Follow TV Tropes

Following

YMMV / South Park Imaginationland

Go To

  • Angst? What Angst?: Not one Good imaginary character or even Butters comforts Blueberry Muffin after Strawberry Shortcake is killed (with Butters himself witnessing it all), treating Strawberry Shortcake's brutal murder as a mere afterthought.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: In the upcoming years, a couple movies have had scenes quite similar to ones features in this trilogy of episodes:
    • The LEGO Movie had the scene of Cloudcuckooland (a bright, colorful landscape not unlike Imaginationland's good side) being bombed and devastated by evil forces, quite similar to the destruction of the good side of Imaginationland by the evil characters, in itself also partially based on war movies and in particular Saving Private Ryan.
    • Ready Player One (2018) ends with a humongous battle among hundreds of characters from all over popular culture. The outcome is the same too: a nuke wipes out everything on the battlefield (OASIS/Imaginationland), but the chosen one (Wade Watts/Butters) somehow survives and in the end restores everything to normal.
    • Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022) is loaded with characters and references from cartoons and CGI-reliant movies. Comic-Con being the biggest demonstration, with all of Seth Rogen's animated roles up to that point meeting each other. Hell, even Randy Marsh makes a brief cameo in the same movie.
  • Nightmare Fuel: The initial terrorist attack that parodies the infamous scene from Saving Private Ryan is this as we see beloved iconic characters literally bloodied and dying amongst the ruins of the Imagination Village (the most notable being the Raggedy Ann and Andy scene). And then of course that poor Care Bear who gets shot and beheaded on-screen near the end of Part 1.
    • Part 2 isn't any better with the evil characters torturing poor Strawberry Shortcake with them beating her up and Jason tearing out the beloved girl's left eye with Strawberry literally screaming for them to finish her off only for the Christmas Critters to prolong it, and judging by Part 3 where Stan is walking through the Gumdrop Forest, they brutally murdered her (thankfully off-screen).
  • Tearjerker: Seeing beloved and iconic fictional imaginary characters that we all grew up and loved in our entire childhood (at the time of the trilogy's airing) getting brutally killed and murdered across the trilogy can easily be this for some fans:
    • Seeing Raggedy Ann trying her hardest to get a badly bloodied and injured Raggedy Andy to safety during the terrorist attack can be this who grew up having the iconic doll duo as kids (keep in mind, they're supposed to be stuffed dolls in canon, but are shown here to have human blood and organs in South Park's universe since they are real people), you can easily see her trying her hardest not to cry. To make matters worse, Andy doesn't make it, meaning he succumbed to his bloody wounds. We then see Raggedy Ann during the hostage situation, bloodied, utterly terrified and alone over what just transpired as she awaits her possible execution (which thankfully doesn't happen due to the terrorists targeting Rockety Rocket for a suicide bombing after the Care Bear is killed that unleashes the Evil imaginary characters).
    • Same also goes for Totoro, who's a beloved, iconic anime cat who's implied to be as sweet, adorable and lovable as he is in canon, is shown horribly injured (though it's implied he gets away when the evil characters show up).
    • Seeing a Care Bear literally getting shot and later beheaded by a terrorist can be this for those who grew up watching Care Bears back in the 80's. Even the Mayor of Imaginationland is understandably horrified and begs the madman not to kill the Care Bear (making this scene more heartbreaking, its implied the Care Bear was likely a child in their universe), only for him to do so anyways in order to scare and force Butters into complying.
    • While more funny than sad (unless you're a Charlie Brown fan) Charlie Brown getting his leg blown off during the terrorist attack. His whimpering "ugh" can definitely tug some heartstrings, to make matters worse his beloved dog Snoopy is shown alongside Lucy (who are unscathed) in a later cameo, meaning poor Snoopy is without his owner (though it gets better thanks to Butters bringing everyone back), even in South Park's universe, poor Charlie Brown still can't catch a break.
    • The aforementioned Strawberry Shortcake scene where she's brutally tortured and is otherwise screaming for a quick death, and it's highly implied she's just as berry friendly as she is in her home universe, only for the evil characters to break her literally before killing her. Surprisingly enough her friend Blueberry Muffin was able to do her proud by participating and surviving the climatic battle to avenge her before she's killed by the nuke. Only for Butters to thankfully revive everyone and reunite the duo.
    • In the uncensored edition, seeing poor Dorothy Gale getting outright gunned down alongside her beloved pet dog Toto is this for those who grew up watching the Wizard of Oz (especially for dog lovers, as they look very much like they do in their iconic film), same also goes for Mickey Mouse (before his infamous Face–Heel Turn in the actual South Park show), who's implied to be the same beloved mouse he is in canon getting his head blown off trying to escape the slaughter by the evil characters.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The idea of seeing our beloved favorite fictional characters (at the time) all together in South Park while a good idea, was ultimately wasted potential as there were several odd choices as to which series got represented:
    • Remy from Ratatouille is spotted amongst the crowd of the good characters in Part 3 when an obvious choice for a Pixar representative was with either Woody from Toy Story (who got a brief cameo in the arrival to Imaginationland waving his lasso), or someone from The Incredibles (which was a beloved film that was released 3 years earlier), though this could be chalked up due to the film being released around the time of the trilogy's broadcast.
    • Mothra and King Ghidorah were an odd choice to represent Godzilla when Godzilla himself was available (though seeing as how overprotective Toho is of their beloved star who was already parodied several years earlier, it was obvious Godzilla wouldn't appear, especially since he was gonna get nerfed to oblivion).
    • Ash Ketchum from Pokémon is seen in a blink-and-you-miss it cameo amongst the good characters (based off his Kanto-Johto look), with no signs of his beloved Pikachu (this likely has to do with the controversy over the South Park episode parodying the franchise that got them on Nintendo's radar, on top of possibly traumatizing kids of killing Pikachu, despite this a Chinpokomon appears as a stand-in for the beloved Pokémon, where as Mario, Wario, Bowser, Link and Ganondorf all got very noticeable cameos.)
    • Likewise Son Goku from Dragon Ball (in his Z incarnation) is the only character to represent the beloved manga with no signs of Vegeta or Frieza.
  • Blueberry Muffin's entire role in this trilogy is shockingly very minimal, despite the fact she escaped the initial terrorist attack, the initial onslaught of the evil characters and played a major role in the climatic battle. Many had wished she'd been the one to accompany Butters to Castle Sunshine instead of Snarf as it would have given her a damn good reason to fight on the front lines as she would have witnessed her friend Strawberry Shortcake getting tortured and murdered. Because there was already too many beloved characters taking up scenes, meant that Blueberry Muffin's escapades were kept off-screen.

Top