An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig
Encyclopedia
"An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig" is the fifth episode of the first season
of the animated television series South Park
. It originally aired on Comedy Central
in the United States on September 10, 1997. In the episode, the boys of South Park try to force Kyle
's pet elephant Biff to crossbreed with Eric Cartman
's pet pot-bellied pig for a class project on genetic engineering
. Meanwhile, Stan
tries to deal with his sister Shelley, who keeps beating him up.
The episode was written by series co-creators Trey Parker
and Matt Stone
, along with as writer Dan Sterling
. The episode served as both a parody of genetic engineering and a statement against its potential evils. The scenes of Stan getting beat up by his sister were inspired by Parker's real-life childhood experiences with his own sister, who is also named Shelley.
"An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig" was met with generally positive reviews, and has been described as one of the most popular early South Park episodes. Several commentators praised its satirical elements with regard to genetic engineering. The episode marked the first appearance of Shelly Marsh, Stan's mother Sharon Marsh, and the mad scientist Dr. Mephisto, who was inspired by the title character of the 1996 film, The Island of Dr. Moreau
.
notices Stan
has a black eye and it turns out his sister Shelley has been beating him up. Kyle
has problems of his own; his mom will not let him keep his new pet elephant
in the house. At school, Mr. Hat teaches the class about genetic engineering
, which prompts Kyle to decide to crossbreed his elephant with Cartman's pot-bellied pig
, Fluffy, to make little "pot-bellied elephants", which he could keep in his house. Upon hearing this, Terrance Mephisto bets Kyle that he can clone a whole person before Kyle can create a pot-bellied elephant. Mr. Garrison
suggests the boys use their genetic modifications for the upcoming science fair and check out the South Park Genetic Engineering Ranch.
At the ranch, Dr. Mephisto shows them his genetically engineered collection, including several different animals with four buttocks, such as a monkey, ostrich and mongoose. Mephisto then explains that, just like the Loverboy
song says, "pig and elephant DNA just won't splice," and steals a blood sample from Stan and the boys leave. At school the boys learn Terrance has cloned a human foot. The boys go to Chef
with their genetic engineering problem, and after he too cites the Loverboy song, he gives them the idea to try to have the animals "make sweet love" to breed.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Mephisto and his assistant Kevin have created a human clone of Stan for Terrance. The boys attempt to get the pig and the elephant drunk and to mate, but it does not seem to be working until Chef stops by and sings to the animals with a little help from Elton John
. The cloned Stan breaks free from Mephisto's ranch and proceeds to terrorize the town. The boys eventually find the clone and take it to Stan's house and convince it to attack Shelley; however, it decides to destroy the house and indirectly kills Kenny
, by flinging him into a microwave, with a chair. Mephisto shows up and shoots the clone, but Stan is afraid he will be in trouble for everything the clone did. However, in a brief moment of kindness, Shelley takes the blame, after which she beats up Stan.
When the science projects are due, Terrance presents a monkey with five buttocks, but Kyle has nothing until the pig gives birth to a pot-bellied pig that looks like Mr. Garrison, implying the pig was impregnated by Mr. Garrison before the elephant. Garrison quickly awards it first prize over Terrance's monkey.
and Matt Stone
, and writer Dan Sterling
. It first aired on September 10, 1997, in the United States on Comedy Central
. Parker and Stone intended to call this episode "An Elephant Fucks a Pig", but changed the title under pressure from Comedy Central
. The channel also made them cut a scene in which Shelley sets Stan on fire the second time she beats him up (even though the scene is cut, the part where Stan is lying on top of a puddle of water as he's telling Shelley that someday he'll be bigger than her and she'll regret beating him hasn't been altered) to keep the show from coming under the same fire for showing dangerous acts that can easily be imitated as MTV's Beavis and Butthead and later, MTV's Jackass. It was during the writing of this episode that Parker and Stone decided Kyle would be the good student and "school-smarter than the other kids".
