YMMV / South Park: Joining the Panderverse

• Accidental Aesop: Panderverse Cartman isn't fat enough to truly embody Cartman. She's just more voluptuous than her friends. This could be seen as a jab at the media's habit of judging women on a fat-skinny binary.
• Awesome Music: The Panderverse Butters's version of "Loo loo loo" is sung in a beautiful, soulful voice that's as soothing as it is hilarious.
• Heartwarming Moments
  • In the opening scene where Cartman's having a nightmare, and Liane is entering his room, she is genuinely concerned, and while she is firm that there is nothing under his bed and his fear is irrational, it's clear that she's telling him this to help him. Previously, it was implied that their relationship was destroyed because of Eric's actions, but this indicates that Liane still cares about her son despite everything.
  • The ending where Eric Cartman and Kathleen Kennedy make peace with each other. Eric Cartman of all people, admitted that he was wrong and apologized to the person that he had wronged, and the two of them parted on good terms. Cartman didn't even jump at a chance to double-cross Kathleen Kennedy at all; he willingly took her hand and led her to the portal, where they both returned home. It is heartwarming to see that, despite everything he has done, Eric Cartman can still admit he was wrong and be genuinely good.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The show's satire of Disney and the company's efforts to pander to audiences through diverse, female characters became more hilarious a few days after the special's premiere when a Variety exposé revealed that one of Marvel Studios' seriously considered plans for the upcoming Blade film was to have the titular character in a supporting role while focusing instead on a group of female characters (and was ultimately scrapped when star Mahershala Ali threatened to drop out). Most recently, it's been reported that Disney's MCU want to turn Silver Surfer, a male character, into a female, despite there already being a female version name Nova (aka Frankie Raye) who served along with Silver Surfer as a herald for Galactus for the MCU's introduction of the Fantastic Four.
• Hollywood Pudgy: Played for laughs with Panderverse Cartman. She's called fat just as much as regular Cartman, but unlike him, she's simply a little thicker than the other Panderverse students.
• Misaimed Fandom:
  • Despite the episode mocking both sides of the debate on diverse media, many articles about the episode and even some fans took the "rage-baiting" parts of the episode at face value, claiming that the special is entirely on their side. This largely stemmed from unverified rumors about Rachel Zegler reacting excessively negatively to the episode, as news of the live-action Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs being delayed was published an hour after the special came out, and fans had been speculating from the special's trailer that there'd be a passing mention of the former in the final product.
  • On the flip side, several on the left claims the right failed to realize the episode took shots at "the right YouTubers" for one scene while themselves failing to realize that the show has taken multiple shots at "wokeness" with the character of PC Prinicpal representing them, and also taking shots at Disney with Mickey Mouse being used as a villain in a few episodes. In the end, both sides just missed the fact that both sides are presented as part of the problem - which is the show's speciality.
• Not-So-Cheap Imitation: Many viewers have given the episode accolades for getting actors who actually do a great job imitating the original boys' personalities and speaking patterns, despite the special mostly being a critical parody of that very trope. Special mention goes to the Panderverse versions of Cartman and Butters, whose actresses perfectly carry over the original characters' cadence and general mood.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Mickey Mouse has no major role in this special, with his only appearance being a picture of him hanging in the company’s building. This seems like a waste, since Mickey Mouse has established himself in the show as CEO of Disney who’s usually the antagonist whenever Disney gets involved in an episode, so he could have had a major villainous role in this episode. If there wasn't enough time to include him or that's not the direction the writers wanted to go in, they missed a great joke by having some Disney exec casually mention that Mickey is slumbering in Valhalla at that moment.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Several critics have pointed out that, for all its roasting of Kathleen Kennedy, the special lets Disney's real-life CEO Bob Iger off the hook almost entirely (outside of being portrayed as somewhat of a simpleton), even though a lot of Disney's more contentious content policies involving the wider brand are driven in large part by him rather than Kennedy (her influence doesn't extend very far past their Lucasfilm properties). There is the barest acknowledgement of this near the end (Iger's insincere "Suuure we will..." when Kennedy pledges to stop pandering), indicating that Matt & Trey were at least aware of the fact, but it's otherwise not explored. That said, there is a possibility that Iger isn't off the hook after all, but they're saving critiques of him for a future episode/special.
• The Woobie: Kathleen Kennedy was a Disney executive who wanted to make films with more diverse representation to genuinely push for social progress, but got thousands of hate mail letters (mainly from Cartman). She was driven to use the Pander Stone because of this and got trapped in another dimension for months.

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