Make Love, Not Warcraft
Episode 1008
Original Airdate: October 4, 2006
For the ultimate South Park/videogame crossover how could we not choose the episode that took place so prominently in an actual game. All of South Park has fallen under the spell of World of Warcraft, with every man, woman and child spending more time in the mythical land of Averoth than interacting in the sleepy Colorado town. But as a rouge griefer continues to unfairlykill the boys without provocation, everyone must band together to bring justice back to this virtual world.
Even the parents do their part to pitch in. Stan's dad obtains a weapon of untold power directly from the developers, and in a particularly disgusting scene, Cartman's mom dutifully wields a bedpan under his chair so her pookey doesn't have to abandon a raid to go number two. How thoughtful.
The episode marked an unprecedented collaboration, seeing developer Blizzard Entertainment provide the show's artistswith numerous character models and servers to create the extensive in-game, machinima scenes that had us ROFLing. They even granted access to assets from the, then unreleased, Burning Crusade expansion. This was all especially sporting considering that the show not only poked fun of Blizzard directly, but mockingly portrayed their entire fan base as slovenly and unwashed fatbodies.
Warcraft devotees will undoubtedly never tire of pointing out inconsistencies, but the show brought the game even further into the mainstream, and is overwhelmingly popular with MMOers. We'll wager to bet that the it even introduced new players to the game, in some small part contributing to thenine million strong subscriber base, all while providing the perfect fodder for gamers at large to laugh at themselves. Because we're not some uppity group of who can't take a joke (*cough* Scientologists *cough*), right? Sure, not all WoW players are pimply faced and overweight but... um, we can't think of an end to that sentence.
Well we've gushed enough. Click on over to the next page for your chance to win some South Park DVDs.