The subplot with Stan getting beat up by his sister Shelley came from Parker's real-life experiences getting beat up as a child by his sister, also actually named Shelley, who is three years his elder. Parker said although his sister would later deny it, she regularly beat him up or locked him out of the house for hours; Parker stated that the scene when Stan says "You're my sister and I love you" in order to try to avoid a beating, but was subsequently beat even harder, was based on an actual experience with his sister. The scene in which Stan asks the giant mutant Stan to attack Shelley is based on Parker's childhood fantasy of having a larger version of himself beat up his sister. The resolution to the subplot, in which Shelley takes the blame for Stan's mistakes, and then beats up Stan when he tries to thank her, was also based on experiences Parker had when his sister would bail him out of trouble.
The dialogue spoken by the giant mutant Stan was inspired by a mentally handicapped character in the MTV
show How's Your News?
, which Parker and Stone produced; according to Parker and Stone, the character could only say phrases like "Bubba chop, bubba chewy chomp", and both men took turns voicing mutant Stan to sound the same way. Isaac Hayes
, who does the voice of Chef, recorded all his lines via phone from New York
; Parker and Stone said they were nervous to ask him to repeat the line, "Now I know how all those white women felt", but he had no problem repeating it. The genetic mutations Dr. Mephisto creates, including the animals with multiple asses and the goldfish with bunny ears, were inspired by things Parker drew during high school.
The scene in the cafeteria, in which the four boys are annoyed by Pip, is a cut scene from the South Park pilot, "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe
"; the animation in that individual scene is actually construction paper, while the animation throughout the rest of the episode is noticeably better. In order to illustrate the aftermath after the destruction scenes, Parker and Stone smudged the paper sets with their fingerprints and stains to make them look like scorch burns.
Tamara Ikenberg, as both a parody of genetic engineering
and a statement against its potential evils, particularly through in its portrayal of the giant mutant Stan wreaking havoc on South Park. This episode marked the first appearances of the characters Shelley Marsh and Stan's mother, Sharon Marsh, as well as that of Dr. Mephisto. Dr. Mephisto is based on Marlon Brando
's character Dr. Moreau in the 1996 film, The Island of Dr. Moreau
, which is based on the 1896 H.G. Wells novel of the same name
. Mephisto is named after Mephistopheles
, the demon in the Faust
legend. Kevin, the tiny-monkey like companion of Dr. Mephisto, is based on the small creature who resembles and dresses like a miniature version of Brando's character in the 1996 film The Island of Dr. Moreau
. The character from that film also inspired Mini-Me
, the miniature version of Dr. Evil
featured in the Austin Powers films
; since "An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig" came out before Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
, Parker and Stone have joked they believe Powers-creator Mike Myers
stole the idea for Mini-Me from them.
Elton John
, the English singer and songwriter, appears as a guest vocalist for Chef's song, in one of the earliest celebrity spoof appearances on South Park; Trey Parker, who provided the voice for Elton John, said many people thought it was the actual John singing because his impression was so accurate. In another musical reference featured in the episode, several characters claim the real-life Canadian rock group Loverboy
wrote a song about the fact that the DNA of an elephant and pig will not splice. "An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig" includes several pop cultural references to films and television shows. The last line in the episode, "That'll do pig," spoken by Cartman, is a reference to the final line of the 1995 film Babe
, a movie about a talking pig, which Stone has described as one of his favorite films. When the boys try to tell Officer Barbrady about the clone, he suggests that the boys have seen too many episodes of the X-Files. When Dr. Mephisto finds Stan and the boys, he says "Thank Buddha", a reference to Gautama Buddha
, the spiritual teacher who founded the religion Buddhism
.
said it was the most outrageous South Park episode until '"Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo" aired three months later. Many reviewers said the mere title demonstrated the crudeness and originality of South Park, then still a relatively new show. Chris Vognar of The Dallas Morning News
said, "With episode titles such as, 'An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig,' suffice it to say there ain't much on the air like it."
