans should surely be more important to musicians than fighting against fans, who make them popular and come to see their concerts. Moop decides to stop striking, although the other (more famous) musicians decline, saying "sorry, we're all about the money."

At an expensive awards ceremony Cartman blew all the money the band made to throw to celebrate Faith + 1's success, their record label present them with a myrrh album. This means Kyle hasn't lost the bet; Christian record companies only hand out gold, frankincense, and myrrh records, so Cartman can never have a platinum album (but can "go double myrrh"). His frustration at not beating Kyle gets the myrrh album destroyed and leads him to scream "GOD...DAMN IT!!" as well as "OH FUCK JESUS!!", making the fans scream and flee. Butters then says, "Eric, I'm pretty sure you shouldn't say the 'F' word about Jesus." Token becomes mad because Cartman has driven the crowd away. Cartman doesn't care and calls Token a "black asshole". Driven to the breaking point, Token mercilessly beats Cartman to the ground and walks away. The boys feel that Cartman got what he deserved and leave. As Cartman is on the ground in pain, Butters hesitates, then farts in his face, gives him the finger and says "Fuck you, Eric". before leaving Cartman to recover from his beating alone.

Goofs

• When the album cover is shown, Token and Butters have swapped positions to when the photo was originally taken.

Trivia

• Metallica is a notorious opponent of music piracy. In 2000, they attempted to sue both the Napster file-sharing network and several US universities for not blocking the download of Metallica songs. The result was a public relations disaster for the band, who were the subject of dozens of online parodies of an ageing rock band that appeared to be selfish and out of touch with its fans.
• Token's bass is fashioned after the bass Rudy played in the cartoon series Fat Albert over 30 years ago.
• Cartman on the bus writing lyrics onto his palm is taken from "8 Mile", when Eminem does the same thing on his way to a rap contest.
• This is the second time Capitol Records in Hollywood has been parodied. In Chef Aid it was called Capitalist Records, but didn't have the distinctive record-stack shape shown in this episode. Here it has the record-stack shape, but is called Faith Records.
• There is an actual Christian Boy Band called "Plus 1".
• When more bands come striking, you can see the band 'The Lord's Of The Underworld' between the other band's.

"[[South Park is Gay!]]"

"Christian Rock Hard"

"[[Grey Dawn]]"