Quest for Ratings/Trivia

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This page contains trivia for "Quest for Ratings". 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

• This episode satires the difficulty the writers were having with coming up with ideas for the episode, especially due to the struggles with trying to make their film, Team America: World Police, and South Park at the same time.
  • Indeed, the ending of this episode mirrors the frustration that Matt and Trey experienced while also working on Team America. By contract, they had only one week to complete an episode.
  • The Student Conference Room looks similar to the writers' room of South Park Studios from inside.
• Neither Stan or Kyle wear their trademark hats at any point during this episode; Cartman only wears his in a flashback.
• Whistlin' Willy's was formerly known as Crust E. Krotch's in the episode "Child Abduction is Not Funny".
• The kids at Middle Park Elementary include Beth, Billy Martin, the boy with blond hair, the boy with brown hair and red shirt, the boy with orange shirt, Kelly Pinkerton-Tinfurter, and Kelly Rutherford-Menskin. All these kids become regular children at South Park Elementary a few episodes later, Beth and the two Kellys appearing in the next episode.
  • With the exception of the boy with orange shirt, all of the kids listed appear in the HD version of "Fat Butt and Pancake Head" at the school assembly.
• This is one of the few episodes Kyle and Stan call Cartman by his first name, yet Cartman pronounced it "Ric". Possibly, he wanted to use a cool sounding or professional reporter name in the news show.
• During the report on cough syrup abuse, they show Middle Park Elementary. Their mascot appears to be a dog. It last appeared in "Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride".
• Matt Stone's dog Mr. Yes, and Trey Parker's cat Jake, can both be seen in Close-Up Animals with a Wide-Angle Lens.
• Craig is recommended for surgical castration in this episode - however, since by "Pandemic" he still has one of the deepest voices in the class, he probably did not go through with the operation.
• In this episode, Craig's voice is somewhat higher pitched and less nasally than usual.
• The Sexy Action School News crew took heavy amounts of Dextromethorphan in the form of cough represent, but later had the pharmacist arrested for the sale of such drugs to children. In reality, such an act was not signed into law in Colorado until 2018.^{[citation needed]}

References to Popular Culture

• The boys struggle to compete with Craig's show is a satire of major news networks and the tactics they employ for better ratings. Kyle and Tolkien's suggestion that they make reports about how dangerous it is to be alive is an example of sensationalism. Another example is Butters' idea to "lie about celebrities", which parodies tabloids.
• The appearance of the boys as newscasters is a parody of 1970s-1980s newscasters, who were famous for big poofy hairstyles. It may also be a reference to the Will Ferrell film Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.
• Cough syrup is really used as a recreational drug, especially in the United States. The slang term for it is "Purple drank".
• During the boys' cough syrup trip the tune of 'Lucky Ganesh' shop from Postal can be heard in the background.
• The cough syrup news report is made to look similar to the news reports done by Nightline and 20/20.
• A parody of "Yakety-Sax", the theme from The Benny Hill Show, is played during Animals Close-Up With a Wide-Angle Lens Wearing Hats.
• When Cartman tells Tolkien to change his TV persona because people only like to see African Americans on TV and not hear them is a reference to music in the 50's. Record companies tried to hide the fact that their artists were African American because people liked hearing them on radio, but probably would not listen to them if they knew they were African American due to the racism back then. Also, record companies tried to get white singers who sounded African American, with Elvis being a popular example of such. 
• Butters mentions that he might have seen actress Sigourney Weaver, but then mistakes her for a dead horse.
• When the news team tells Mr. Meryl that they did their best, he replies "Well I guess your best wasn't good enough" to the tune of Quincy Jones' 1981 hit Just Once.

Continuity

• The Raisins girls are seen again in Stan's news report - he has evidently gotten over Wendy since the episode "Raisins" since he says "If I were a little older, I would be aroused."
• Cartman's rivalry with Craig is reinforced in this episode.
• When the boys' news team is coming up with ideas for their show, a City Wok container can be seen.
• When the Sexy Action School News is trying to come up with new ideas Crab People are mentioned. This was a last minute idea used in "South Park is Gay!" a year earlier.

Goofs

• At Whistlin' Willy's, Kevin Stoley is seen both sitting at the table and also standing behind Stan. This duplicate is also seen in the following scene.
• When Kyle does the report on the girls' basketball team, he talks about how they had to forfeit their last game and have not won one at all. However, Cartman makes the error of saying they had been on a 6-0 slide instead of 0-6 slide.
• At Middle Park Elementary, a girl can be seen walking off screen to the left to reappear on the upper floor on the other side of the screen 1–3 seconds later.
• When the children are shown from behind watching Close-Up Animals with a Wide-Angle Lens at Whistlin' Willy's, there are two girls who look like Millie briefly shown standing in the crowd.
• When Kyle mentions that "Pete Thelman" pees like a little girl, a picture of a background character is shown, revealing said character's name to be Pete Thelman. However the goth kid with red highlights is also revealed to be named Pete Thelman in "South Park: The Fractured But Whole". Either this is a continuity mistake, or the picture of the goth Pete was meant to be shown instead of the background character. Although, the subtitles display his name as “Pete Bellman”.

Dubbing Changes

International Titles

Language	Title	Translation
Czech	Školní zprávy	School News
French	Course à l'audience	Race for the audience
German	Kampf um Quoten	Battle for ratings
Hungarian	Harc a nézettségért	Battle for ratings
Italian	Ricerca di ascolti	Quest for ratings
Japanese	視聴率はコワイ! (Shichō-ritsu wa kowai!)	The audience rating is scary!
Polish	Walka o widza	The fight for ratings
Portuguese (Brazil)	Em busca de audiência	In search for audience
Spanish (Latin America)	Búsqueda de las audiencias	In search for audience
Ukrainian	Пошуки рейтингу (Poshuky reytynhu)	Search for ratings

German

• After having consumed cough medicine, Kyle ends up writing the lyrics for The Fall Guy.

Hungarian

• List of changes to the first Super School News program:
  • No price amount for the milk money is specified.
  • No start time for the parent-teacher conference is specified.
  • In the lunch menu, tater tots are replaced with mashed potatoes with pickles.

Italian

• Mr. Meryl describes the Super School News as simply "unimportant" instead of "kind of gay".
• The reference to Pizza Hut by Cartman is replaced with the Italian pizza chain Spizzico.

Portuguese (Brazil)

• All distorted voice effects heard during Stan's head trip are removed.