Tamara Ikenberg of The Baltimore Sun
said the episode demonstrated the show's ability to address ethically challenging issues like genetic engineering with an "imaginative, unconventional flair". The Melbourne
, Australia
-based newspaper, The Age
. said the episode "(pushes) a degree of political incorrectness that is so extreme and affronting it is almost unavoidably funny." Howard Rosenberg of the Los Angeles Times
praised the episode, and said the bestiality
hinted at in the final scene of the episode illustrated the outrageousness of the show, as well as the fact that the show would probably not be enjoyed by all audiences.
Rick Bentley of The Fresno Bee
said the biggest laughs from the episode come from the song Chef sings to the elephant and pig. In 2008, Alicia Wade of the Daily Egyptian
said the episode and its theme about genetic engineering still felt fresh more than 10 years after its original broadcast. In 2009, Travis Fickett from IGN
rated this episode an 8.3 out of 10, and concluded about it that "It's a bit shocking, perhaps offensive to some, but in the context of murdering mutants and five-assed monkeys created by Brando parodies in Hawaiian moo-moos – it all makes perfect sense. And it's all quintessentially South Park."
on May 5, 1998, marking the first time South Park was made available on video. The episode was released on the "Volume II" video, along with "Death"; other featured episodes included "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe", "Volcano
", "Weight Gain 4000
" and "Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride
". The episode was re-released by Warner Home Video
in 2002, as part of the DVD box set South Park - The Complete First Season.
"Tonight is Right for Love", the song sung by Chef to encourage the elephant and pig to make love, is featured in the 1998 South Park soundtrack "Chef Aid: The South Park Album". In the track, rock singer Meat Loaf
sings the song along with Isaac Hayes, the actor who voices Chef.
The distribution license for "An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig" was among six South Park episodes purchased in 2000 by the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
-based company and website SightSound.com. The site made the episodes available for download $2.50 for a two-day download and $4.95 for a permanent copy. It was one of the first experiments with making television videos available for Internet download, making "An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig" one of the first of any television episode made legally available on the Internet.
South Park (season 1)
The first season of the American animated television series South Park initially ran for 13 episodes on the US network Comedy Central, from August 13, 1997 to February 25, 1998. The creators of the series, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, wrote and directed most of the season's episodes, while Dan...
of the animated television series South Park
South Park
South Park is an American animated television series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the Comedy Central television network. Intended for mature audiences, the show has become famous for its crude language, surreal, satirical, and dark humor that lampoons a wide range of topics...
. It originally aired on Comedy Central
Comedy Central
Comedy Central is an American cable television and satellite television channel that carries comedy programming, both original and syndicated....
in the United States on September 10, 1997. In the episode, the boys of South Park try to force Kyle
Kyle Broflovski
Kyle Broflovski is a fictional character in the animated television series South Park. He is voiced by co-creator Matt Stone. Kyle is one of the show's four central characters, along with his friends Stan Marsh, Kenny McCormick, and Eric Cartman...
's pet elephant Biff to crossbreed with Eric Cartman
Eric Cartman
Eric Theodore Cartman is a fictional character in the American animated television series South Park. One of four main characters, along with Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, and Kenny McCormick, he is generally referred to within the series by his last name...
's pet pot-bellied pig for a class project on genetic engineering
Genetic engineering
Genetic engineering, also called genetic modification, is the direct human manipulation of an organism's genome using modern DNA technology. It involves the introduction of foreign DNA or synthetic genes into the organism of interest...
. Meanwhile, Stan
Stan Marsh
Stanley Randall "Stan" Marsh is a fictional character in the animated television series South Park. He is voiced by and loosely based on series co-creator Trey Parker. Stan is one of the show's four central characters, along with his friends Kyle Broflovski, Kenny McCormick, and Eric Cartman...
tries to deal with his sister Shelley, who keeps beating him up.
The episode was written by series co-creators Trey Parker
Trey Parker
Trey Parker is an American animator, screenwriter, director, producer, voice artist, musician and actor, best known for being the co-creator of the television series South Park along with his creative partner and best friend Matt Stone.Parker started his film career in 1992, making a holiday short...
and Matt Stone
Matt Stone
Matthew Richard "Matt" Stone is an American screenwriter, producer, voice artist, musician and actor, best known for being the co-creator of South Park along with creative partner and best friend, Trey Parker....
