Pre-School (South Park)

"Pre-School" is the 121st episode (10th in season 8) of the Comedy Central series South Park. It originally aired on November 10, 2004.

Plot

A terrified Stan announces to Kyle, Kenny, Cartman and Butters that Trent Boyett, a notorious bully from their preschool years, is being released from juvenile hall after a five-year sentence.

In a flashback set five years previously, the boys got the idea to play "Fireman", in which they play by putting out a fire by urinating on it. Wanting to put out an actual fire, they ask Trent to start one. However, the fire soon gets out of control and their teacher, Miss Claridge, is badly burned and nearly dies while trying to put it out. Instead of going the easier way by saying that the fire was an accident, explaining how Miss Claridge got injured, and risking getting into trouble, the four boys immediately place the sole blame on Trent. Trent attempts to have Butters defend him, but Butters refuses to say what really happened out of fear of getting in trouble with his parents. Trent is then sentenced to juvenile hall. Kyle points out that Trent will be furious and vengeful when he gets out. Cartman dismisses this, saying, "Whatever, that's like five years from now!"

Now that Trent is free, the boys fear that he will seek revenge. However, Kyle warns against informing their parents for fear that they will get in trouble.

Miss Claridge, meanwhile, was burned so badly that she is forever confined to a motorized wheelchair (resembling Christopher Pike from Star Trek). She can only communicate by using an electronic beep – once for "yes", twice for "no". She is shown moving throughout the town, and is halfway across the street when the chair's battery dies, leaving her stranded in the middle of a crosswalk, and unable to move or communicate.

Butters is the first of the boys that Trent confronts when his parents forced him to go outside to play and not listen to his screams, which results in a hospital stay for Butters, who sustains, according to the Doctor, a number of childhood pranks, including a massive snuggie, two Indian burns, a charlie horse, a second degree titty-twister, a "colossal" swirlie, a noogie, and something called a "Polish bike ride" (which has no cure). He appears to be in a trauma-induced coma.

The boys try to ask the sixth graders for protection from Trent, but the sixth graders demand that Stan produce a photo of his mother's uncovered breasts in return. The boys improvise by taking a photo of Cartman's buttocks, which they dress up to look like breasts. After the boys give the photo to the sixth graders, they agree to protect the boys, and they then decide to take the photograph behind a set of bushes. The boys are initially relieved, only to later discover that Trent dispatched all of the sixth graders single-handedly, sending them to the hospital with injuries similar to Butters'. With no one left to turn to, the boys ask Stan's sister, Shelley, to defend them, but she only agrees to help them on the condition that they confess to Miss Claridge what really happened five years ago.

The boys meet Miss Claridge who is still stuck in the middle of the street, and attempt to confess about what happened five years ago, but Trent arrives to confront them. Cartman then takes out his mom's taser gun to avoid a "Titty-Twister", and fires it at Trent, but the electrodes land on Miss Claridge's chair instead, charging the battery to such a degree that it runs out of control, crashing into a propane shop, creating an explosion that destroys the shop and sets Miss Claridge on fire, and she then crashes into a nearby pet store, where a bunch of cats attack her. The police then arrive and ask Miss Claridge if Trent caused this. She replies "no" with two beeps, but the police accidentally misinterpret the two beeps to mean "yes, yes" and arrest Trent.

The boys, having learned nothing from the experience, make the same mistake that they made five years before, claiming that they were not involved with the incident at all. When Kyle once again points out that Trent will be even angrier and more vengeful when he gets out of juvenile hall this time, Cartman again dismisses this, saying, "Whatever, that's like five years from now!" As Cartman moons Trent, who becomes quite angered by this, the sixth graders happen upon the scene, and see Cartman's buttocks. Recognizing them as the breasts from the photograph, they excitedly pick Cartman up and carry him to the bushes.

Cultural references

After Miss Claridge is burned she is forever confined to a motorized wheelchair resembling Christopher Pike's from Star Trek.

During the scene where the boys draw nipples on Cartman's butt, Kyle uses the book Sex as a reference.

External links

• Pre-School Full episode at South Park Studios
• Pre-School Episode guide at South Park Studios