Freak Strike

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"Asspen"

"Freak Strike"

"Fun with Veal"

"Freak Strike"
File:Https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C 05BQdXUAAUqZD.jpg Butters with fake balls on his chin
Episode no.	Season 6 Episode 3
Production no.	601
Original airdate	March 20, 2002
Episode chronology Previous Next "Asspen" "Fun with Veal"
List of all South Park episodes

"Freak Strike" is the third episode of Season Six, and the 82nd overall episode of South Park. It aired on March 20, 2002.

Synopsis

The boys sign Butters up as a guest on a popular afternoon talk show that features people with weird deformities.

Plot

Spoiler warning! Plot details follow.

Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Butters decide to try to get on the Maury Povich Show after watching an episode in which a girl with no midsection is given a gift certificate to a CD store; in hopes that they will also get a prize. They decide to have Butters disguise himself as a freak and go on the show wearing fake balls on his chin. He is hesitant, but finally agrees, and the Star Trek Nerds design some fake testicles for him to wear.

Butters travels alone on a plane to New York in order to appear on the Maury Povich Show. In the green room, he meets other variously deformed people, who welcome Butters to their "union" (which ensures that US TV talk shows interview their members regularly). The "Man with Foot on Head" tells Butters that this union despises people who fake their deformities. He then tells him about "Lobster Boy", who was supposed to be a human boy who resembled a lobster. It turned out he was just a lobster, and they boiled him alive as punishment. Butters is now scared that they will find out he's also living a lie, but manages to cover it up.

On the show, Maury introduces Butters as "Napoleon Bonaparte from South Park." Butters tells Maury that his classmates always tease him for his condition (but not before nearly giving the game away by forgetting about his chin balls and he instead rants about everyone mistaking him for Kenny, before Maury reminds him of his chin balls), and Maury gives him a trip to the largest miniature golf course in the world. Stan, Kyle and Cartman are watching the show at home, and Cartman is angry that Butters got "their" prize. He calls Maury, and tries to get himself on the show, but the operator explains that the show is not focusing on deformed people any longer. Now it is focusing on children and adolescents who are out of control.

Butter's parents Chris and Linda, ground him for wearing fake balls on his chin. They say it humiliated them and his grandmother had a mild stroke when she saw it on National TV. All of a sudden, the freaks appear at his house. They say that they're angry at having the lime-light taken away from them, and they ask Butters to join in their strike. He reluctantly agrees, in order to avoid being discovered as a faker, and joins the group (which includes Nurse Gollum of "Conjoined Fetus Lady", the Thompson's from the episode "How to Eat with Your Butt", and Dr. Mephesto’s odd assistant, Kevin).

Cartman and his mother go on the Maury Povich Show. After seeing a teenage girl named "Vanity" swear, physically beat her mother and boast about her "out-of-control" way of life, Cartman dresses up as a slutty teenage girl, in an effort to "beat" Vanity and win the prize. For everything she says, he makes up an even more outrageous story. During this sequence, he says, "Whateva! I do what I want!" They have to stop temporarily when a 4-month old baby girl named Chantal comes onstage and strips herself in front of the audience. They continue after she leaves.

It's now that the gang of freaks shows up and hijacks the TV studio screen. They profess that they - the real freaks - should not lose their only means of employment to the non-real freaks - those who are only freaks because they're idiots. Butters, still with balls on his chin, is with the others when they sing about finding the "True Freak Label" on talk shows, and most of the audience agrees and leave the studio. Cartman is now furious because Butters once again got in the way of his plans. He then runs outside and grabs the balls on Butters's chin, and tears them off. Butters is initially frightened by what will become of him now, but the union chase Cartman, who "ripped poor Napoleon's balls right off his chin!". Butters then thinks that perhaps he got away with this one after all. But at this moment his parents arrive in a taxi, and he realizes he's in trouble once again.

Reception

IGN gave this episode a rating of 9/10.