Original air date: 3/22/2023
Inspired by Butters getting a job at the ice cream shop, Cartman and Kenny turn Cartman's hot dog house into a restaurant.
Tropes
- A Day in the Limelight: This is the only episode of Season 26 where Kenny is one of the focuses.
- All Take and No Give: Cartman convinces Butters to invest in Cartman's restaurant on the pretense that he'll give it all back to Butters once the restaurant is a success. Sure enough, Cartman spends all of his money for luxuries on himself while barely making any effort to actually open his restaurant for business and pay back Butters. When Butters learns of this, he decides to open Cartman's restaurant and earn back all the money himself, while forcing Cartman out of his dream house and back to his old house as payback.
- An Aesop:
- Angrish: Cartman actually combines this with Inelegant Blubbering during his Villainous Breakdown at the end. "I want my DikinBaus!" progressively comes closer and closer to being nothing but complete gibberish.
- Artistic License – Child Labor Laws: While the current employment crisis has led to children as young as 14 working in the service industry, 10-year-olds like Butters and Cartman, not to mention the infant Cartman employs, would not be able to work in any state in the US.
- Artistic Licence – Law: Cartman having Butters' hard-earned wages wiped out of his account is illegal and in reality, Cartman would face charges for it.
- Bait-and-Switch:
- When Stephen thinks Butters has 'lied' he has been working due to an empty paycheck, he looks like he will once again ground his son for his 'lies', but instead goes off to "work" to earn extra money instead.
- When Butters learns Cartman is the one responsible for his paycheck being empty, he looks like he is about to say "Son of a bitch" but replaces the last word with "gun".
- Bait-and-Switch Comment: Cartman's response of "That is messed up" when Butters mentions that child labor is apparently a thing again not because of the immorality of it, but because he himself wants a job.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: All Cartman ever wanted since he and his mom were forced to move into the hot dog stand was his old house back. Here, he finally gets his old house back, but only after he's turned the hot dog stand into his dream home.
- Becoming the Mask: Cartman originally starts off getting a 'job' to help get money to return back home, but he gets carried away when he manages to set up his own business at the hot dog place, causing him to become greedy and selfish to the point he doesn't want to return home.
- Benevolent Boss: The manager of Willy's Chilly may rely on child labor, but he seems to treat Butters decently enough (at least in comparison to everyone else Butters knows) and since Butters was able to fund a new business on his wages alone, we can assume the manager pays his staff very generously.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Butters is usually one of the nicest kids in the show. That said, when he learns that Cartman has taken his money, Butters arranges for the new investor to kick Cartman out of the hot dog stand, just after Cartman had converted it into his dream home.
- Broken Tears: Played for Laughs. After getting forced out of his dream home and having to move back to his old house by Butters, the episode ends with Cartman crying and screaming that he wants to go back to DikinBaus over and over in despair.
- Call-Back:
- Stephen accuses Butters of sneaking off to suck off glory holes when he discovers his son's bank account is empty. Stephen himself was guilty of sneaking to a gay porno theater and bathhouse in "Butters' Very Own Episode" under the guise of shopping for Linda.
- Once again, Cartman buys an elaborate business for himself, only for it to be sold off at the end of the episode, much to his dismay.
- When Cartman complains to Liane about living in a hot dog stand, she reminds him that he made Liane quit her job to take care of him.
- Darryl Weathers applies to work at Dikinbaus and makes unreasonable demands for time off. He spouts a familiar rant when he's denied employment. "They took my job!"
- Liane is shown watching Hell's Kitchen Nightmares Iron Top Chef Cafeteria Throwdown Ultimate Cookoff Challenge.
- In South Park: The Fractured but Whole, Butters accidentally gives away the New Kid's house due to poor bank investments. Here, he kicks Cartman out of the hot dog stand because he knew how to play his cards this time.
- Call-Forward: Several towards South Park: Post Covid: The Return of Covid:
- Butters being an excellent restaurant worker ties back to the good future where adult Butters has become the manager of Denny's Applebee's Max.
- Butters' anger towards Cartman for taking advantage of him alludes to the eventual antipathy he'll have towards Cartman's fate in the future.
- Then there's Cartman refusing to work in the jobs he is given which ties in to how he did nothing in his life resulting in becoming a homeless drunk. The music that plays when adult Cartman's fate is revealed in the good future is even reused in the end while Cartman's throwing a tantrum, loosely connecting his Broken Tears at the end of this episode to his more resigned "fuck you guys" at the end of "Return of COVID."
- Character Check: Despite his Character Development throughout the show, Kenny goes back to being a Wild Card perfectly willing to take part in one of Cartman's scams.
