Original air date: 4/19/2000
After new student Timmy is misdiagnosed with ADD and is excused from homework with Ritalin, the other children join in. Meanwhile, Timmy becomes the lead singer of a local rock band and Phil Collins protests against how Timmy is allegedly being exploited.
Examples:
- Adults Are Useless: The school psychiatrist diagnoses Timmy with ADD, even though his condition is much worse than that, then diagnoses all of the kids with ADD, even though it's clear they don't have it. The psychiatrist's method of diagnosing the disorder is to read an extremely long book made for young adults from start to finish, then ask a very specific question about some minor, forgettable detail in one of the chapters and falsely diagnose the kids when they (understandably) don't know the answer to the question.
- Annual Title: The third of four episodes early in season 4 to have "2000" in its title, in reference to the year the episodes first aired.
- Ass Shove: The Lalapalalapaza crowd shoves Collins' Oscar up his ass.
- Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: The entire elementary school is diagnosed with ADD, and every single kid in town was prescribed Ritalin; the teachers then complained that the school was now calm to the point of dullness (and how did they illustrate this dullness? Everyone suddenly had a yearning to go and see Phil Collins in concert), and everyone was prescribed a Ritalin antidote, Ritalout.
- Biting-the-Hand Humor: MTV (a TV channel owned by the same parent company as Comedy Central that also airs South Park in some countries) is accused of dumbing down the USA.
- Black Comedy: Chef recommends a doctor who deals with kids that have ADD in an attempt to stop the children from using Ritalin. Said doctor's method is to hit children and yell at them to "Sit down and study!" When the second child cries from this, the doctor smacks him again to make him stop and the third kid follows suit out of fear.
- Breakout Character: This episode gives Timmy a major appearance along with having him officially be a part of the class.
- Continuity Nod: Mr. Derp from "Succubus" reappears in this episode running a lemonade stand.
- Shelley's ex-boyfriend Skyler, along with his bandmates, return from "Cat Orgy" to form the band "Timmy and the Lords of the Underworld" with Timmy.
- Clueless Aesop: The core Aesops are 1. demanding the censorship of disabled people in the media can be just a way to hide them outright and 2. that doctors can be trigger-happy at ADD diagnoses and Ritalin prescriptions are undermined by the following:
- Timmy is severely disabled, and people are laughing at him. No, hiding him and people like him is not the right answer, but depicting him as a walking punchline isn't that much better. And while he's having fun on stage, it's unclear if he's actually aware that the laughter is at him.
- Placing Chef as the Only Sane Man and occasional Author Avatar (along with the main opposition to the kids' Ritalin prescriptions) makes his more accurate points fall flat when he also unironically advocates a doctor whose "drug free" regimen is to hit and intimidate kids with ADD until they stayed quiet. Even if the assault falls under Amusing Injuries and isn't meant to be taken seriously, the underlying suggestions seem to be not "some kids do need Ritalin, and they're in the minority as compared to the kids who are misdiagnosed" and more "any kid who has trouble concentrating just needs to be disciplined harder". Which, as many, many studies done have confirmed isn't true.
- Hypocritical Humor: At the Battle of the Bands contest the boys cheer for Timmy only to be chastised by the adults for supposedly making fun of him, these were the same adults who had ridiculed another band just minutes earlier.
- My God, What Have I Done?: The pharmacists when Chef tells them the Ritalin has caused everyone to enjoy Phil Collins' music.
- Running Gag:
- No one being correctly able to pronounce Lalapalalapaza correctly.
- Collins clutching his Oscar. He kisses it when he succeeds in breaking up Skyler's band and shows it off at Lalapalalapaza.
- Cartman's hallucination of the pink Christina Aguilera monster while on Ritalin.
- Take That!:
- To celebrity of the week, Phil Collins, in spades. The adults only realise that Ritalin is a bad thing the moment they discover that it makes people enjoy Phil Collins' music. This was done purely out of revenge for Collins beating Parker and Stone in the "Best Original Song" category at the Academy Awards.
- Also, to schools for being so quick to diagnose children with ADD even though they might not actually have it.
- Simpleton Voice: Parker's version of Phil Collins talks this way, albeit with a British accent.
- They Killed Kenny Again: Cartman, under the influence of Ritalin, whacks Kenny with a frying pan while having a Christina Aguilera hallucination. Stan and Kyle give subdued versions of their catchphrases.Stan: Oh my goodness, you killed Kenny.
Kyle: Bastard. - Values Dissonance: Happens in-universe with Chef's arguments against giving everyone Ritalin, citing that back in his day kids who misbehaved got spanked. The doctor Chef later recommends still believes this and demonstrates in his video how he can get kids to behave by hitting and yelling at them.
- Vocal Dissonance: When the boys are watching the news, the female anchor has a male voice.
- We Want Our Jerk Back!: Mr. Garrison finds he can't stand his formerly rambunctious students after they all get hooked on Ritalin and mellow out. He's even infuriated by Cartman's lack of smartass comments.