, along with as writer Dan Sterling
Dan Sterling
Dan Sterling is an American television producer and writer who has worked on many successful television shows, including King of the Hill, Kitchen Confidential, The Daily Show, South Park and The Sarah Silverman Program....
. The episode served as both a parody of genetic engineering and a statement against its potential evils. The scenes of Stan getting beat up by his sister were inspired by Parker's real-life childhood experiences with his own sister, who is also named Shelley.
"An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig" was met with generally positive reviews, and has been described as one of the most popular early South Park episodes. Several commentators praised its satirical elements with regard to genetic engineering. The episode marked the first appearance of Shelly Marsh, Stan's mother Sharon Marsh, and the mad scientist Dr. Mephisto, who was inspired by the title character of the 1996 film, The Island of Dr. Moreau
The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996 film)
The Island of Dr. Moreau is a 1996 science fiction horror film, the third major movie version of the H. G. Wells novel The Island of Doctor Moreau about a scientist who attempts to convert animals into people...
.
Plot
The boys are waiting at the bus stop when CartmanEric Cartman
Eric Theodore Cartman is a fictional character in the American animated television series South Park. One of four main characters, along with Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, and Kenny McCormick, he is generally referred to within the series by his last name...
notices Stan
Stan Marsh
Stanley Randall "Stan" Marsh is a fictional character in the animated television series South Park. He is voiced by and loosely based on series co-creator Trey Parker. Stan is one of the show's four central characters, along with his friends Kyle Broflovski, Kenny McCormick, and Eric Cartman...
has a black eye and it turns out his sister Shelley has been beating him up. Kyle
Kyle Broflovski
Kyle Broflovski is a fictional character in the animated television series South Park. He is voiced by co-creator Matt Stone. Kyle is one of the show's four central characters, along with his friends Stan Marsh, Kenny McCormick, and Eric Cartman...
has problems of his own; his mom will not let him keep his new pet elephant
Elephant
Elephants are large land mammals in two extant genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta, with the third genus Mammuthus extinct...
in the house. At school, Mr. Hat teaches the class about genetic engineering
Genetic engineering
Genetic engineering, also called genetic modification, is the direct human manipulation of an organism's genome using modern DNA technology. It involves the introduction of foreign DNA or synthetic genes into the organism of interest...
, which prompts Kyle to decide to crossbreed his elephant with Cartman's pot-bellied pig
Pot-bellied pig
The pot-bellied pig is a breed of domesticated pig originating in Vietnam.-Description:Considerably smaller than standard American or European farm pigs, most adult pot-bellied pigs are about the size of a medium- or large-breed dog, though their bodies are denser at 8 to 136 kg...
, Fluffy, to make little "pot-bellied elephants", which he could keep in his house. Upon hearing this, Terrance Mephisto bets Kyle that he can clone a whole person before Kyle can create a pot-bellied elephant. Mr. Garrison
Herbert Garrison
Mr. Herbert Garrison is a recurring character in the American animated television series South Park. He is voiced by Trey Parker. For the first eight seasons of the series, the character was known as Mr. Garrison but underwent sex reassignment surgery in the season 9 episode "Mr. Garrison's Fancy...
suggests the boys use their genetic modifications for the upcoming science fair and check out the South Park Genetic Engineering Ranch.