- The Chessmaster: Surprisingly, Butters shows himself to be one towards the end. Butters makes sure that he has received all of his money back before he collaborates with Liane to sell Cartman's restaurant to some overseas investors while using his knowledge of business to be prepared when the banker attempts to scare Butters from selling his business. Butters also waits until Cartman is happy with his business and new home before selling it off without the latter's knowledge, knowing that this would completely devastate Cartman. Sure enough, Butters' plan works perfectly and he's able to profit off of Cartman's misery.
- Demoted to Extra: Stan and Kyle only make a small appearance in the beginning with the rest of the show focused on Butters, Cartman, and to an extent, Kenny.
- Dissonant Serenity: Justified. As Cartman is pathetically screaming and blubbering in semi-Angrish about wanting to keep DikinBaus, Liane just mirthlessly welcomes him back and tunes him out, since she's gotten used to him showing a complete lack of self-respect and knows he's completely on his own for good this time.
- The Dog Bites Back: After everything Cartman put him through, Butters ultimately decides to sell the hot dog stand to new ownership while buying the Cartmans' old house for them to live in, robbing Eric of another one of his dreams.
- Earn Your Happy Ending:
- After having his money taken by Cartman, Butters manages to get it all back through hard work and continues working at a job he likes while also managing to make even more money after selling Cartman's hot dog stand.
- Liane gets her happy ending as well. After losing her house because of her son's selfishness, she is able to get it back with Butters' help, and is now capable of standing up to her son.
- Foreshadowing: Even at the start of the episode, Butters is visibly more cynical towards working with Cartman, only unwillingly and very anxiously vouching for him at Willy's Chilly and later when loaning him and Kenny money. Much like Liane, it is clear the multiple times Cartman screwed him over did not escape Butters' mind and the former is capable of reaching The Last Straw with him.
- Forgot Flanders Could Do That: It's certainly been a while since we last saw Kenny acting as Cartman's henchman, hasn't it?
- Futureshadowing: Butters' competence at working in the restaurant industry and his anger at Cartman for taking advantage of him all foreshadow his future as a restaurant manager and eventual hatred for Cartman.
- Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Butters is this most of the time when he gets angry without even trying to swear.
- Grew a Spine: The episode's end implies that Butters is finally sick of Cartman's lazy and selfish attitude when he forces Cartman out of his dream house and sends him back to his old home as payback.
- Happiness in Minimum Wage: Even after Butters manages to turn DikinBaus into a profitable business, he still prefers his simple job at the ice cream shop and decides to sell his investment.
- Heh Heh, You Said "X": Cartman renamed the Coney Island Hot Dog Stand to DikinBaus so he could have this reaction when the news anchor talks about it.
- Hidden Depths: Butters of all people is shown to be very good at his job, to the point of singlehandedly operating DikinBaus at the end of the episode.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Cartman convinces Butters to be the hot dog stand's financial backer and proceeds to drain his bank account by installing amusement rides. Butters is furious and, once the stand is profitable, he uses his authority as the sole shareholder to sell it and force Cartman to move back into his old house.
- Hypocrite Has a Point: Cartman has made sitting on his fat ass and doing less than the bare minimum the official norm, even more than he previously has, in this episode, but unlike Willy's Ice Cream Parlor, DikinBaus is just debuting, and Darryl completely brushes over the former (and Kenny) thinking he has enough qualifications and hiring him just to ask for mental health days and an escape from "toxicity," so Cartman being mad at him, refusing to hire him and seeming to think he's ungrateful definitely has some level of reasonability to it.
- Hypocritical Humor:
- Cartman doesn't take his job at the ice cream shop seriously, goofs off on the job, tries to "work from home", and takes days off unauthorized, but later gets frustrated when his own employees and applicants pull the same tricks on him.
- Darryl complains about being fired from multiple other places and bemoans that all he wants is a job. The moment he's offered one, he immediately begins making unreasonable demands to work from home (despite it being a restaurant) and have days off "to deal with the toxic environment". When Cartman (understandably) rescinds the offer, Darryl gets angry and accuses him of "taking his job" that he hadn't even technically got yet.
- Inelegant Blubbering: A downplayed variant. Cartman cries up a storm when he loses ownership of DikinBaus and can be heard aggressively sniffling between sobs, but we don't actually see any mess of snot or saliva (amusingly, the episode ends panning out of Cartman's window while this is still happening, so for all we know it could have happened off-screen).
- Insane Troll Logic:
- Cartman tries justifying his actions committed in "City People" by saying that he's supposed to get a job because he's "the man of the family", while his mom shouldn't because she's supposed to take care of them. This reasoning is rather skewed since Cartman is only a child, while his mom is an adult, along with being a single parent and therefore Liane is supposed to get a job to take care of her child, Cartman, regardless of gender roles.
