Heavy Metal Boobage

Last night, South Park pulled out another skeleton from our dork closet -- the so-bad-it's-still-not-good animated film Heavy Metal, which was popular with us back in the day (1981) for it's music and... uh.... bare breasts -- hence the episode title of "Major Boobage." (And now that South Park has every episode online now for free*, you can watch it right now.)

The boys discover, through school counselor Mr. Mackey, that sniffing cat urine can get them high, a method called 'cheesing,' and it's Kenny who tries it and finds himself in an 'augmented' version Heavy Metal's Taarna story line, complete with a nude dip in the mysterious pool.

The repeat journeys by Kenny, and later Kyle's dad Gerald (both of whom end up doing battle "in the Breastiary of the Nippopolis,") are backed by the two iconic title tracks written for the original film, Sammy Hagar's "Heavy Metal" and Don Felder's "Takin' a Ride (Heavy Metal)." The soundtrack sounds pretty dated, but those songs along with tracks from Cheap Trick and Devo (see below) are what I remember from the film. The episode's attention to song and drawing style perfectly captures our imperfect memory of the film, which translates into breasts everywhere.

But, with Trey Parker and Matt Stone, is one lampoon ever enough? Gerald decides to uses his super lawyer skills to ban cats from the town, and Cartmen finds himself hiding the felines from the neighborhood, The Diary of Ann Frank-style. When Gerald is caught cheesing as well, he has a press conference, framed perfectly to match the already infamous Elliott Spitzer apology.

If there's one past episode this is reminiscent of, it's that of their widely popular (and Emmy-award winning) lampoon of Worlds of Warcraft, called 'Make Love, Not Warcraft' (watch now,) which also took to task some not-so hidden dork. I'm already dreaming of someone announcing 'The Emmy goes to...South Park with "Major Boobage!"

Playlist: Rssmbld Sndtrck - Heavy Metal
1. "Radar Rider" - Riggs (YouTube Final Fantasy mashup)
2. "Veteran Of The Psychic Wars" - Blue Oyster Cult
3. "True Companion" - Donald Fagen
4. "Heartbeat" - Riggs (story and track download at the blog He's a Whore)
5. "Blue Lamp" - Stevie Nicks" (YouTube)
6. "Open Arms" - Journey
7. "Reach Out" - Cheap Trick (YouTube)
8. "Taking A Ride (On Heavy Metal)" - Don Felder (YouTube)
9. "Queen Bee" - Grand Funk Railroad
10. "I Must Be Dreamin'" - Cheap Trick (YouTube)
11. "Crazy? (A Suitable Case For Treatment)" - Nazareth (YouTube)
12. "All of You" - Don Felder (YouTube)
13. "Heavy Metal" - Sammy Hagar
14. "Prefabricated" - Trust (imeen)
15. "The Mob Rules" - Black Sabbath
16. "Through Being Cool" - Devo
17. "Working In The Coalmine" - Devo
18. "E5150" - Black Sabbath



*New episodes are up for seven days before being taken down. Then reappear thirty days after airing. Copyright rulez, dawg.