Recap / South Park S 7 E 6 Lil Crime Stoppers

Original air date: 4/23/2003

After the boys start a Jr. Detective's Club and find a girl's missing doll, they are recruited by the county police department. Their first assignment: to break up a meth lab.

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"Lil' Crime Stoppers" contains examples of:

• Accidental Heroes: The boys' "success" in cleaning up the South Park Police Department and shutting down the local drug ring consists mostly of their stumbling into criminal situations, causing the paranoid criminals to overreact and get themselves killed through their own stupidity.
• Ask a Stupid Question...: When Sarah Peterson asks the boys to find her lost doll.
  Kyle: Do you know where your doll is?
  Sarah: If I knew where it was, it wouldn't be lost.
• Bait-and-Switch: The boys are hired to find out what happened to a woman's missing pie. They see her dog eating the last of it. They tell the woman their conclusion of what happened, but it's a horrifically gruesome and complicated story involving attempted murder.
• Born Lucky: The boys have been in many situations where they were lucky to come out alive, but this one takes the cake. They were in a violent shootout (complete with multiple explosions) and were the only ones to get away unscathed. Played for Laughs, of course. Even Kenny is completely unharmed.
• Brick Joke: Early on, Cartman wants a semen sample from Butters, and tells Butters that he'll go to jail for the rest of the life if he doesn't. At the end, after the kids are done playing detective, Butters comes in with a cup and explains that he finally has one after two days of trying to masturbate.
• Casual Danger Dialogue: In the final shootout at the Peppermint Hippo, even when the cops and drug kingpins are opening fire on each other (with pretend guns in the boys' case), the DJ makes an offhand comment about the bullets flying about the place and then goes back to introducing the next stripper, while an older stripper with a coarse voice wanders around the club asking if anyone wants a lap dance from her, amazingly not being killed.^note  She is identified as Blaze in South Park: The Fractured but Whole, and is hired as PC Principal's receptionist in later seasons.
• Chekhov's Gag: Early on, when the kids playing FBI take over the boys' case, Cartman suggests they could just go back to playing Laundromat. At the end of the episode, when Lt. Dawson decides to promote them after they survive their latest shootout, the boys decide they've had enough with playing Detective...and start pretending to run a laundromat instead in Cartman's basement.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Murphy kills his associates, then kills Jenkins when he wants the full 100%, and then himself when he says he's the only one he can't trust.
• Corruption of a Minor: The boys are forced to investigate a meth lab and go to a strip club.
• Cowboy Cop: As part of the episode's parody of police drama tropes, Lt. Dawson interprets the carnage at the meth lab as evidence the boys are reckless loose cannons who don't care about regulations. In reality, the chaos they leave in their wake in the second and third acts is because they have absolutely no idea what they're doing and/or are dealing with crooks and corrupt fellow cops who are Too Dumb to Live.
• Da Chief: Parodied with Lt. Dawson, who berates the boys for their "unorthodox" methods that lead to the deaths of multiple suspects and roughly $100,000 in property damage, threatens to take away their badges if they screw up one more time, and constantly grouses about having the mayor "all over [his] ass".
• Dirty Cop: Jenkins and Murphy are in league with Gino, the head of the local drug ring; they turn a blind eye to his crimes in exchange for 50% of the profits. This blows up in the final act when the cops turn on Gino, and then each other.
• Dirty Kid: Kenny is in rare form in this episode. When the boys play police detectives, he's the sketch artist. When a witness gives him a description, he draws it as an attractive woman with huge breasts. He then pins it on a bulletin board with a bunch of other sketches, which are labeled "Kenny's Most Wanted."
• Doing In the Wizard: When the boys are in a shootout with Fosse and Bill, Fosse denies that Stan shot him because he's wearing special "wizard armor." Stan then reminds him that they're not playing Dungeons & Dragons.
• Dramatic Gun Cock: Stan does this with his finger gun when he suggests sneaking in through the back door to ambush Fosse and Bill.
• Foreshadowing: This episode hints that Kenny's family operates a meth lab^note At the Peppermint Hippo, the owner of the club holds a meeting in the backroom, saying, "We'll have to start having the McCormicks make our meth again," before being interrupted by the club bouncer, something that wouldn't be revealed until "The Poor Kid", eight seasons later.
