Original air date: 6/17/1998
In this clip show episode, Ms. Crabtree becomes a famous stand-up comedian while the South Park kids reminisce on all their adventures while stuck on a bus on the edge of a cliff.
"City on the Edge of Forever" episode contains examples of:
- Ad-Break Double-Take: The bus splitting in two and falling off a cliff.
- Adam Westing: Subverted with Henry Winkler. The Fonz appears in the episode, but Winkler voices the Big Scary Monster.
- Adults Are Useless: All of the parents immediately come to the idea that all of their kids just ran away, and set up a campaign begging them to come home. The kids lampshade why they didn't just try searching for them. It also never occurs to them that their bus driver is missing too which would've made it much easier to figure out what really happened
- All Just a Dream: The episode twists the conventional Clip Show by having each clip end with a completely different situation from its original episode, ending every time with a reference to ice cream among other things. This was all framed with the kids telling stories while the bus lies on the edge of a cliff. At separate points, they flash back on a Fonzie stunt they witnessed (which never happened on the show) and an earlier moment in the framing device itself. When the bus finally falls into the chasm, it inexplicably lands on a giant tub of ice cream. All of this, including an unrelated subplot surrounding Ms. Crabtree, were all part of a dream by Cartman which ended with him eating beetles and ice cream once again being brought up, thus revealing that the entire episode was a Dream Within a Dream conjured by Stan. After that is established, however, the episode returns one last time to Ms. Crabtree's subplot, where her love interest Marcus tells her that he can't stay, as everything on her side of the story was just a kid's dream. Her response? "I know, but let me just pretend as long as I can."
- And This Is for...: Parodied. Kenny kills death while yelling "and this one's for me" over and over. It Makes Sense in Context when you know that Kenny's Blessed with Suck because he keeps dying and coming back to life—over and over, so each "me" is one of those deaths.
- As Himself: Brent Musburger and Jay Leno.
- The Big Damn Kiss: Parodied in two of the flashbacks, where Stan sweeps Wendy off her feet and kisses her near the end.
- Catapult Nightmare: Played straight with Cartman, but averted with Stan.
- Clip Show: This episode is a clip show in the form of the boys trying to figure out what the monster outside the bus Ms. Crabtree tells them is out there could be, but it has a twist in that the ending of each part of the clip is different compared to what actually happened.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: One clip has Kenny flipping Death off his trike and stamping on him until all of Death's limbs and hood are scattered.Stan: Oh my god, Kenny... killed Death.
Kyle: You... bastard? - Digital Destruction: The HD remastered version of the episode remastered everything except the flashbacks. They simply took the original SD version, stretched it to 1080p, and applied very reflective blur filters to the sides of the screen. This isn't exclusive to flashbacks to other episodes; even the original flashbacks weren't remastered, not even the one to earlier in the same episode.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Even Cartman is horrified at the thought of Ms. Crabtree shooting an innocent bunny. Though given this is before his sociopathic behavior really developed, it may be a case of Characterization Marches On.
- Jerkass:
- Ms. Crabtree. She screams at the kids and threatens to shoot a bunny to keep them quiet.
- The truck driver who picks up Ms. Crabtree, considering he was going to date-rape her without remorse.
- Not His Sled: Part of the Clip Show parody, other than the whole ice cream thing, is something from a previous episode randomly changing, such as Scuzzlebutt having Brent Musburger for a leg instead of Patrick Duffy, or Kenny killing Death, or even Kathy Lee Gifford being secretly an alien and the Weight Gain 4000 actually working for Cartman.
- Red Shirt: Parodied when one kid who is wearing a red Star Trek shirt gets off the bus and ends up being the monster's first victim.
- Running Gag: All the "clips" end with the boys eating ice cream.
- Shout-Out: The literal Red Shirt kid is obvious, but the title is also the same as one of Star Trek: The Original Series' most famous episodes. Also, the first place Mitch/Marcus brings Ms. Crabtree is a comedy-club hosted by an expy of Carrot Top - "Carrot Ass".
- They Killed Kenny Again: Kenny is killed by the monster outside the bus (the kids later remember this as the monster giving them all ice cream). He's also killed in a flashback about the Fonz riding a motorcycle over buses and crashing into Kenny after landing, which Stan and Kyle say can't have happened since Kenny just died earlier. Although, since it's All Just a Dream, Kenny doesn't technically die in this episode.