- Cartman and the various other people who try to work their service industry jobs from home, despite the fact that by definition, these jobs need employees to be there.
- Irony: Cartman started the hot dog business to return to his old home, but ends up turning the hot dog restaurant into the place of his dreams. However, Liane and Butters end it by returning him back to the Cartmans' old home, leaving him crying and bawling, wishing to return to the very place he once hated.
- It's All About Me: As usual, Cartman only thinks about himself, being lazy and taking all the credit for the work that other people did which then later bites him back.
- Jerkass Ball: Downplayed, because although he's not particularly mean about it, Kenny still goes along with Cartman's plan and acts more lazy and more selfish than usual.
- Karma Houdini: Unlike Cartman, Kenny is never shown to receive any punishment for his role in scamming Butters out of his money, though he's likely still stuck living in poverty because he refused to do any hard work at the hot dog restaurant himself.
- Laser-Guided Karma:
- When Cartman pushes his luck with Butters by spending all of his money for his own benefit, Butters decides to raise enough cash to buy Cartman's old house back, robbing the selfish brat of his dream home.
- Then there is Cartman's fate in the future which Cartman's actions here allude to. Cartman's refusal to work hard in his life will result in him becoming homeless and ineffectual as an adult, while his mistreatment towards Butters as shown in this episode will result in him showing Cartman No Sympathy for his terrible fate.
- Lazy Bum: Cartman, as per usual. He slacks off when he gets the job at the ice cream shop and leaves Butters to do all the work. Then when he decides to open the hot dog stand, he tries bumming off all the grunt work to other people while refusing to get his hands dirty once that proves to be futile.
- Never My Fault:
- Cartman still blames his mother for their predicament of living in a hot dog stand and when she tells them that this is the result of Cartman forcing her to quit her job, Cartman makes the excuse that he should be the one getting the job being "the man of the family", while Liane should take care of him. When he writes Dikin Baus off as a failure due to the laziness of the staff he chose, he blames the government for shutting down businesses during the pandemic.
- Darryl blames Joe Biden and affirmative action for his unemployment. Given it's illegal to fire someone based on their race or gender, it's a Five-Second Foreshadowing that he might just be a lousy employee.
- Out-Gambitted: In the end, Cartman gets outsmarted by Butters, of all people. As revenge for taking his hard-earned money without his knowledge, Butters sells DikinBaus to other investors behind Cartman's back, forcing him to move back to his old home when the new investors kick him and Liane out of DikinBaus.
- Pet the Dog: While Cartman once again takes advantage of Butters, he is friendly to Kenny throughout the episode, taking him on his "business trip" and even letting him have a mental health day.
- Psychological Projection: Stephen accuses Butters of using work as an excuse to go out and have gay sex. Stephen then gets upset and proceeds to leave, saying he has to go to do some "work".
- Puppy-Dog Eyes: Kenny makes these when Cartman is trying to guilt Butters into handing over his hard-earned wages.
- Pyrrhic Victory: Cartman does get back his old home like he initially wanted. However, it becomes meaningless to Cartman since he had just converted the hot dog stand into his dream home.
- Ripped from the Headlines: As per usual with South Park. Around the time this episode aired in early 2023, some states like New Jersey and Arkansas began rolling back child labor restrictions.
- Running Gag:
- Cartman acting lazy during his shift, taking excessive 'breaks' and not doing his fair share of the work.
- People 'working from home' during their shifts.
- People using 'mental health days' as an excuse to not do work.
- Sequel Episode: To "Cartmanland", which also dealt with Cartman splurging unearned money on an extravagant business, only to lose everything due to lacking the necessary business skills.
- Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: This episode sits on the far end of Idealism. Butters utterly destroys Cartman by sticking to his principles.
- Smart Ball: While Butters' naïveté is normally Played for Laughs, here he proves to be an extremely competent restaurant worker and surprisingly savvy with financial matters.
- Status Quo Is God: Played with. After a season and two specials, Cartman and his mom got their house back, much to the former's chagrin (since he turned the hot dog stand into his dream home before Butters sold it). However, them getting their house back doesn't change the fact that Liane's relationship with Cartman is still fractured because of the latter's actions, and now Butters has a very good reason to despise Cartman as well.
- Stealing the Credit: Naturally Cartman is the one who takes all of the credit after Butters singlehandedly turns DikinBaus into a success. Thankfully, Laser-Guided Karma kicks in shortly after.
- Take That!:
- To those who attempt to exploit new job perks such as "working remotely" and "mental health days", showing that they lack work ethic and cause businesses to suffer.