• Go-Karting with Bowser: Fosse and Bill stole the doll, which puts them at odds with the boys when they come to take it back. However, when Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny storm their house, rather than seriously try to stop them, they instead play along with the game, returning fire with their finger guns and playing dead when they get "hit," allowing the boys to rescue the doll from them.
  Fosse: We were playing gynecologists and now we're playing criminals.
• Good Cop/Bad Cop: Parodied in Butters' interrogation scene, with Kenny as the good cop trying to reassure Butters and Cartman as the bad cop demanding answers to questions even he doesn't fully understand.
• Hero Insurance: Averted, the South Park Police Department is charged tens of thousands dollars in damages caused by the drug ring.
• Insane Troll Logic: Jenkins ends up shooting himself because he knows he can't trust anyone he works with, and counts himself as someone he works with.
• Jurisdiction Friction:
  • Parodied with the boys who are playing "FBI" and take over the investigation of Sarah Peterson's stolen doll. They order Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny to hand over the evidence they have gathered, and show up at Fosse's house to demand the return of the doll just as the boys are gearing up to storm the place.
  • In the final act, the real FBI show up and take over the investigation of the drug ring from the Park County PD. Lt. Dawson reacts the same way the boys did — whining that it isn't fair (to which FBI agent Fields counters, "Is so, is so!").
• Misblamed: In-Universe the boys are blamed for the reckless damage caused on their jobs, when it's all caused by the idiocy of the drug ring.
• Out-of-Character Moment: Cartman defends Kyle when Stan accuses him of not being devoted enough to their cause.
• Police Are Useless: Most cops on the force are part of a drug ring, steal money from crime scenes, and mock the kids for not being like them.
• Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: The boys pretended to fire their toy/finger guns by shouting "Bang! Bang! Bang!" Even after they officially join the force, they were never issued real equipment or weapons so they continued to do this while fighting actual armed criminals. Kenny also tries to imitate the sounds of bullets ricocheting which Cartman disliked.
  Kenny: Pakew! Pakew!
  Cartman: Kenny, it doesn't go "Pakew! Pakew!", it goes "BANG! BANG! BANG!"
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: When the boys realize just what being police officers entails, they all quit and start playing "Laundromat" instead.
• Self-Disposing Villain: After killing off all his shady business partners, Jenkins kills himself because he can't trust anyone who works with him... including himself.
• Shout-Out: The two boys who stole the little girl's doll are undeniably based on Beavis And Butthead.
• Stupid Crooks: Exaggerated with just how lethally stupid they are. Each criminal organization the boys confront end up killing themselves, by accidentally shooting their buddies, crashing their cars, or taking off in helicopters that don't have any fuel. Even the corrupt police force ends up disposing of itself.
• Take That!:
  • When the boys come up with an overly grotesque theory of why an elderly couple's pie went missing, they ask them what TV they've been watching and Stan responds "Just the news."
  • The feminist movement is said to have been started by "fat old skanks on their period". Trey Parker has gone on record to state his hatred for the idea of feminism in a couple of interviews.
• The Starscream: Murphy and Jenkins are on Gino's payroll, but they're scheming to take control of his operation for themselves. Jenkins is also plotting to double-cross Murphy and kill him once Gino is out of the way. Then he shoots himself to keep him from backstabbing himself.
• Title Drop: When the boys ask Mr. Stotch if he'd like to avail himself of their crime solving services at the beginning of the episode, he replies, "Lil' Crime Stoppers, eh?"
• Token Good Teammate: Hopkins is the only good cop on the force, defending the kids and not committing crimes, and therefore is the only one to survive in the end.
• Too Dumb to Live: Everyone in the drug ring is stupidly reckless and gets themselves killed. One of them even commits suicide after deciding he is the only one he can't trust. The boys' "heroism" mostly consists of unwittingly making the paranoid criminals overreact and then get hoisted by their own petards.
• Under Strange Management: The main plot involves the main characters (literal children) going from playing detective to being recruited by the South Park police force to take down a meth lab. They succeed only due to the extreme stupidity of the criminals.
• Wins by Doing Absolutely Nothing: The boys often tried to fight criminals by "shooting" them with toy guns and only managed to survive thanks to the criminal's extreme stupidity. The meth lab bust however simply had the boys standing idly at the front porch while the dealers accidentally destroyed the place and killed themselves trying to defend it.