Original air date: 2/2/2022 (produced in 2021)
PC Principal bans the 4th Graders from participating in South Park Elementary's Pajama Day, which kicks off a town-wide controversy.
Tropes:
- Bilingual Bonus: The news reporter starts adding more sentences in German the more scenes he shows up in. The final scene in which he shows up has him speaking fully in German while wearing a Nazi Officer Uniform.
- Breather Episode: Played with. At the time of airing, this episode seemed to serve as one towards the previous hour-long COVID specials, but the pajama controversy plot in the episode is clearly a subtle take on people's refusal to wear masks in public places during the COVID-19 pandemic. That said, between the constant drama of the previous four specials and the radical continuity changes of the next two episodes, this one is mostly light and fun, with little to no emotional drama or continuity changes.
- The Bus Came Back: Kip Drordy returns here; his last appearance was in "Butterballs", which aired nearly ten years ago.
- Call-Forward: Cartman constantly mentioning how Matt Damon is convincing everyone to invest in cryptocurrency is one towards South Park: Post Covid where cryptocurrency has become the primary currency in the future.
- Comically Missing the Point:
- When Wendy proposes the class just apologize to Mr. Garrison so he will convince PC Principal to lift the ban, Cartman agrees because he thinks that this is some brilliant psychological manipulation tactic she came up with.
- Downplayed with Wendy and her plan to apologize to Mr.Garrison when she also knows it was his fault. Though she could just be saying this so his class could wear their pajamas.
- Continuity Nod:
- Cartman references the Gender War from Season 20 when he notes that the boys and girls "have been at war for too long".
- Butters and Cartman both reference the school shootings that occurred throughout Season 22 with Butters suggesting committing one while Cartman saying that it's unoriginal.
- Jimmy suggests smearing crap all over the walls of the school, referencing Cartman's parental revenge business from "My Future Self 'N Me".
- PC Principal's opinion of Garrison is much different than before. Thanks to Garrison's deal with the Hollywood Elites, no one remembers his antics as both a political candidate and President. As far as PC Principal remembers, Garrison is just a long-time teacher at South Park Elementary with very disruptive students. Or alternatively, it could just be him acting fearful towards him, seeing what he was capable of doing so as President.
- "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: PC Principal is hit hard with this. Mr. Mackey warns him to give Garrison's class Pajama Day back, but he doesn't listen and quickly regrets it. He also, in typical fashion, jumps to an incorrect conclusion. In this case that Garrison's students are disrespecting him as a teacher and are not doing their schoolwork, when in fact Garrison is dragging his personal life into school and trying to force the children to lie for him. Had he simply asked a solid student, like Wendy whom he goes to throughout the episode for help, why Garrison was having a meltdown, he wouldn't have reason to punish the students or feel he had to stick to his guns.
- Despair Event Horizon: PC Principal nearly crosses this at the end of the episode as he has reached his breaking point. For him, it seemed he would have to resign due to his internal conflict, only for Wendy to point out Opposite Day, giving him the idea to Take a Third Option.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Invoked. When the class all throw in ideas for how to get the Pajama Day privileges back, Butters recommends goes on a school shooting. Cartman shoots it down. Not because it's too extreme, but because it's overdone.
- Enemy Mine: Cartman and Wendy work together up while having both their respective genders team up to get PC Principal to uplift their ban from participating in Pajama Day.
- Felony Misdemeanor: At some point, not wearing pajamas in public spaces had become a crime in South Park.
- Godwin's Law: In-Universe. Everyone keeps comparing PC Principal's actions to Nazi Germany, much to his frustration. Many residents who are anti-pajama start speaking German in protest, and even a news reporter went as far as to wear a Nazi Officer Uniform while holding a microphone in one hand, and a Luger pistol in the other.PC Principal: Hey! How many times have I told you kids not to bring up Nazi Germany when you don't get something you want?!
- Honor Before Reason: A justified example. Even when he realizes he made a bad call in banning the class from Pajama Day, PC Principal can't back down from his decision for fear he will lose all authority in the eyes of the students. When he talks with Wendy as he prepares to reverse his ruling, he is in tears as he believe that if he reverses his decision, he must voluntarily resign for not upholding the principles of being a principal. However, considering how unruly the students and their parents get, to the point the police have to arrest several people wearing pajamas in protest after they start rioting, PC Principal probably right that the students will do this all over again the next time if he gives in.
