The Losing Edge/Trivia

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"The Losing Edge/Trivia"

"The Death of Eric Cartman/Trivia"

This page contains trivia for "The Losing Edge". 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

• The South Park Baseball Team Starting Line Up:
  • P Stan Marsh
  • C Eric Cartman
  • 1B Token Black
  • 2B Kyle Broflovski
  • 3B Craig Tucker
  • SS Clyde Donovan
  • RF Tweek Tweak
  • CF Kenny McCormick
  • LF Butters Stotch
  • Coach Stephen Stotch
• Jimmy Valmer, Kevin Stoley and Francis are also seen on the team.
• This is the only episode to date in which Kenny is fully seen without his parka throughout the whole episode (with the brief exception of the scene in the airport).
• One of the fathers Randy fights with bears a striking resemblance to Skeeter.
• Jimbo was seen as the home umpire.
• In this episode, Craig's hair is shown to be brown, however in most other cases ("Lice Capades", "South Park is Gay!" and "You're Getting Old") his hair is black.
• At the beginning of the episode when they win the game, Kenny's voice seems to be muffled even without his parka on.
• This is one of the few episodes where Kyle is seen without a hat.
• Kenny's number is 13, likely a reference to his extremely bad luck. Kenny previously wore the number 13 playing football in "Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride", though unlike that episode, he didn't die.
• In Whistlin' Willy's, Timmy is seen sitting with the team wearing a baseball uniform, but is never seen for the rest of the episode. When South Park and Denver meet before the game, Jimmy is seen wearing a baseball uniform on field, but is never seen playing. He may be the team mascot.
• The boys were last seen playing baseball in "Child Abduction is Not Funny", where they enjoyed it. They have seemingly lost interest by this episode.
• Despite stating that he wouldn't return in "The Entity", Kyle Schwartz comes back to South Park, although he did reappear briefly in “Red Sleigh Down”, as Eric’s “naughty or nice” accountant.
• The kids' hatred of baseball is based on the fact that Parker and Stone don't like baseball.
• Mr. Stotch appears to be like all baseball coaches and favors his son to be in a better field position, meanwhile poor Kenny is stuck in right field, generally where players see the least amount of action. A better coach would have Kenny in left, Tweek in center, and Butters in right.
• All of the teams that the boys play against (Conifer, Fort Collins, Greeley and Pueblo) are real towns in Colorado.
• Coors Field, where the final match takes place, is a real baseball stadium located in Denver and home to the Colorado Rockies baseball team.
• In the creator's commentary, Trey Parker and Matt Stone mention that the concept for the episode came from the idea that the boys looked cute in baseball uniform. But it also created a problem, since the boys look very similar in the same baseball uniform, with the exception of Cartman and Token.
  • They also mention how they had difficulty animating the episode, since making the team deliberately lose meant also creating a new set of rules. But the inclusion of Bat Dad helped them, since it would be easy to cut away to him when they ran into logistical issues.

References to Popular Culture

• The song Randy trains to is "You're the Best" by Joe Esposito, which is the tournament montage song used in The Karate Kid. Randy can be heard singing the chorus of "I'm (You're) the best, around" when he is fighting Bat Dad. The song is at a much faster tempo in the episode, however.
• The episode, like "Stanley's Cup" and to a lesser extent "Asspen", is a spoof of sports films - the boys' plot parodies the usual plot of going against many opponents in hopes of winning, despite them seeming to be better at the game, while Randy's parodies the plot of getting ready for a big confrontation with the final opponent.
• There are numerous references to the 1976 film Rocky and its sequels including:
  • The scene with Randy viewing the empty stadium and walking along a beach before climbing into bed and telling Shannon that he can't do it, is an exact reproduction of the scene in the original film after he visits the ring before his fight with Apollo Creed. [1]
    • Immediately after that, when Randy gets out of bed and tells Shannon that it is because he is afraid, the dialogue is very similar to the scene in Rocky III where Rocky tells Adrian his fear of facing Clubber Lang. [2]
  • Bat Dad is a pastiche of Batman, Thunderlips, and Apollo Creed (the latter two are characters from the Rocky movies). Bat Dad calls himself "the ultimate little league trash talking father," which is a parody of Thunderlips, who called himself "the ultimate male." Bat Dad then says "I want you Marsh! I want you!" Apollo Creed said the same thing to his opponents.
    • Diedrich Bader, who voices Bat Dad, would later voice Batman in a later animated series titled Batman: The Brave and the Bold.
  • When Randy beats Bat Dad, the original score from the Rocky movies is used.
  • Randy is wearing a sweatsuit identical to the one Rocky wears in Rocky, Rocky II and Rocky Balboa.
  • Randy wakes up early wearing a hooded sweatshirt and sweatpants. He cracks open some eggs and pours them into a glass as if to drink them like Rocky Balboa did, but then he pours them in a frying pan to scramble them and drinks a beer instead. (John Candy did this once in a Rocky parody Second City Television sketch.)
  • The last scene when Randy gets knocked down by Bat Dad, and the sound of a heartbeat with jittery footage of people cheering Randy on, before the spirit of Mickey appears and tells him to get up references the final fight between Rocky and Tommy "The Machine" Gunn in Rocky V. [3]
    • The original scene has the sound of a heartbeat and jittery footage of Rocky's past, including the ghost of Mickey appearing and saying "Get up Rock" as he tries to get up; except instead of saying afterward, "Get up you son of a bitch, cause Mickey loves ya", Mick just says, "Get up you bum!".
    • After Randy gets back up he says the same line Rocky said in Rocky V after standing up to Tommy Gunn with 'Bat Dad' replacing 'Tommy'; "Hey Bat Dad, I didn't hear no bell."
• At one point, Cartman mentions that they need to find a "sweet replacement player" and Clyde says "Like that motorcycle kid in Bad News Bears". This is a reference to Kelly Leak from the 1976 film, which is about a former professional baseball pitcher who is assigned to coach a little league team with no talented players.
• In the close up shot of Kyle Schwartz getting ready to swing at the third pitch, the bat he has is signed by MLB player Barry Bonds.

Continuity

• Randy's role in this episode is mentioned by Sharon in "You're Getting Old".

Goofs

• There are two different kids representing the final batter for Conifer at the beginning of the episode:
  • In the opening scene, Kid A is seen walking into the batter's box.
  • The PA announces the kid as Alan Vargas, after which Kid B gets ready for the first pitch.
  • Kid A receives strike one and strike three.
  • When Cartman forms the dogpile, Kid B is seen in the background walking back to the dugout.
• After South Park's first win, when Randy Marsh arrives at Whistlin' Willy's, he's handed two beers. A few seconds later one of them disappears.
• When Cartman forms the dog pile after the victory over Conifer, the pitcher's mound is behind second base.
• Also after South Park's first win, Timmy Burch appears eating with the boys during one shot, and disappears when Cartman speaks.
• In South Park's last game before the finals, the scoreboard before the final out showed South Park ahead 1-0. After Stan strikes out the final batter, the announcer declares their victory, with a score of 4-0.
• When he first appears, Bat Dad is said to be called Tom Nelson, however while heckling South Park at the championship game he is told to sit down by his wife who calls him Chris.
• When Randy is being arrested after the game at Greeley, one of the arresting officers has no mouth.
• When Randy gets arrested for the second time (in Fort Collins) a South Park police car takes him away but everywhere else a police car from the place he fought took him away.