“He’s almost like a Puritan lady whose period hath stopped.” – Miles Standish
“A History Channel Thanksgiving” begins when an annoying guest speaker – one of those white guys who claims to be 1/6th Native American – assigns the fourth grade class a research paper about the origins of Thanksgiving. Instead of combing through boring textbooks, Cartman decides it would be easier to simply watch the History Channel in order to gather his research.
The History Channel happens to be airing a Thanksgiving themed episode of Ancient Aliens, which makes the claim that aliens were present at the first Thanksgiving dinner. Kyle, of course, recognizes that this is bullshit. Cartman attributes Kyle’s complaining to the fact that he is perhaps going through menopause.
After the boys turn in their report linking the Indians (read = Native Americans) and Pilgrims to extraterrestrials, they are picked up by a group of clandestine History Channel agents. They demand to know where the boys heard about this alien connection, seemingly unaware that the History Channel itself is “disseminating” this information.
Here’s where I think the writers were too generous with the History Channel: they portray the channel and its employees as naive ignoramuses who are fascinated by history but know nothing about it. I think the reality is actually much worse. The History Channel isn’t stupid or naive at all; they know exactly what they are doing. They are packaging bogus mumbo-jumbo as if it were fact because they recognize that their audience is much more interested in aliens and ghosts than they are in actually learning something real about history. Their programs (not all of them, of course, but many) are targeting dummies who want to pretend they are watching something educational. The History Channel isn’t stupid — as South Park suggests — but it certainly perpetuates stupidity in our society. And to me, that’s a much bigger offense.
I have to applaud the South Park guys for choosing a worthy target for their wrath in this episode. I have spent an unhealthy amount energy railing against the evils of the History Channel myself. I just wish Matt Parker and Trey Stone would have been more vicious in their criticism. I kind of felt they let the History Channel off the hook a little bit.
Some stats and info about South Park, “A History Channel Thanksgiving”
TV SHOW – South Park
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 15, Episode 13
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – Comedy Central
GENRE – Comedy, Animated Shows
CREATED BY – Trey Parker, Matt Stone
This review was originally published on TV Geek Army.