Original air date: 11/17/1999
Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny are approached by the CIA about an Ethiopian boy called Starvin' Marvin who has got hold of an alien spacecraft.
This episode provides examples of:
- An Aesop: Christian missionaries should focus on helping the communities where they are sent instead of just converting the population to Christianity.
- Answer Cut: Agent Connolly wonders what sadistic backwards Third-World country could get their hands on that ship!" Cut to the ship landing in Australia.
- Artistic License – Religion:
- This episode forgets that half of the actual Ethiopian population is part of Ethiopian Orthodox [Tewahedo] Church or part of Oriental Orthodoxy, with a small yet important exception to P'ent'aynote .
- Marvin himself and his tribe are portrayed as secular for some reason, instead of being a generic Traditional African religious minority or part of the other two major religions in Ethiopia, like again Oriental Orthodoxy or Sunni Islam, like in real-life.
- Christianity is Catholic: Averted with annoying and ignorant Christian (but seemly Evangelical in practice) missionaries, who try to convert Marvin's Ethiopian tribe into (evangelical) Christianity, and this makes Marvin rightfully mad at them for forcing his folk to their religion instead of actually helping them.
- Cool and Unusual Punishment: The government forces the boys to give them information by having one worker rub his hand against a balloon to make a noise that is apparently hard for the ears. Cartman eventually cracks.
- Does That Sound Like Fun to You?: A pair of government agents tells the boys about Marvin obtaining an alien spacecraft.Fed: Earlier this morning, an ethnic child was seen piloting an alien spacecraft over Chinese airspace.Cartman: Cool!Fed: Cool?! That ship has enough plutonium on board to vaporize a small city. Is that "cool"?Cartman: Totally!
- Easy Evangelism: Averted, as the Christian (Evangelical) missionaries don't understand Marvin's tribe language and neglect the whole tribe by refusing to give them any aid as a means to converting them to their version of Christianity, such as giving them food, until they start making progress towards converting. This eventually causes the tribe to board Marvin's spaceship to find a new home— this is solved by moving to Marklar, from where the missionaries are ultimately banished.
- Heel–Face Turn: Despite her antagonism in this episode and "Starvin Marvin," Sally Struthers has a change of heart and turns against the missionaries once the boys remind her of her charity work and how she's inspired them to help the Ethiopians.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: One of the agents mention watching a cartoon making fun of Sally Struthers. This could be a reference to "Starvin' Marvin".
- Left the Background Music On: The boys enjoy the flight better after turning off the annoying background song.
- Loud of War: Cartman reveals information when the CIA agent scratches a balloon.
- May the Farce Be with You: The second half of the plot turns into a Star Wars spoof.
- The intro after the main credits Fade In like in the Star Wars movies.
- Sally Struthers is depicted as Jabba the Hutt in contrast to previously being obscenely overweight in "Starvin' Marvin". She even has a Tiberian Junker.
- Kenny is frozen in carbonite like Han Solo.
- The CBN spaceship is modeled after the Rebel fleets' X-Wing fighters (with a little bit of the Klingon Bird-of-Prey).
- CIA agent Sphinx waves his hand in an attempt to use the Jedi Mind Trick on Sally Struthers.
- Mistaken for Aliens: The people of Australia thought Marvin was an alien. Well, he did emerge from a spaceship.
- No Delays for the Wicked: Parodied and taken Up to Eleven: the missionaries are somehow able to instantly conjure up a spaceship capable of interstellar travel and several upgrades for it out of thin air just because a fundraiser show is asking donations for those things without any plausible way of turning those donations into the required materials and labor in the ridiculously short span of time that passes from the fundraiser show requesting the donations to the missionaries receiving the end result, especially since the fundraiser is still taking place on Earth while the ship is off in outer space trying to stop the boys and Starvin' Marvin.
- Oh, Crap!: The alien ambassador from Marklar when it realizes the lions it's addressing are in fact carnivorous animals.
- Papa Wolf: During the battle, Chef tries to protect the kids, but Kenny still ends up getting killed.
- Planet of Steves: Marklar is the former trope namer. All named Marklar, and they replaced all nouns with Marklar.
- Recycled Animation: When Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Marvin go through the wormhole again, they simply rehashed footage from earlier on in the episode. Notice how Kenny appears with them on the ship, even though we saw him frozen in carbonite on Sally Struthers' ship earlier.
- Sequel Episode: This is the second episode with Starvin' Marvin, the first being "Starvin' Marvin". This is also the first one to feature him as the main character.
- Shout-Out:
- The CBN spaceship's bridge is loosely designed like the bridge of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701.
- The scene where Marvin flies over Australia is reminiscent of Flight of the Navigator.
- Smurfing: All people, places, and things on Marklar are referred to as Marklar. Kyle even explains the situation in the Marklar's language.Kyle: Wait. Wait. I think I can explain this whole thing. Marklar, these marklars want to change your marklar. They don't want Marklar or any of these marklars to live here because it's bad for their marklar. They use Marklar to try and force marklars to believe they're marklar. If you let them stay here, they will build marklars and marklars. They will take all your marklars and replace them with Marklar. This marklar have no good marklar to live on Marklar, so they must come here to Marklar. Please, let these marklars stay where they can grow and prosper without any marklars, marklars, eh or marklars.
Marklar: Young marklar, your marklars are wise and true. - Take That!: Towards Christian missionaries (especially Evangelicals) and The 700 Club. The former is depicted trying to bribe starving Ethiopians with food into adopting Christianity and ordering them to read the Bible in "God's language" (English). The latter, meanwhile, shamelessly asks their followers for money to buy space travel equipment to bring Christianity to the Marklar, who really don't give a crap about it after hearing a stirring explanation from Kyle.Sister Hollis: But you will all burn forever in eternal hellfire.Marklar: Yes, that's nice. Thank you for stopping by.
- The Teaser: This is the first time that the series opened an episode with no credits. On the
DVD Commentary, Trey Parker and Matt Stone refer to this as the first episode of Starvin' Marvin in Space instead of a South Park episode. - They Killed Kenny Again: Subverted, as he only gets frozen in carbonite. We don't ever see him freed outside of the animation error mentioned above, though.
- Totem Pole Trench: The boys do this and pretend to be Tom Brokaw so they can distract the government while Marvin boards his people onto the spacecraft. When Kyle makes a comment from inside the costume, Cartman at the head tries to cover by saying that he had some bad burritos.
