Original air date: 2/11/1998 (produced in 1997)
When Mr. Garrison takes time off from school to get a nose job, a substitute named Ms. Ellen (guest star The Chick from "Species") is called in to teach the class — and Wendy worries that she has her eyes on Stan.
"Tom's Rhinoplasty" contains examples of:
- Adults Are Useless: Due to her Extreme Doormat personality, Ms. Ellen doesn't give Wendy any punishment for challenging her authority, nor for threatening her.
- As Long as It Sounds Foreign: Wendy and the Iraqis speak a mock version of the country's language.
- Big "NO!": Wendy lets several of these out when Mr. Garrison quits, Ms. Ellen becomes her permanent teacher and she hears her grandmother died.
- Black Comedy Burst: This show named the They Killed Kenny Again trope, but Wendy (normally one of the good guys) having somebody murdered over what amounts to a mere misunderstanding is another level.
- Break the Cutie: Wendy emotionally tears up as she is losing Stan to Ms. Ellen.
- Bury Your Gays: Ms. Ellen turns out to be a lesbian and Wendy ends up getting her killed.
- Characterization Marches On: Easily one of the best examples in early South Park. Though initially presented as her usual Nice Girl self, Wendy in this episode shows traits of being very clingy regarding her relationship with Stan that devolve into pure Yandere territory when she decides to have her romantic rival killed. Ever since this episode, Wendy would never come close to being this cruel and the amount of times she has been remotely clingy can be count on two fingers, while the rest of the show characterizes her as a resourceful but flawed Nice Girl with strong political beliefs. The one trait of hers that is still preserved in future episodes is her tendency to bite back tenfold when provoked, but even then she always unleashes this on people that are worse than her (like Cartman).
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Wendy starts out this way after Stan grows a crush on Mrs. Ellen. When her attempts to win Stan back or to get Mrs. Ellen to back-off fail, she becomes a much worse version of this trope.
- Comically Missing the Point: After hearing that Ms. Ellen is a lesbian, Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny subsequently lick carpet while listening to music in an attempt to become lesbians.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Just because Wendy was jealous, she gets Ms. Ellen fired into the sun.
- Dude, She's A Lesbian: The boys are crushing on Ms. Ellen, but Chef tells them they don't have a chance because she's a lesbian; unfortunately they don't know what "lesbian" means.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Saddam Hussein makes his first appearance via a photograph of Ms. Ellen apparently giving him a lapdance, but is drawn like most other South Park characters, instead of having the photo cut-out head he was given starting with "Terrance and Phillip in Not Without My Anus".
- Extreme Doormat: Ms. Ellen lets Wendy intimidate her and kindly accepts her gift of a dead animal, refusing to give her any form of deserved punishment.
- Hope Spot: For Wendy. When Mr. Garrison returns, it seems like he's back to continue teaching and Wendy celebrates preemptively. Unfortunately for her, Garrison only returned to announce his retirement.
- Hot for Teacher: The boys have a crush on the substitute teacher, Ms. Ellen. But even besides the obvious age problem, she turns out to be a lesbian. Unfortunately, nobody told Wendy that.
- Humiliation Conga: Wendy, after getting a makeover to win Stan back, is immediately out-shined by Ellen's own makeover, then Mr. Garrison comes back to announce his retirement from teaching and that Ellen will replace him, and finally Mr. Mackey comes in to break the news that Wendy's grandmother passed away. Needless to say, she was not happy by the end of the scene.
- Incompatible Orientation: Every boy in class develop a crush on their substitute teacher; Chef, likewise, managed to strong-arm her into a date, but the next day told the kids that she was a lesbian. The boys don't know what that means, so Chef simply explains that lesbians will only date other lesbians. Naturally, the boys thus decide to try and become lesbians.
- Insult Backfire: When Stan and Cartman fight over Ms. Ellen.Cartman: I'm a bigger lesbian than you!
Stan: No, you're a fatter lesbian than me! - Karma Houdini: Wendy gets no comeuppance for getting Ms. Ellen framed and killed, other than getting puked in the mouth by Stan after going back to him.
- Leitmotif: Once Mr. Garrison has the Hasselhoff look and flaunts it, "Shadow Dancing"
by Andy Gibb starts playing. - Lipstick Lesbian: Ms. Ellen is this, according to Chef (thus, causing Stan to be a Hopeless Suitor even without the age and profession complications keeping things platonic on her part).