At the ranch, Dr. Mephisto shows them his genetically engineered collection, including several different animals with four buttocks, such as a monkey, ostrich and mongoose. Mephisto then explains that, just like the Loverboy
Loverboy
Loverboy is a Canadian rock group formed in 1980 in Calgary, Alberta. Throughout the 1980s, the band accumulated numerous hit songs in Canada and the United States, earning four multi-platinum albums and selling millions of records...
song says, "pig and elephant DNA just won't splice," and steals a blood sample from Stan and the boys leave. At school the boys learn Terrance has cloned a human foot. The boys go to Chef
Chef (South Park)
Jerome "Chef" McElroy is a fictional character on the Comedy Central series South Park. He was voiced by Isaac Hayes. A cafeteria worker at the local elementary school in the town of South Park, Colorado, Chef was generally portrayed as more level-headed than the other adult residents of the town...
with their genetic engineering problem, and after he too cites the Loverboy song, he gives them the idea to try to have the animals "make sweet love" to breed.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Mephisto and his assistant Kevin have created a human clone of Stan for Terrance. The boys attempt to get the pig and the elephant drunk and to mate, but it does not seem to be working until Chef stops by and sings to the animals with a little help from Elton John
Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John, CBE, Hon DMus is an English rock singer-songwriter, composer, pianist and occasional actor...
. The cloned Stan breaks free from Mephisto's ranch and proceeds to terrorize the town. The boys eventually find the clone and take it to Stan's house and convince it to attack Shelley; however, it decides to destroy the house and indirectly kills Kenny
Kenny McCormick
Kenneth "Kenny" McCormick is a fictional character in the animated television series South Park. He is one of the four central characters along with his friends Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, and Eric Cartman. His oft-muffled and indiscernible speech—the result of his parka hood covering his...
, by flinging him into a microwave, with a chair. Mephisto shows up and shoots the clone, but Stan is afraid he will be in trouble for everything the clone did. However, in a brief moment of kindness, Shelley takes the blame, after which she beats up Stan.
When the science projects are due, Terrance presents a monkey with five buttocks, but Kyle has nothing until the pig gives birth to a pot-bellied pig that looks like Mr. Garrison, implying the pig was impregnated by Mr. Garrison before the elephant. Garrison quickly awards it first prize over Terrance's monkey.
Production
"An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig" was written by show creators Trey ParkerTrey Parker
Trey Parker is an American animator, screenwriter, director, producer, voice artist, musician and actor, best known for being the co-creator of the television series South Park along with his creative partner and best friend Matt Stone.Parker started his film career in 1992, making a holiday short...
and Matt Stone
Matt Stone
Matthew Richard "Matt" Stone is an American screenwriter, producer, voice artist, musician and actor, best known for being the co-creator of South Park along with creative partner and best friend, Trey Parker....
, and writer Dan Sterling
Dan Sterling
Dan Sterling is an American television producer and writer who has worked on many successful television shows, including King of the Hill, Kitchen Confidential, The Daily Show, South Park and The Sarah Silverman Program....
. It first aired on September 10, 1997, in the United States on Comedy Central
Comedy Central
Comedy Central is an American cable television and satellite television channel that carries comedy programming, both original and syndicated....
. Parker and Stone intended to call this episode "An Elephant Fucks a Pig", but changed the title under pressure from Comedy Central
Comedy Central
Comedy Central is an American cable television and satellite television channel that carries comedy programming, both original and syndicated....
. The channel also made them cut a scene in which Shelley sets Stan on fire the second time she beats him up (even though the scene is cut, the part where Stan is lying on top of a puddle of water as he's telling Shelley that someday he'll be bigger than her and she'll regret beating him hasn't been altered) to keep the show from coming under the same fire for showing dangerous acts that can easily be imitated as MTV's Beavis and Butthead and later, MTV's Jackass. It was during the writing of this episode that Parker and Stone decided Kyle would be the good student and "school-smarter than the other kids".
The subplot with Stan getting beat up by his sister Shelley came from Parker's real-life experiences getting beat up as a child by his sister, also actually named Shelley, who is three years his elder. Parker said although his sister would later deny it, she regularly beat him up or locked him out of the house for hours; Parker stated that the scene when Stan says "You're my sister and I love you" in order to try to avoid a beating, but was subsequently beat even harder, was based on an actual experience with his sister. The scene in which Stan asks the giant mutant Stan to attack Shelley is based on Parker's childhood fantasy of having a larger version of himself beat up his sister. The resolution to the subplot, in which Shelley takes the blame for Stan's mistakes, and then beats up Stan when he tries to thank her, was also based on experiences Parker had when his sister would bail him out of trouble.
