Original air date: 11/17/2010
Randy becomes obsessed with Food Network and starts his own cooking show. Irritated by this, Sharon goes on vacation and finds an interest of her own: a Shake Weight.
Episode contains examples of:
- An Aesop: Sometimes a "good old fashioned" is good enough to make sure your husband stays sexually interested in you as opposed to seeking gratification through other means.
- Bait-and-Switch: At the beginning, it seems like the "no-no channel" Sharon forbids Randy on watching is a porn channel. Porn-ish sounding music playing from the TV and Randy masturbating underneath his blanket makes it seem like it is, until we see it's actually the Food Network.
- Black Is Bigger in Bed: The black shake weights are huge. Seeing a woman struggle to handle one, Sharon decides to go with a "smaller, whiter one."
- Continuity Nod: After becoming the South Park Elementary chef, Randy exhibits the persona of Chef by saying his catchphrases "Hello there, children" and "How's it going?"
- Creepy Monotone: The voice coming from the Shake Weight doesn't change intonation, making affirmations like "You are awesome" sound really phony.
- Dead Person Impersonation: Chef, who died in the Season 10 premiere "The Return of Chef", is impersonated by Randy as the children approach him in the cafeteria (see Continuity Nod).
- Does This Remind You of Anything?:
- The usage of a Shake Weight is portrayed as giving a handjob. Lampshaded when Sharon gives Randy a handjob near the end. Turns out the Shake Weight is designed to make women better at hand jobs.
- Food porn addiction is treated as a sex addiction, with a dedicated food porn call center and Sharon having an appropriate reaction to Randy making a call in secret.
- Fetish: Randy develops one when watching the Food Network, to the point that he calls the Food Network's hotline for sexual pleasure. He even masturbates to the Food Network right in front of the boys.
- Food Porn: The central theme of this episode.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: Stan believes that his father is not stupid enough to fall for Cartman's Paper-Thin Disguise as Gordon Ramsay. Then Randy enters and does exactly that.
- It's All About Me: Randy acts out his cooking show fantasies by making his family elaborate dishes they didn't want or ask for and leaves all of them to clean up after him. When he starts cooking at the cafeteria, he films his own cooking show there without actually serving the students any food.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The boys disguise Cartman as Gordon Ramsay to crush Randy's dreams and to convince him to quit being the School's chef only makes the situation worse, as other celebrity chefs catch wind of "Gordon Ramsay", and challenge Randy to a cook-off, while the other kids starve for half a day.
- Overly Long Name: The name of the challenge Randy participates in? The Hell's Kitchen Nightmares Iron Top Chef Cafeteria Throwdown Ultimate Cookoff Challenge.
- Parental Sexuality Squick: When Stan overhears his mother giving "an old-fashioned" to his father.
- Sexy Discretion Shot: The actual handjob is only shown from behind a closed door.
- Shout-Out: The challenge's name is taken from several cooking shows: Hell's Kitchen, Kitchen Nightmares, Iron Chef, Top Chef, Throwdown! with Bobby Flay, Tyler's Ultimate, and Food Network Challenge.
- Status Quo Is God: Lampshaded by Randy, who, after getting over his cooking obsession, casually tells Sharon he will get his geologist job back.
- Stealth Mentor: Shake Weight true purpose is to teach women, like Sharon, on how to pleasure their partners and to save their marriage.
- Take That!: To the unintentionally phallic and sexual nature of the Shake Weight.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: We never see what happens to the hungry schoolchildren on the night of the cooking competition in the cafeteria, nor do we see if the competition continued without Randy as he leaves for the special ingredient.