- Literal-Minded: Cartman's ideas of being a lesbian involve him literally licking carpet and chewing boxes.
- Medium Blending: Mr. Garrison's new face is a real photo of David Hasselhoff's head.
- Murder the Hypotenuse: Basically what happens in the finalized version of the plot.
- My God, What Have I Done?: When Wendy has a (faked) breakdown after Stan and Ms. Ellen supposedly get together, Stan has a sad expression on his face, implying he feels bad over acting aloof towards her. Unfortunately, Wendy already had her mind set on what to do with Ms. Ellen.
- Nice Girl: Ms. Ellen, who is remarkably kind-hearted to a fault, even rewarding students who do good in her class. Unfortunately, she lives in a South park episode.
- Not Helping Your Case: Wendy is not good at hiding her Yandere side.Kyle: Yeah, you're acting like a freak, Wendy.Wendy: (shrieking hysterically) NO I'M NOT ACTING LIKE A FREEEEAK!!!
- Only Sane Woman: Miss Ellen is the only one who finds it troubling how poor an education the children get, and who takes issue with Chef and the kids talking about making sweet love. Unfortunately, she's too much of an Extreme Doormat to do anything about it.
- Poor Communication Kills: If Wendy had been there to hear Chef tell the boys Ms. Ellen was a lesbian, the whole mess could have been avoided. Likewise, if someone had explained to the boys what "lesbian" meant, they would've stopped crushing on her, and Wendy wouldn't need to Murder the Hypotenuse.
- Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: When Cartman sees Wendy dressed in leather, he immediately thinks that she's like 'that chick from Grease', only to mistake Olivia Newton-John as Elton.
- Precision F-Strike: "Don't. Fuck. With. Wendy. Testaburger!"
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: "Don't. Fuck. With. Wendy. TESTABURGER."
- The Rival: Ms. Ellen to Wendy Testaburger. Stan is one of the boys infatuated by Ms. Ellen and she seemingly takes a liking to him, which causes Wendy to go Ax-Crazy, and her attempts to win Stan back fail after her beauty is overshadowed by Ms. Ellen's. She even goes as far as hiring a bunch of Iraqis to shoot her into the center of the sun, and throws a party in celebration of her death.
- Sanity Slippage: Wendy was already a Clingy Jealous Girl, but the Humiliation Conga she goes through after repeatedly trying and failing to win Stan back made her lose her moral compass completely by the end of the episode.
- Shout-Out: Principal Victoria tells Wendy that her grandmother died.
- So Beautiful, It's a Curse: Mr. Garrison after his rhinoplasty.
- Status Quo Is God: Mr. Garrison returns as the class' teacher and has his face returned to normal. Turns out, Wendy made sure that this was enforced.
- Stay in the Kitchen: Cartman claiming that he's going to buy a vacuum cleaner for Ms. Ellen cause "chicks love vacuum cleaners".
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Ms. Ellen grabs an Iraqi soldier's sword and attempts to defend herself with it. She loses her grip on the sword and kills Kenny by accidentally throwing it at him.
- Take That!: When Mr. Garrison is recovering from his operation, he gets nauseous as the doctor describes the condition in graphic detail. What gets him to vomit is when he asks him if he's seen Contact.Mr. Garrison: I sat through that entire movie to see the alien and it was her goddamn father.
- They Killed Kenny Again: Ms. Ellen steals one of the Iraqi soldiers' swords and accidentally flings it at Kenny, pinning him against a wall.Stan: Oh my God, she killed Kenny!
Kyle: (stunned) You bastard! - Unknown Rival: Ms. Ellen doesn't even intend to be part of the competition.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: If Chef had been more clear on what the word "lesbian" meant, he could have saved the boys a lot of trouble, Wendy would have been spared the heartache, and Ms. Ellen would've been spared her life as well.
- Vomit Indiscretion Shot:
- Stan throughout the episode around Ms. Ellen. The flashback montage is of him puking when he's with Wendy. To top that off, Stan vomits in Wendy's mouth when the two get back together.
- Mr. Garrison also does this after waking up from his surgery, not after hearing all of the medical terms, but after hearing of the movie Contact.
- Yandere: Wendy goes from Clingy Jealous Girl to outright murdering her "rival" for Stan's affections.
- You Can Say That Again: Said by Stan in response to a muffled statement from Kenny, who then indeed says it again.