The dialogue spoken by the giant mutant Stan was inspired by a mentally handicapped character in the MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
show How's Your News?
How's Your News?
How's Your News? is an American television series and also a feature film. It aired Sundays on MTV in the United States, and the feature film based on the same concept was released in 2003. It stars a group of reporters with developmental disabilities who interview celebrities and politicians...
, which Parker and Stone produced; according to Parker and Stone, the character could only say phrases like "Bubba chop, bubba chewy chomp", and both men took turns voicing mutant Stan to sound the same way. Isaac Hayes
Isaac Hayes
Isaac Lee Hayes, Jr. was an American songwriter, musician, singer and actor. Hayes was one of the creative influences behind the southern soul music label Stax Records, where he served both as an in-house songwriter and as a record producer, teaming with his partner David Porter during the...
, who does the voice of Chef, recorded all his lines via phone from New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
; Parker and Stone said they were nervous to ask him to repeat the line, "Now I know how all those white women felt", but he had no problem repeating it. The genetic mutations Dr. Mephisto creates, including the animals with multiple asses and the goldfish with bunny ears, were inspired by things Parker drew during high school.
The scene in the cafeteria, in which the four boys are annoyed by Pip, is a cut scene from the South Park pilot, "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe
Cartman Gets an Anal Probe
"Cartman Gets an Anal Probe" is the first episode of the animated television series South Park. It first aired on Comedy Central in the United States on August 13, 1997...
"; the animation in that individual scene is actually construction paper, while the animation throughout the rest of the episode is noticeably better. In order to illustrate the aftermath after the destruction scenes, Parker and Stone smudged the paper sets with their fingerprints and stains to make them look like scorch burns.
Cultural references
"An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig" was seen by the writer of The Baltimore SunThe Baltimore Sun
The Baltimore Sun is the U.S. state of Maryland’s largest general circulation daily newspaper and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries....
Tamara Ikenberg, as both a parody of genetic engineering
Genetic engineering
Genetic engineering, also called genetic modification, is the direct human manipulation of an organism's genome using modern DNA technology. It involves the introduction of foreign DNA or synthetic genes into the organism of interest...
and a statement against its potential evils, particularly through in its portrayal of the giant mutant Stan wreaking havoc on South Park. This episode marked the first appearances of the characters Shelley Marsh and Stan's mother, Sharon Marsh, as well as that of Dr. Mephisto. Dr. Mephisto is based on Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando, Jr. was an American movie star and political activist. "Unchallenged as the most important actor in modern American Cinema" according to the St...
's character Dr. Moreau in the 1996 film, The Island of Dr. Moreau
The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996 film)
The Island of Dr. Moreau is a 1996 science fiction horror film, the third major movie version of the H. G. Wells novel The Island of Doctor Moreau about a scientist who attempts to convert animals into people...
, which is based on the 1896 H.G. Wells novel of the same name
The Island of Doctor Moreau
The Island of Doctor Moreau is an 1896 science fiction novel written by H. G. Wells. It is told from the point of view of a man named Edward Prendick who is shipwrecked, rescued by a passing boat, and then left at the ship's destination by the crew along with the ship's cargo of exotic animals...
. Mephisto is named after Mephistopheles
Mephistopheles
Mephistopheles is a demon featured in German folklore...
, the demon in the Faust
Faust
Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend; a highly successful scholar, but also dissatisfied with his life, and so makes a deal with the devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. Faust's tale is the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical...
legend. Kevin, the tiny-monkey like companion of Dr. Mephisto, is based on the small creature who resembles and dresses like a miniature version of Brando's character in the 1996 film The Island of Dr. Moreau
The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996 film)
The Island of Dr. Moreau is a 1996 science fiction horror film, the third major movie version of the H. G. Wells novel The Island of Doctor Moreau about a scientist who attempts to convert animals into people...
