Tsst
Template:Infobox South Park episode "Tsst," (also known as "The Dog Whisperer,") is episode 1007 (#146) of Comedy Central's animated comedy tv series, South Park which aired on May 3, 2006.
Plot
Template:Spoiler When Cartman's mom, Liane, realizes she can't control her son anymore, she attempts to get help from an expert. At first, she tries to enlist the aid of the nanny from the reality tv program Nanny 911, but to no avail; Cartman makes Nanny Stella realize, with her own methods, that the reason she became a nanny is because she was unattractive and undesirable to men, which is why she never had children of her own; this causes her to become angry and give up on Cartman. Her second attempt is with Jo Frost from Super Nanny, who ends up in an asylum eating her own excrement and crying "From hell, it's from hell!" Ultimately Ms. Cartman recruits Cesar Millan, the so-called Dog Whisperer, from the show of the same name. He takes on his biggest challenge to date when he is signed on to discipline Eric Cartman.
Millan evaluates Cartman as dominant, aggressive, and obese. He teaches Liane to show Cartman she is the boss. Millan teaches Liane that dogs nip each other in the neck to show dominance, and it works well with the children. He, and later Liane, uses two fingers to nip at Cartman's neck to show that they are dominant, although it doesn't hurt him at all. This, at first, angers and annoys Cartman and makes him run away. Cartman tries to seek help from his classmates, but none of them are sympathetic to his problem. He ends up living on the street for four hours before he decides to return home. While Cartman is gone, Liane has taken up her favorite hobby of Japanese sumi-e paintings. When he returns, Liane keeps on disciplining Cartman in the way Millan teaches her just before Cartman calls child protective services on her, and Cartman eventually reaches a relaxed and submissive state in which he behaves much like a dog (Cartman walks around with his head down, peers aimlessly at all directions and takes a treat off Liane's hand). Cartman brushes his teeth when his mother commands him to, seemingly against his own will. He also loses ten pounds, and his academic performance improves.
However, Cartman thinks his mom is being so dominant that he refers to her as Hitler (in a negative fashion), and plans to kill her. He also makes reference to how his food is like that at Auswichz, and how he knows how the Jews felt during the Holocaust. When he fails to persuade the other kids to enlist in his plan of murder, he decides to carry out the plan himself, despite his recognition that he will be the most likely suspect. Cartman sneaks into Liane's bedroom and tries to kill her with a knife, he has a struggle in his mind between his newly-good and his normal, "demonic" sides that is a parody of the film Altered States; finally, he passes out and drops the knife.
In the morning, Liane finds the knife, but also sees that Cartman made his own healthy breakfast, and is studying before school, which surprises her, as Cartman never did those things before. At the same time, Millan comes to have a final check. Liane thanks him for converting her son into a good child and being her new friend, and tells him she has tickets for the two of them to see Madame Butterfly together. Cesar informs Liane that he only sees her as a client, and now that his work is done, he must leave. Losing her only friend, a desperate Liane promises that she will give Cartman whatever he wants, as long as he will spend time with her. In the final scene they hug. As the main theme from "The Omen" plays, Cartman smiles, in a nod to the last scene of the film. He has returned to his original, evil nature.
Trivia
- The title "Tsst" is an onomatopoeia for the sound that Cesar and later Liane make when they pinch Cartman on the neck with their fingers to establish dominance.
- Although Cartman does not read it out loud, the last step of his plan to kill his mother is "Frame Token".
References to other works
- The first part of the transformation Cartman goes through, where ghost-like images of Cartman's face appear and repeat lines from earlier in the episode, is a reference to the movie Contact. The second part of the transformation (when Cartman's body shifts from different forms and he is banging against the walls in a hallway) is a parody of the movie Altered States. The end of the episode, with the choral music and Cartman smiling at the camera after being promised that he can have anything he wants, is lifted directly from the closing shot of The Omen, although it's also reminiscent of A Clockwork Orange.
- The scene in which Cartman says that he handcuffed a kid's ankle to the flagpole, claimed to have poisoned his milk, and that he needed to saw off his leg to get to the antidote could be a reference to the movie Saw. Given Parker and Stone's love for "The Road Warrior," it could alternately be a reference to the end of the movie "Mad Max."
- The last nanny seen on Nanny 911 is a Skeksis, a species of evil creatures seen in the Jim Henson movie The Dark Crystal.
- Cartman's line "Yes! Let the anger come! Strike me down while you can!" is a reference to Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi.
- Eric can be seen plugging in his Xbox 360 while singing Don't Stop Believin' by the American rock band, Journey.
- In one clip, Eric is dressed like Hitler and says a German phrase about eradicating the Jewish people. This clip is imported directly from the 8th season episode, The Passion of the Jew.
References