@taxlthomas making a new post for this just because i wanted to ramble and gush about it (and i did. so much of that omg oopsies) but YEAH!! early SP in particular is really juvenile in multiple aspects, but it's a juvenility that's SO much fun and really compelling to me and is where the majority of my love for the show and its meaning to me lies
i think that silliness is still present throughout, it just sort of evolves with the time and the tone of the show--the characters, plots, art direction, Everything about the show gradually gets more "mature" over time (and more shocking, and more irreverent, but i think part of that is also just that 90s SP WAS shocking and irreverent for its time too, but it feels so tame in comparison now... and a lot of that is through the boundaries SP as a show has pushed), but sometimes that same spirit still pokes through. i haven't really caught up with the show in the last 8 years so i'm not sure how true this still is (doing a full series rewatch for this reason)
but one of my favorite "modern" episodes is a parody of shows like I Shouldn't Be Alive, really over dramatized and over produced shows--the parody they do of it is called I Should Have Never Gone Ziplining, and they even feature live action inserts of the boys... as teens and play up a bunch of "modern" tv tropes. my favorite is that Kenny (orange closest to camera) looks absolutely nothing like his character in the show LOL, we hardly ever see his face or hear him and he's just got his hood down and the hair isn't even the right color and augh so good. and were playing on how these live actor reenactments can feel and look so detached from the "source". just really funny commentary
BUT YEAH getting back to more what you're referring to, the 90s-very early 00s brand of SP silliness is where my heart lies. they have fun!! there's a whole Halloween episode where they have the band KORN and it's styled as a Scooby Doo parody
same season, these are from my favorite episode of the show
and when they'd do "straight" song parodies, especially from old animated specials... there's a LOT of Peanuts influence (and i made a compilation of that here) but they also pull from a lot of things from their childhood that they grew up watching, and is how you get them just using Rankin Bass songs in their episodes and even doing shot by shot references
they'd sometimes do fake commercials which are also excellent
and a lot of just really enjoyably juvenile plots with the kids. episodes like Stan and Kyle fighting over whether the prehistoric man they found frozen in ice (.......in 1996. and the episode came out in 1999. which is the big joke) should be named Steve or Gorak, Stan's dog is gay and escapes to "Big Gay Al's Big Gay Animal Sanctuary", where Stan finds him and learns about accepting gay people (this episode came out in 1997 and was actually pretty revolutionary for its time lol), Cartman trying to scam the tooth fairy into giving him lots of money by stealing other kids' teeth and finding that there's an underground mafia also led by kids for this sole reason.. IT'S VERY FUN very stupid but i love when the show is stupid
the clips i posted in that post were almost all from the movie, which is my favorite thing to come out of the entire franchise and is my favorite movie ever and i cannot and will not shut up about it LOL. even fellow non-SP obsessed friends/people i talk to have said it's the best thing to come out of SP, that's subjective but does make me feel "better" about my fanaticism about it... in that it's not just me, it's really good!!! and it has a lot of my favorite things about the show all in one. my favorite character(s) are unique to this film which is both devastating but also nice and i feel like they embody this silliness particularly well. this joke of using a viewmaster as binoculars always gets me
but yeah!! it surprisingly, or maybe surprisingly not, can be a very silly show. so much so that i've forgotten it myself, and rewatching all of these episodes there's absolutely a direct throughline of my interests and sense of humor LOL, like man no wonder i loved this so much it's so stupid and fun in the best way! and at least so far at this point in my rewatch, even in episodes where i don't agree with the politics or message (quite often lol) there are still often a lot of jokes or moments that make me laugh and i can appreciate them
i can't hate a show that directly references Yankee Doodle Daffy and has Stan explicitly saying "this dude is fucking daffy"
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