- Cartman and Kenny spending all of Butters' investment money on extravagant business purchases they can enjoy while doing little to actually make the business profitable is one to several real-life startup leaders who have engaged in similar behavior, like Adam Neumann
. - Darryl Weathers also expresses dismay at being fired from his job because they wanted to be more "inclusive", taking shots at businesses who want to hire more minorities at the expense of people who already work there. Of course, it's possible that Darryl was shifting the blame since immediately after Cartman hires him, he requests to work from home and take a mental health day.
- On the other hand, given that universities like Harvard and Yale have lost lawsuits for using affirmative action to recruit more minorities and that companies are receiving the same discrimination lawsuits regarding DEI recruitment policies, it's reasonable not to take everything Darryl says with a grain of salt.
- When a passing teenager turns down working at Cartman's new hot dog stand, Cartman (who's established as being a Lazy Bum who makes everyone else work for him) lashes out and calls his entire generation lazy and not wanting to work, mocking a recurring criticism employers in Real Life throw out in response to unrest by their employees. On a less laughing matter, this is also a reference to the mental health effects the COVID-19 pandemic had on society from 2020-2021 and reduced their motivation.
- The episode could be read as a Take That! to child labor laws, as Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a bill in her state rolling back the protections on such laws a couple of weeks before this episode aired.
- A Taste of Their Own Medicine: After spending the series manipulating and screwing people for his own benefit, especially Butters as shown here, Cartman himself gets Out-Gambitted and screwed over by Butters in the end where the latter makes a deal to sell DikinBaus behind Cartman's back, leading to Cartman suffering a massive Villainous Breakdown when he's forced to move out of DikinBaus.
- This Is Gonna Suck: Even prior to setting up their revenge, Butters and Liane are a lot more savvy to Cartman's behaviour than before and are unwilling to enable him.
- Even with his occasional work overload, Butters is very uneager to vouch for Cartman at Willy's Chilly, nor to loan him his paycheck, and practically pleads for Cartman not to blow his new job.
- Liane briefly breaks from her Tough Love stance to ask Cartman in vain to stop renovating the house, anxious about her livelihood being further sabotaged by his scheming.
- Throw the Dog a Bone:
- Butters has spent the majority of the show being the Butt-Monkey with countless people getting away with taking advantage of him, especially Cartman. Butters is finally given a win here when he gets all of his money back and make Cartman pay by selling the latter's dream house to new investors, all while Butters gets to profit off of Cartman's well-deserved karma.
- Ever since the previous season's "City People", Liane's had to suffer because of Cartman, with him sabotaging her career thanks to his selfish desire for her to be his stay-at-home mom and forcing them to live in the run-down hot dog, not to mention blaming her for it and refusing to let her solve the very problem he keeps blaming her for. At the end of this episode, the hot dog is built up into a successful restaurant, which Butters sells off. He arranges for them to return to their original home - a move that has Cartman throwing a tantrum, but leaves Liane quite satisfied with the outcome.
- A relatively minor one but Kenny's parents finally buy Karen some ice cream like she requested back in "The City Part of Town".
- Tranquil Fury: Butters is very calm and professional when discussing selling Cartman's restaurant to new investors. However, Butters' wrath is made clear through his actions when he has the new investors remove Cartman from his dream home, which devastates Cartman to the point of tears.
- Unconfessed Unemployment: Butters's parents wrongly assume that his $0 bank balance means that he is doing this — though his father's description of just how it is happening has so many specific details that one might suspect him of being in that situation.
- Villainous Breakdown: Cartman has one when he is forced to move back into his old home, spending the end crying hysterically about wanting to go back to his dream home with his mother paying no mind.
- Visual Metaphor: Cartman, usually the dominant in his relationship with his mother, is dragged away from DikinBaus kicking, screaming and impotent. He's basically been castrated and thus neutralized.
- Wham Episode: At the end, Butters sells DikinBaus and arranges for the Cartmans to move back into their old house, thereby ending the season-long arc of them living in the hot dog stand. More importantly, between Cartman's behavior in this episode, Butters' payback, and Liane's no-nonsense attitude at the end, this episode makes it firmly clear that Cartman's fate as a drunken angry hobo is now inevitable.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Despite Kenny being Cartman's partner in crime in this episode, we don't know what happened to him after Butters usurped Cartman's ownership of DikinBaus.
- With Friends Like These...: While it's pretty expected for Cartman to exploit Butters mercilessly and take his wages, Kenny has zero qualms being his associate either.
- Writers Cannot Do Math: Cartman started his ice cream job at 1:30 pm and a time card says 3:15 pm - 1.2 hours into the job when it would actually be 1.75 hours.
