Original air date: 3/20/2002
Hoping to get a cool prize on The Maury Show, Kyle, Stan and Cartman pretend Butters has a condition where he has balls on his chin. When only Butters gets the prize, Cartman decides to exploit his bad behavior to get on the show for a prize, too.
"Freak Strike" contains examples of:
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Cartman and the out of control teen try to one up each other with increasingly outlandish behavior and crimes. Cartman concludes his list by noting that he was responsible for inserting CGI Jabba the Hutt into A New Hope.
- Call-Back: When Cartman was pretending to be a troubled kid, some of his falsified claims actually are true, among them saying he kills people ("Scott Tenorman Must Die") and that he commits hate crimes ("Cartman's Silly Hate Crime 2000", although his crime was exaggerated into one).
- The Cameo: Characters from past episodes can be found among the True Freaks Union, including Nurse Gollum and Mr. and Mrs. Thompson.
- Creepy Crossdresser: Cartman dresses up like a skanky teenage girl when he goes on Maury Povich to upstage the current one, who is showing herself to be a really out-of-control kid.
- Didn't Think This Through: The boys failed to realize ahead of time that the prize goes only to the contestant. Thus, Butters wins the golfing trip and they get nothing.
- Disproportionate Retribution: An ambiguous example. While the nerds are fighting over the original copy of The Phantom Menace, one chases the other with an axe. Since the two were stated to make their own movies, it's unknown if it was a real axe or just a prop.
- Everyone Has Standards: Despite trying to one-up Cartman with boasts about how bad she is, the teenage girl and Maury are shocked by his claim of putting Jabba into A New Hope.
- Got Volunteered: Stan, Kyle, and Cartman unanimously choose Butters to get fake balls attached to his chin and go on the Maury Show without waiting for any input from him.
- Hypocritical Humor: When the boys first watch the Maury Show, they're initially disgusted by how he's exploiting people with physical disabilities for profit. Then they find out there are prizes involved and immediately get to work making someone with fake disabilities whom they can exploit for profit.
- Insistent Terminology: "Excuse me, I'm not Incredibly Obese Black Man, I'm Incredibly Black Obese Man."
- Jerkass:
- Maury Povich for exploiting people for his show.
- The freaks aren't portrayed in a positive light either, as they all make their careers going on talk shows to earn sympathy money and prizes, act like the whole thing is serious show business, and are implied to deal fierce retribution to any other freak who doesn't fall in line. They also expect better prizes for appearing on the show in the first place despite knowing the shows only make "tens of thousands" of dollars which is substantially low amount for a TV show.
- The boys use Butters to get a prize off Maury, but when he gets a trip to the biggest miniature golf course in the world and is immediately shipped off without any input, they blame Butters for stealing "their" prize, even though that wasn't his fault at all, and refuse to help him from that point on.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Considering Butters lied to his parents, defrauded a TV show, and gave his grandmother a stroke from shock, this is probably one of the only, if not the only time Stephen and Linda had a good reason to ground Butters.
- Kick the Dog: Stan giving away Butters' location to the freaks who want to have a word with him.Stan: (to Butters) Serves you right for screwing us over.
- Laser-Guided Karma:
- Maury exploiting and degrading people for their disabilities ultimately loses ratings at the end.
- Also, Cartman gets chased by the Freak Strike at the end.
- Butters getting in trouble with his parents, since he actually did do something wrong.
- After trying to exploit Butters, the boys end up losing their golfing trip. Played with in that they don't learn from this, and Stan even has the psychotic freaks go after Butters out of spite.
- Last-Second Word Swap:Butters: Uh uh I can't freak strike, fellas. Ah-, I'm grounded.
Man with Foot on Head: Grounded for what?
Butters: For havin' balls on my- AH! Ah, I mean, nothin'. Ah I'm not grounded. - Leaning on the Fourth Wall: The episode opens with the other boys having forced Butters to dress and act like Kenny. When he gets sick of it, Butters indirectly addresses the audience by saying Kenny is dead and that he's his own person.
- Misplaced Retribution: The boys blame Butters for them not receiving money from the show rather than the show itself.
- Moral Myopia: The boys try to exploit Butters so they could receive credit for it, but when the tables are turned, they suddenly have the nerve to accuse him of stealing their credit.Cartman: Once again, Butters is trying to screw us over! That asshole!
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: At the end of the episode, Cartman rips Butters' fake scrotum off in front of all the freaks out of rage that his prize was once again stolen. While it initially looks like Butters' fakery has been exposed, the freaks instead believe Cartman just outright castrated Butters and attack him, inadvertently freeing Butters from participating in their movement.
- No Name Given: The closest thing to names the freaks are given are a description of their deformity whenever someone references them.
- Point-and-Laugh Show: Brutally mocked.
- Shout-Out:
- The "Look for the True Freak Label" song is a parody of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union's "Look for the Union Label" jingle.
- Several people resembling real people or popular culture characters can be seen among the freaks. Among these there are Joseph Merrick, Rocky Dennis, Sloth, Greedo and Mark Tatum
. Some characters from previous episodes can be seen as well, like Nurse Gollum and the butt-faced people. - A Maury employee is patterned after Spock and looks into a device similar to the science scope from Star Trek: The Original Series.
- Take That!
- To talk shows like Maury, who's stories about Inspirationally Disadvantaged people are really just a thinly-veiled Point-and-Laugh Show.
- One of the freaks is Liza Minnelli.
- In exchange for applying the prosthetic balls to Butters' chin, the nerds request the original AVID copy of The Phantom Menace. While the boys leave, the nerds fight over it, and comment:Kyle: Why the hell would they want that, anyway? Episode I sucked balls.
Cartman: Yeah, it sucked hairy Butters' chin balls. - When boasting out of control he is, Cartman claims to have digitally reinserted Jabba the Hutt into A New Hope.Maury: Wow, that is out of control.
- Tempting Fate: At the end of the episode, Butters notes that for once things worked out for him. Cue Stephen and Linda driving up in a cab.Stephen: Butters!
Butters: [sadly] Oh, I know. - Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: The Maury Povich Show does a whole episode on this with a 13-year-old girl who would be out of control at any age, especially at 13, Cartman who, by this time, is bordering on full-blown psychotic behavior, exaggerates by acting like a more extreme version of the young teen, and a 4-month-old girl who gets naked around older people (which is quite common at that age). The infant is seen as the worst.
- Unexplained Recovery: Subverted. At the beginning of the episode, Kenny appears alive and well like always, his previous death completely forgotten. Then he angrily insists his name is not Kenny and pulls his hood down, revealing he's actually Butters and that Kenny is still dead.
