Surprisingly, some of the most popular and highly rated shows in comedy today are cartoons. The pioneer in the genre of cartoons not solely for children was The Simpsons, which for those who have been living under a rock for the past twenty one years, started in 1989. The Simpsons creator Matt Groening basically created a new genre with the show, a genre of cartoons that are largely targeted at teens and adults. Two more pioneers in the burgeoning genre are former University of Colorado students Trey Parker and Matt Stone. The duo, both from Colorado originally, are the creators of the hit TV show South Park. South Park has been often demonized by politically correct groups and citizens who feel the humor of the show often dips into the crude and unnecessary, sometimes going into disgusting topics of treatment of toenail fungus and Long Island pinpoint laser toenail treatment and other times going into things even more difficult to discuss. However, the humor of the show is almost never senseless and lurking not far beneath the absurdity is generally a stinging social commentary, creating a show that is as smart as it is funny. The beauty of the show is that as the series creators are both registered as Libertarians when it comes to politics, both Democrats and Republicans are picked on in equal measure. Specifically, one episode joking about former Vice President Al Gore stuck out as being both topical and hilarious.

In the episode, in a thinly veiled negative critique on the former Vice President’s beliefs about global warming, Al Gore visited South Park to warn the residents about something that he called Man bear pig. Man bear pig, said Gore, is a creature that is half man, half bear and half pig. After drawing skepticism from the South Park crowd about the existence of Man bear pig, Mr. Gore tries to get local children Cartman, Kyle, Kenny and Stan to help him track down and destroy Man bear pig. Reacting to their parent’s displeasure at them hanging around Al Gore so often the kids respond that they don’t really like him, but just feel bad because they think he has no friends.

Al Gore takes the kids to a cave where he believes Man bear pig is and tries to get them to find and destroy the creature that he vehemently claims exists. While trying to throw a stick of dynamite when he claims he sees the beast, Gore causes some of the mountain around the cave to collapse and effectively traps the kids inside with no help in sight.

Everybody waits around outside and rescue missions are put together to try and get the kids out of the cave. In the mean time, in a sub plot, evil and treacherous Cartman discovers treasure that he thinks is real and ingests it to try and keep it away from his friends. As they get out of the mountain, Cartman’s stomach is so stuffed full of treasure that he can hardly swim and has to rely on the others to get him out. After the kids escape, Al Gore boasts that he single handedly defeated Man bear pig and saved the day.

To conclude the episode, Cartman finds a way to get the treasure out of his body and is horribly upset when he finds out that it is not real and is instead something that was set up by the workers at the mountain as a photo opportunity.

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