Original air date: 1/12/2000 (produced in 1999)
The class visit Mr Garrison's hometown of Arkansas for a recorder concert where they attempt to find the mysterious `brown noise'. Meanwhile, Mr. Garrison demands to know why his father didn't sexually abuse him.
"World Wide Recorder Concert" contains the following examples:
- Abusive Parents: Averted and parodied with Mr. Garrison's dad. The beginning of the episode makes it seem like he traumatized Mr. Garrison by molesting him. However, Mr. Garrison was traumatized because his father didn't molest him, making him feel unloved.
- Accidentally-Correct Writing: In-Universe, the boys come up with "mung" as fake slang that they can taunt the New York kids over not knowing. The New York kids then make fun of them for thinking it's made up and not knowing what it actually means.
- Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering?: After Cartman demonstrates the brown noise:Stan: Dude, are you thinking what I'm thinking?
Cartman: That they should bring back Chicago Hope for another season? Totally!
Stan: No! That we could use the brown noise to get back at those asshole New Yorker kids. - Aren't You Going to Ravish Me?: Mr. Garrison has gotten it into his head that getting molested is a sign of being loved, and since his father never molested him, then it means he doesn't love him. Throughout the episode, Garrison even tries to entice his father into coming for him.
- Big "NO!": The boys have this reaction just before the entire orchestra plays the "brown noise".
- Brick Joke: Stan asks if Arkansas is actually a state when told the concert was moved. When entering Arkansas, the sign says "Yes, we are a state"
- Brown Note: Cartman and Kenny spend a majority of the episode trying to find the fabled "brown noise", and they find it eventually. When Cartman tells Stan and Kyle, they come up with a plan to trick the New York kids into playing it and make them crap their pants.
- Defeat Means Respect: The New York City kids are the only ones to deduce that the boys are the ones responsible for making everybody on Earth crap their pants (including their own). But rather than get mad about it, they are instead duly impressed by the South Park kids' prank and gladly take back everything bad they said about them before.
- Dreadful Musician: The kids' recorder playing sounds jumbled and clumsy in act one. And that's before they all sound the dreaded Brown Note that causes the entire human race to spontaneously void their bowels.
- Gone Horribly Right: The boys managed to discover the Brown Note and tricked the New York kids into playing it. Unfortunately, the other groups of students were also tricked into playing the brown noise and it caused the entire human population to collectively crap their pants.
- Hidden Backup Prince: Parodied with what we first hear about Mr. Garrison's relationship with his father, with the former being pressed about "a demon hiding in his closet" trying to "compromise" his family (in the relayed words of Mr. Mackey), and then (poorly) invoked by obviously non-royal Mr. Garrison himself, who claims he was too busy philandering and doing (commoner) whores around the block to ever have any close-contact relationship with him.
- Last Note Nightmare: The recorder concert orchestra goes just as planned until they end up playing the "brown noise", which causes everyone in the world to crap their pants.
- Major Injury Underreaction: Kenny G thinks that, in spite of making everyone on the planet crap their pants, the concert went really well. Yoko Ono...doesn't exactly agree.
- Not So Above It All: Mr. Mackey gets into a fight with Mr. Hat.
- Not-So-Innocent Whistle: The boys try to get back a a group of New York kids by changing their sheet music to one with the "brown noise" at the end. Unfortunately, the other groups of students were also tricked into playing the brown noise and it caused the entire human population to collectively crap their pants.
- Oh, Crap!: The boys have this reaction when they find out that the sheet music they changed with the "brown noise" was about to be played by every group of students all across the world. The camera even zooms in on the changed note in the TV version.note
- Only Sane Man: Mr. Garrison's Dad.
- Potty Failure: The boys slip a brown note into the sheet music of rivals, but it accidentally gets added to the sheet music for the entire concert, which is being broadcast worldwide...Reporter: Like the rest of the world, everyone here has crapped their pants. Some crapped themselves to death. And still others ...ruined perfectly good pairs of pants.
- Pyrrhic Victory: The boys managed to get back at the New York kids. Unfortunately, they ended up being victims of their own plan and lost Kenny in the process.
- Script Swap: When the boys are able to confirm that the brown note works, they decide to prank some rival kids by altering a copy of the sheet music to include said note and taping it onto their hotel room door. The only problem is that they added a post-it note saying "Revised music for tomorrow", so when one of the organizers of the titular event comes along...
- Shout-Out:
- The boys stay at the Roman Holiday Inn.
- Mr. Garrison's line: "Second star to the right, and straight on 'til morning" is a reference to a line in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. The line was, in turn, a quote from Peter Pan.
- They Killed Kenny Again: Kenny apparently dies from crapping his pants, but he seems to come out okay as he's on the bus at the end of the episode.
- Undignified Death: It’s revealed that Kenny ended up crapping himself to death.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: On the night before the concert, the boys find a way to get back at the New York kids by discovering the "brown noise" in an attempt to cause the latter group to lose control of their bowels; they trick the New Yorkers into playing it. However, the altered sheet music is discovered by the organizer of the concert and is photocopied and redistributed to everyone.
- You Did the Right Thing: Mrs. Garrison says this word-for-word to her husband after Mr. Garrison happily leaves his parents' house, since his father apparently molested him. Mr. Garrison Sr. then reveals he didn't actually molest him, he just paid Kenny G to do it for him.