. The character from that film also inspired Mini-Me
Mini-Me
Mini-Me is a character played by Verne Troyer in the second and third Austin Powers movies: Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me and Austin Powers in Goldmember.-History:...
, the miniature version of Dr. Evil
Dr. Evil
Dr. Evil is a fictional character, played by Mike Myers in the Austin Powers film series. He is the antagonist of the movies, and Austin Powers' nemesis. He is a parody of James Bond villains, primarily Donald Pleasence's Ernst Stavro Blofeld . Dr...
featured in the Austin Powers films
Austin Powers (film series)
The Austin Powers series is a series of action-comedy films written by and starring Mike Myers as the title character, directed by Jay Roach and distributed by New Line Cinema...
; since "An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig" came out before Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, released in 1999, is the second film in the Austin Powers series that began with 1997's Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery and continued with Austin Powers in Goldmember. The film was directed by Jay Roach, co-written by Mike Myers and screenwriter...
, Parker and Stone have joked they believe Powers-creator Mike Myers
Mike Myers (actor)
Michael John "Mike" Myers is a Canadian actor, comedian, screenwriter, and film producer of British parentage...
stole the idea for Mini-Me from them.
Elton John
Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John, CBE, Hon DMus is an English rock singer-songwriter, composer, pianist and occasional actor...
, the English singer and songwriter, appears as a guest vocalist for Chef's song, in one of the earliest celebrity spoof appearances on South Park; Trey Parker, who provided the voice for Elton John, said many people thought it was the actual John singing because his impression was so accurate. In another musical reference featured in the episode, several characters claim the real-life Canadian rock group Loverboy
Loverboy
Loverboy is a Canadian rock group formed in 1980 in Calgary, Alberta. Throughout the 1980s, the band accumulated numerous hit songs in Canada and the United States, earning four multi-platinum albums and selling millions of records...
wrote a song about the fact that the DNA of an elephant and pig will not splice. "An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig" includes several pop cultural references to films and television shows. The last line in the episode, "That'll do pig," spoken by Cartman, is a reference to the final line of the 1995 film Babe
Babe (film)
Babe is a 1995 Australian-American film directed by Chris Noonan. It is an adaptation of the 1983 novel The Sheep-Pig, also known as Babe: The Gallant Pig in the United States, by Dick King-Smith and tells the story of a pig who wants to be a sheepdog...
, a movie about a talking pig, which Stone has described as one of his favorite films. When the boys try to tell Officer Barbrady about the clone, he suggests that the boys have seen too many episodes of the X-Files. When Dr. Mephisto finds Stan and the boys, he says "Thank Buddha", a reference to Gautama Buddha
Gautama Buddha
Siddhārtha Gautama was a spiritual teacher from the Indian subcontinent, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. In most Buddhist traditions, he is regarded as the Supreme Buddha Siddhārtha Gautama (Sanskrit: सिद्धार्थ गौतम; Pali: Siddhattha Gotama) was a spiritual teacher from the Indian...
, the spiritual teacher who founded the religion Buddhism
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
.
Reception
Several media outlets described "An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig" as one of the most popular early South Park episodes. Tom Carson of NewsdayNewsday
Newsday is a daily American newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties and the New York City borough of Queens on Long Island, although it is sold throughout the New York metropolitan area...
said it was the most outrageous South Park episode until '"Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo" aired three months later. Many reviewers said the mere title demonstrated the crudeness and originality of South Park, then still a relatively new show. Chris Vognar of The Dallas Morning News
The Dallas Morning News
The Dallas Morning News is the major daily newspaper serving the Dallas, Texas area, with a circulation of 264,459 subscribers, the Audit Bureau of Circulations reported in September 2010...
said, "With episode titles such as, 'An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig,' suffice it to say there ain't much on the air like it."
Tamara Ikenberg of The Baltimore Sun
The Baltimore Sun
The Baltimore Sun is the U.S. state of Maryland’s largest general circulation daily newspaper and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries....
said the episode demonstrated the show's ability to address ethically challenging issues like genetic engineering with an "imaginative, unconventional flair". The Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
-based newspaper, The Age
The Age
The Age is a daily broadsheet newspaper, which has been published in Melbourne, Australia since 1854. Owned and published by Fairfax Media, The Age primarily serves Victoria, but is also available for purchase in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and border regions of South Australia and...
