The town is brainwashed by the curator of a planetarium. Meanwhile, Cartman auditions for a new Cheesy Poofs commercial.
This episode contains the following:
- Accidental Hero: Cartman, furious that no-one saw him on TV, knocks over the mind controlling Planetarium projector in a fit of rage, inadvertently saving Stan and Kyle and wiping the mind of Dr. Adams.
- Actually Pretty Funny: The class cracks up laughing when they hear Kenny’s haiku.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: This is the first episode where Butters speaks, but he sounds nothing like the Butters we know today.
- Expy: The poor little girl with the windswept hair who is in the call back with Cartman and the others is none other than Cosette, the girl from Les Misérables. If you look at the board behind her, you'll see a poster for the musical which bears the question, "Who will be the next Cosette?".
- Fate Worse than Death: Barbrady considers being brainwashed into thinking he's Elvis Presley is this.
- Hypnotism Reversal: Dr. Adams uses the star projector to hypnotize people into wanting to work for it. However, when he tries brainwashing Stan, Kyle, Mr. Mackey and Nurse Gollum, Cartman - who had snuck out of the planetarium earlier to film a cheesy poofs commercial - arrives, outraged that they never saw his commercial, and in a blind rage, kicks over and destroys the project, freeing everyone and causing a full blast of the machine to get sent to Dr. Adams’ brain, which renders him a mindless shell.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Literally. Dr. Adams' mind is erased by the device that he's been using to brainwash everyone into liking the planetarium.
- Mind-Control Eyes: Everybody brainwashed by the planetarium has hollow pupils.
- Motive Rant: Dr. Adams goes into a rant about how no one likes planetariums anymore since technology has advanced so much that it's caused kids to forget about the planetarium and how he's going to change that.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Stan and Kyle's catchphrase reactions to Kenny's death are revised to reflect this.
- Nonindicative Title: This episode has nothing to do with Roger Ebert and his diet of fatty foods (though he was mentioned in passing during one of the planetarium sessions).
- Recognition Failure: Mr. Mackey assumes that Officer Barbrady thinks he's Charlton Heston.
- Running Gag: Cartman's mom telling him not to pick his nose and him claiming he's just scratching it.
- Shout-Out:
- Mr. Garrison is teaching kids with reruns of Barnaby Jones.
- The song during the laser show at the planetarium is from Footloose.
- Stock Footage: One scene is reused from "Conjoined Fetus Lady", complete with Red being shown in her dodgeball uniform.
- Take That!:
- The episode name is a Take That! at Roger Ebert, likely due to his poor reviews of Orgazmo and Baseketball. One line obscured by Cartman speaking over it has Dr. Adams comparing the hot gas composing stars to "what comes out of Roger Ebert's mouth when he speaks".
- Cartman's rendition of the Cheesy Poofs jingle ends with "I'm talking Night Court-in-its-fifth-season lame!"
- In addition to his rants about the planetarium, Van Gelder also rants about Daisy Fuentes hosting America's Funniest Home Videos.
- They Killed Kenny Again: Stan and Kyle accidentally kill Kenny by turning the planetarium device up to full power, which causes Kenny's head to explode.Stan: Oh my God, we killed Kenny!
Kyle: We're bastards! - Verbal Tic: Dr. Adams has a Speech Impediment from a bone disease that prevents him from pronouncing the T in planetarium (but not in any other word, apparently).Mr. Garrison: That's a pretty weird bone disease.
- Whole-Plot Reference: The main plot involving the planetarium is a spoof of the Star Trek episode "Dagger of the Mind". Dr. Adams is even an Expy of Dr. Tristan Adams from that episode.
- Your Head A-Splode: This is how Kenny dies; his head is unable to take the effects of the planetarium device at full blast.