- Jerkass: Garrison, who has no problem getting the kids in trouble for not covering and lying for him with his personal love life or remembering details of his dates that he shouldn't be sharing with them in the first place.
- Jerkass Has a Point: While PC Principal is too harsh in taking away Pajama Day from the 4th grade class, he justifies standing by his decision by saying if he goes back on it, the students will believe that if they complain enough whenever they don't get their way, he'll cave in. Considering how the students typically behave and how they are comparing him to Hitler, this is a reasonable fear.
- Karma Houdini: Mr. Garrison starts everything by forcing his class to endure his personal drama instead of actually teaching them anything and has their class' Pajama Day privileges revoked twice over. By the end, Garrison gets off scot-free while PC Principal makes Mr. Mackey The Scapegoat.
- Know When to Fold Them: While Wendy is aware that the class didn't actually deserve to have Pajama Day revoked, PC Principal explained to her his reason why he can't openly go back on his decision, so the kids need to swallow their pride and apologize to Mr Garrison so PC Principal has an excuse to give it back to them.
- Mood-Swinger: Mr. Garrison constantly goes from blissful and carefree to rage-filled and throwing tantrums whenever his students don't pay attention to his love life.
- Not What It Looks Like: PC Principal thinks Mr. Garrison is lashing out to the class because the students are refusing to pay attention to his lessons, when in actuality he's doing it because they wouldn't help him with his personal problems.
- Only Sane Man: Stan was the only one on board with Wendy while everyone else just went along with it.
- Pragmatic Villainy: When Butters suggests the 4th graders shoot up the school to get back at PC Principal taking away Pajama Day, Cartman rejects the idea on the grounds it's "been done a lot" and probably won't have much of an impact.
- Psychopathic Manchild: To show off Mr. Garrison's psychotic immaturity, the episode has him constantly talk about his love life to his class and not teach them anything, while throws fits whenever they don't pay attention to him or do what he wants, and he has no problem in enforcing that they wear normal clothes on Pajama Day just because they didn't want to pay any attention to his personal problems.
- Serious Business: Pajama Day is this for the South Park Elementary students, with Mr. Mackey even telling PC Principal that it's their Met Gala.
- Sexy Shirt Switch: At the end of the episode, Mr. Garrison is seen wearing Marcus's shirt as pajamas.
- The Scapegoat: To save face at the end of the episode, PC Principal throws Mr. Mackey under the bus for the Pajama Day fiasco and claims that today is Opposite Day instead. However, Mr. Mackey doesn't seem to mind as he is seen with the rest of the school in his pajama's happily skipping along and the students don't seem angry at him.
- Shout-Out: Kenny’s pajama outfit is a ScoobyDoo onesie.
- Skewed Priorities:
- Not only is Mr. Garrison spending all of class time involving the kids all about his love life, but when the kids don't enable him or can't quote him accurately, he throws a tantrum, and has PC Principal take away their pajama privileges.
- The "protest" gets so out of hand, people are getting arrested for harassing people who aren't wearing pajamas, with one woman being arrested for shitting on a pajama-less person's car. At one point, a woman calls the police on her husband because he wants to wear his day-clothes in bed.
- Take That!:
- MATT DAMON is repeatedly mocked for his commercial for Crypto.com where he encourages viewers to sign up and invest in cryptocurrency.
- The Covid Mandates and the contradiction behind them is again lampooned throughout the episode with the school and town constantly passing laws and regulations that enforce wearing pajamas and the stigma against people who don't comply. The fact that people make comparisons with Nazi Germany over the mandate may also be a reference to people living under lockdowns and people being arrested for no reason in comparison to ghettos and the gestapo.
- A subtle one to those in positions of authority who refuse to ever admit they made a mistake even when it's clear that they did, believing people will stop listening to them and think they're weak if they do admit fault. Wendy tries assuring PC Principal that admitting he was wrong is actually a sign of strength as many cannot do it. PC Principal, however, refuses to take her advice and ultimately throws Mr. Mackey under the bus to fix the whole Pajama Day fiasco.
- Another one is made at America's apathy towards school shootings, Cartman shooting down Butters's suggestion to commit one knowing that it won't get any attention.
- Ungrateful Bastard: PC Principal throwing Mr. Mackey under the bus after the latter tried to warn him that banning the Fourth Graders from Pajama Day would backfire, though thankfully since it's a relatively harmless example, Mackey doesn't seem to care.
