Rainforest Schmainforest

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South Park episode
"Rainforest Schmainforest"

Episode no.	32
Airdate	April 7, 1999
South Park - Season 3 April 7, 1999 – January 12, 2000
Rainforest Schmainforest Spontaneous Combustion The Succubus Tweek vs. Craig Jakovasaurs Sexual Harassment Panda Cat Orgy Two Guys Naked in a Hot Tub Jewbilee Chinpokomon Starvin' Marvin in Space Korn's Groovy Pirate Ghost Mystery Hooked on Monkey Phonics The Red Badge of Gayness Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics Are You There God? It's Me, Jesus World Wide Recorder Concert

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List of all South Park episodes

"Rainforest Schmainforest" is episode 301 of Comedy Central's animated series South Park. It originally aired on April 7, 1999.

1 Plot
2 Kenny's Death
3 Cultural References
4 Trivia
5 Goofs
6 Continuity Error
7 External links

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Miss Stevens is in Mr. Garrison's class recruiting students for a tree hugging choir tour called "Getting Gay With Kids." The boys cause trouble calling the choir names and belittling their cause and are sent to the office. Kenny has fallen for one of the girls in the choir, Kelly, so when Mr. Mackey punishes the boys by forcing them to join the choir, he is the only one who is happy about it.

The children are on their way to San José, Costa Rica. Kenny meets with Kelly, who calls him Lenny, Benny and any other name that rhymes with Kenny (instead of calling him Kenny). Miss Stevens also tells Cartman that she plans on changing him; she's got a lot of work ahead of her. Upon arriving, the children to meet the Costa Rican President and do a preview dance routine, but Miss Stevens is dismayed by Kyle's lack of co-ordination.

On their tour of the Rainforest, the children see the 'wonders' of the Rainforest, which Cartman keeps trying to beat with a stick. Then their tour guide is killed when he is eaten (and simultaneously defecated) by a man-eating snake. Miss Stevens and the children are on their own in the jungle. They run into a group of revolutionaries, and try to recruit the revolutionaries to their cause, to which the rebel leader replies: "We're not getting gay with any kids" and have to run away when government troops arrive and start a battle. With the group still wandering aimlessly around the rainforest, Cartman decides to leave "this hippie", walks off and finds a friendly crew working on a deforestation project.

Back in San José, the concert is about an hour away from starting. The President stalls for time by telling Polak jokes. Meanwhile, Miss Stevens and the remaining children find a group of natives intent upon killing them, and sacrificing Miss Stevens. At this point, she finally changes her mind, and decides the rainforest is not such a good place after all, just as Cartman and the construction workers arrive to save everyone. Miss Stevens and the children are so happy to be out of the forest that they literally change their tune about the Rainforest. They do a different version of the original song, which rebukes the rainforest rather than praising it as the original did. Even still, Kyle has no co-ordination.

[edit] Kenny's Death

Kenny becomes unconscious when he lies to Kelly and is struck by lightning. She actually resuscitates him, while Stan and Kyle are dumbfounded. This marks the first time someone has ever tried to resuscitate Kenny, and the second time Kenny survives the whole episode.

[edit] Cultural References

Miss Stevens, the Choir Teacher, was voiced by Jennifer Aniston.
The natives using the choir teacher as a sacrifice is very reminiscent of the scene in King Kong where Ann Darrow is put out as a sacrifice for Kong.

[edit] Trivia

When Mr. Mackey speaks Spanish, he says "Mmmmbien" instead of "Mmmmkay", bien being Spanish for "good".
On iTunes the name of this episode is simply "Rainforest".
The name of the organization in this episode "Getting Gay with Kids" as well as the songs they perform are a parody of the international, multi-cultural organization Up with People.
Jennifer Aniston actually voiced the character Mrs. Stevens, the choir teacher.
This episode is the first to feature certain elements that would later become regularly recurring on the show, among them are stereotypes being proven true (especially about Jews) and mockery of political correctness.

[edit] Goofs

The rainforest guide mentions that the snake on the tree is a coral snake. Coral snakes are not constrictors, meaning that the snake would not have strangled the man and swallowed him whole, but would have bitten him with deadly neurotoxic venom. (Although it is possible that the snake also bit the man on the neck.)
In the scene where everyone is running from the Yanagapa you can see Cartman on the right even though in the scene before he was rescued by loggers.

[edit] Continuity Error

In an interview on the South Park Homepage (southparkstudios.com) one of the show's Editors Tom Vogt states that it was a hard episode to do, because there were many changes during the course of the production. — This is noticeable in an apparent continuity flaw, when the group is trying to escape the native people (18:23 min) you can clearly see that Cartman is with them. Unfortunately this is impossible since he left the group to find his own way. It has to be a leftover from an early draft of the script in which he stays with the others.