. said the episode "(pushes) a degree of political incorrectness that is so extreme and affronting it is almost unavoidably funny." Howard Rosenberg of the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
praised the episode, and said the bestiality
Zoophilia
Zoophilia, from the Greek ζῷον and φιλία is the practice of sex between humans and non-human animals , or a preference or fixation on such practice...
hinted at in the final scene of the episode illustrated the outrageousness of the show, as well as the fact that the show would probably not be enjoyed by all audiences.
Rick Bentley of The Fresno Bee
The Fresno Bee
The Fresno Bee is the daily newspaper serving Fresno, California and surrounding counties in that U.S. state's San Joaquin Valley. It is owned by The McClatchy Company and ranks fourth in circulation among the company's newspapers....
said the biggest laughs from the episode come from the song Chef sings to the elephant and pig. In 2008, Alicia Wade of the Daily Egyptian
Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Southern Illinois University Carbondale is a public research university located in Carbondale, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1869, SIUC is the flagship campus of the Southern Illinois University system...
said the episode and its theme about genetic engineering still felt fresh more than 10 years after its original broadcast. In 2009, Travis Fickett from IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
rated this episode an 8.3 out of 10, and concluded about it that "It's a bit shocking, perhaps offensive to some, but in the context of murdering mutants and five-assed monkeys created by Brando parodies in Hawaiian moo-moos – it all makes perfect sense. And it's all quintessentially South Park."
Home release
"An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig" was released, alongside five other episodes, in a three-set VHSVHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
on May 5, 1998, marking the first time South Park was made available on video. The episode was released on the "Volume II" video, along with "Death"; other featured episodes included "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe", "Volcano
Volcano (South Park episode)
"Volcano" is the third episode of the animated television series South Park. It originally aired on Comedy Central in the United States on August 27, 1997. In the episode, the four main characters, Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny, go on a hunting trip with Stan's uncle Jimbo and his war buddy Ned...
", "Weight Gain 4000
Weight Gain 4000
"Weight Gain 4000" is the second episode of the first season of the animated television series South Park. It first aired on Comedy Central in the United States on August 20, 1997. In the episode, the residents of South Park excitedly prepare for a visit by celebrity Kathie Lee Gifford, whom the...
" and "Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride
Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride
"Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride" is the fourth episode of the first season of the animated television series South Park. It originally aired on September 3, 1997 on Comedy Central in the United States. The episode was written by series co-founders Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and directed by Parker...
". The episode was re-released by Warner Home Video
Warner Home Video
Warner Home Video is the home video unit of Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., itself part of Time Warner. It was founded in 1978 as WCI Home Video . The company launched in the United States with twenty films on VHS and Betamax videocassettes in late 1979...
in 2002, as part of the DVD box set South Park - The Complete First Season.
"Tonight is Right for Love", the song sung by Chef to encourage the elephant and pig to make love, is featured in the 1998 South Park soundtrack "Chef Aid: The South Park Album". In the track, rock singer Meat Loaf
Meat Loaf
Michael Lee Aday , better known by his stage name, Meat Loaf, is an American hard rock musician and actor...
sings the song along with Isaac Hayes, the actor who voices Chef.
The distribution license for "An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig" was among six South Park episodes purchased in 2000 by the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...
-based company and website SightSound.com. The site made the episodes available for download $2.50 for a two-day download and $4.95 for a permanent copy. It was one of the first experiments with making television videos available for Internet download, making "An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig" one of the first of any television episode made legally available on the Internet.
External links
- "An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig" Full episode at South Park Studios
- "An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig" Episode Guide at South Park Studios
- "An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig" at TV.comTV.comTV.com is a website owned by CBS Interactive. The site covers television and focuses on English-language shows made or broadcast in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and Japan...