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Halloween 'South Park' Takes on the Deaths of DVD and Blockbuster

by Alex Billington
October 28, 2012
Source: South Park

"We're going to have customers up our ass!" If you haven't seen it yet, it's worth watching the new South Park episode titled A Nightmare on Face Time. It's their first Halloween episode in a while, and it's a horror episode that references The Shining quite a bit. The reason it needs to be mentioned is that the plot involves Randy Marsh buying a Blockbuster, and the horror (meaning lack of customers) that comes with it. It's another brilliant spoof addressing the death of DVDs and video rental shops like Blockbuster; even Red Box is made fun of briefly. On top of all that, the boys dress as The Avengers, and Stan plays Captain America - entirely through an iPad. It's genius hyper-relevant commentary wrapped in fun entertainment.

This new episode can be seen online for free in full at southparkstudios.com - just click below to watch it.

Don't forget, South Park hosts every episode of the show online for free after it airs - you can find them here. One of the best parts of this episode is the Sharon phone conversation: "You're watching The Thing? Oh that's fun. On Netflix or Hulu? Oh, your Xbox, uh huh." Plus Randy's shlocky "according to industry experts many rural areas don't have the bandwidth to support DVD quality video and streaming services and won't for years to come" so "DVD watching" is still important. Really? As always, South Park hits it right on the nose, but remains hilarious at the same time. I hope everyone enjoys this episode as much as I did, Matt & Trey continue to keep it fresh and relevant. Whenever I watch these kind of episodes, I wonder - did they get this idea by originally being told they needed to be on DVD? Whatever the case, this is going to be a classic.

Filed under Discuss, Horror, To Watch

From around the web:

beevis

thanks for the headsup on the news episodes - hadn't noticed they started a new season - will check all of them out!
http://www.facebook.com/people/Jim-Dawkins/100002207329301 Jim Dawkins

Pretty funny. I still won't pay to stream new release movies. The irony is that streaming new release for rent is more expensive than the price the old Blockbuster stores use to charge. 4.99 - 5.99. Screw that. Thats why redbox is still thriving. I still go to our local mom and pop to rent an occasional new movie.
Benjamin

This is old news.
David Banner

"according to industry experts many rural areas don't have the bandwidth to support DVD quality video and streaming services and won't for years to come"-I was shocked that in some rural parts of Norway, there's a similar case with VHS! Rental stores with new movies on VHS(they must be copied from DvD to VHS??), in 2012, cuz these hicks don't have DvD players.... The only reason I see to get up and go out to rent a DvD/Blu-ray is to buy the candy in the rental shop.....what other reason is there, chances are the movie you want is rented out anyways.... More shocking news from the mountains of Norway: vinyl records sales are up x30 times since 2007, with new vinyl shops opening every week....here's hoping LaserDisc's will make a comback-or HD quality on that size(would be far less piracy)
http://www.facebook.com/matthew.schmieding Bubba Matt Schmieding

This is an argument i've been having within my company & group of friends for years and still think the general public are naive about this whole "streaming" only evolution. For cinephiles like me who watch up to 3 movies and 8 shows a day, we demand the highest quality and comprehensive bonus material that expand our understanding of the particular work of art. I have netflix, hulu, xfinity as well as a blockbuster membership and use them all for their own benefits. But can anyone tell me another way besides going into Blockbuster to rent a new release the day it comes out in true 1080p 7.1 surround sound on an unlimited basis with all the bonus material without buying it or waiting for it to become available in your queue? Even if they can accomodate true 1080p picture quality and audio streaming that matched the blu ray stats (which wont' happen for a while), we stilil will only be getting the movie and not the bonus content. For 2nd tier films i don't want to buy but still want to get deeper in, i want to be able to go get that physical disc knowing it contains everything. Netflix is great for streaming Tv shows, hulu is greating for catching up during the week on shows you missed but physical stores need to exist for people to rent the highest quality of a movie that they don't want to buy, plain and simple.
- zedg
  
  Exactly. Perfect response.
grimjob

This was a great episode! Really made me miss browsing around a store for movies. I hate that video stores are disappearing. There's only one anywhere near me, and its about a 20 minute drive on the highway.
castingcouch

I still go to my local Blockbuster every Tuesday and Thursday for the $2 and $1 rentals. I have no streaming services here that can match a Blu-ray or DVD. And I bet if I click that South Park link it'll tell me "Sorry. You can't play this video in your country."
castingcouch

Yep, I was right: