Hooked on Monkey Fonics
Template:Infobox South Park episode "Hooked on Monkey Phonics" is episode 313 of Comedy Central's animated series South Park. It originally aired on November 10, 1999.
Plot
In preparation for a spelling bee, Cartman's mother buys him a "Hooked on Monkey Phonics" system. While at the spelling bee, the children face stiff competition from two home schooled children, Rebecca and Mark. Cartman asks the monkey to help him spell his word, chair, but instead the monkey masturbates, and Cartman misspells it as chare. In the final round, Kyle is unable to spell his word correctly (an extremely hard, made up word: krocsyldiphithic), and Rebecca and Mark are declared the champions (much to Jimbo's anger, who bet on Kyle to win).
Mark becomes intrigued by the interactions he sees between Cartman, Kyle, and Stan, and begs his father to be allowed to attend public school, who objects but relents. At the school, Mark is tormented for his haughty attitude and superior knowledge, and ends up duct taped to a bench during recess and a chair during lunch. This prompted Mark's father to speak with the adults in the bar about the incident. The adults are quick to dislike him as much as the kids disliked Mark, who then duct taped Mark's father to one of the bar's benches.
Meanwile, Kyle develops a fascination and crush on Rebecca, wooing her through methods such as playing the guitar outside her window. Ultimately he convinces her to explore the world of public schooling, and she agrees to go to the South Park Bay of Pigs Memorial Dance with him.
During the episode, Cartman, sick of Mark's know-it-all attitude, demands to be home schooled himself. To him, this involves a regimen of sleeping in and sitting in bed while snacking and watching TV.
At the dance, the band Dio plays its song "Holy Diver", and features the Phonics Monkey as its drummer. The boys of the school hatch a plan to duct tape Mark to the flagpole (whilst the adults also hatched a similar plan for Mark's father), when Rebecca shows up dressed as a slut. Mark attacks Kyle for doing this to his sister, which the other boys perceive as cool, and accept him as a friend. Rebecca and Mark finally earn the opportunity to regularly attend public school from their parents. Mark's father, however, is still duct taped to the flagpole by the adults, regardless of his change in attitude and opinion.
Kenny's Death
Kenny and Stan visit Cartman at his home. When Kenny tries to take a Snacky S'more from the Phonics Monkey, the monkey goes berserk and kills him. As Kyle is not present during Kenny's demise, the standard Kyle/Stan reaction is altered:
- Stan: Oh my God! Phonics Monkey killed Kenny!
- Cartman: You're damn straight he did.
Trivia
- Rebecca is asked to spell the word littoral at the spelling bee. Though she spelled it incorrectly, leaving out the second "t", the mayor claims she was correct. Also, littoral is wrongly defined by the spelling bee proctor.
- The title of the episode is a references the popular mail-order literacy aid, Hooked on Phonics. Though there seem to be two competing ways of spelling "Phonics" in this episode's title (one as "Fonics"), the official site and DVD releases spell it as "Phonics."
- In a scene that parodies the episode "The Gamesters of Triskelion" from the original Star Trek, Kyle convinces Rebecca to kiss him. This includes use of music from the original series, but not directly from the episode in question. It comes instead from the episode "This Side of Paradise."
- A Slovenian flag can be seen for a split second, on the door of the homeschooled kid Rebecca just before her parents burst into her room. There is also a poster with the formula of acetic acid (CH3COOH) next to the door.
- Butters appears in this episode, playing somewhat of a bully.
- When Kyle asks Rebecca's name, she responds "What's in a name?" Though not its direct meaning, this is from Romeo and Juliet.
- Rebecca is a parody of Rebecca Sealfon, a home schooled student that made hand gestures while spelling. She won the Scripps National Spelling Bee in 1997.
- When Dio begins playing, there is a brief shot of the guitarist. Though unsubstantiated, one can supposedly see an Ozzy Osbourne tattoo on his neck. This is an Easter egg put there by the artists, because in the original script, Ozzy Osbourne was to be the band playing, but, due to copyright issues, Comedy Central refused to allow it. Dio, having heard of this, allowed them to use his band instead, but the artists put the emblem in there anyway.