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South Park: Joining the Panderverse Review

South Park: Joining the Panderverse is a 2023 animated comedy television special that ranks among the best specials that Parker and Stone have released so far.

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“No, please, Kathleen Kennedy, stop ruining everything“

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This special is thematically quite ambitious as it deals with two stories, each dealing with its own share of issues and timely topics. The storyline with the boys is the better of the two as the Randy story was never as funny. It overstayed its welcome quickly and way too often I wanted them to go back to Cartman and others.

With that being said, even this subplot largely worked. It depicts not just the overreliance on artificial intelligence that we are all experiencing nowadays, but it more importantly showcases just how lazy and incompetent we’ve all become when it comes to manual jobs. This all led to the handymen raising their prices significantly, which has become a big issue all over the developed world. So, this section was quite important, but still lacking in big laughs.

But the Cartman storyline delivered both in comedy and in social commentary. Here, Parker and Stone lampooned both sides of what is basically the same coin – the woke people and the anti-SJW crowd. Both have become toxic and very annoying these days, so it was wonderful witnessing the creators make fun of both groups and oh so viciously.

Kathleen Kennedy appeared in Joining the Panderverse and Cartman playing her in particular was hilarious. All of the jokes that centered on Kennedy were so funny and the main cast being animated as this diverse group of women was absolutely hysterical. Cartman’s reactions and paranoia throughout the special continually made me laugh out loud.

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Amusingly so, the special also lampooned the multiverse concept and how overused it has become in contemporary franchises. Those jokes were so funny because they were so relatable to me especially as I’ve never liked this idea in movies at all. The special worked due to Cartman first and foremost with others all being solid, but hardly memorable. It is a well paced and structured 45-minute special that was particularly well written in dialogue.