Tooncrap #44 - South Park: A Million Little Fibers

A Million Crappy Problems
South Park Studios: 2006

Written by: Raymond Gallant

It's been a while since I covered a South Park episode here on the ol' Crap. Actually it's been a year to this very month. When last I covered the show, I looked at Pip, a mess of an episode that took the work of Dickens and made a mess of it, resulting on one of the show's sloppiest of outings. But for as much flack as I've given to that episode and its focus on one of the least important South Park characters ever, then boy do I have an even more unimportant character to focus on this week.



Meet Towelie. He's a towel. He reminds people to bring a towel whenever the situation demands it. Also he gets high a lot.

I have literally told you the entire life story of this character. Pot smoking towel. That's him in a nutshell.
So naturally you'd think there really couldn't be much that could be done with him to warrant his own solo episode. Well, you'd be sorta right, but Trey and Matt tried anyway. And thus we got one of the worst episodes of a season that for the most part is a mixed bag season overall.

Season 10 gave us gems like "Make Love, Not Warcraft" and the two part "Cartoon Wars" story (which began Trey and Matt's issues with the Muslim faith for their attempts to depict Mohammad). But this season also gave us their middle finger to Isaac Hayes with "The Return of Chef", the divisive "Stanley's Cup", and the toon du jour for this month "A Million Little Fibers". So, don't forget to burn a towel as we review this thing.



We open the episode at P.F Chang's, as Towelie has a new job as a waiter. However, he's no help at all. In fact, he's just really high, and can't really do much more than stir the Chang sauce. After some dull banter with a customer, he gets fired. With no job, and the rent due, Towelie needs to come up with an idea... but he has to get high first.



The high gives him an idea to write his memoirs in order to be successful. His memoirs are called "A Million Little Fibers". You know, like that book that James Frey guy wrote called "A Million Little Pieces". That book that told of Frey's life of drug and alcohol abuse, but later was discovered that most of what he wrote was just a bunch of lies? And then he pissed Oprah off. Oh, we'll get to Oprah soon.

When Towelie takes his finished memoirs to a publisher, he's turned down. As it turns out, nobody has any interest in the life of a towel. That's not a race issue, it's just that stoner towels lead the most boring of lives. So with his author dreams shattered momentarily, Towelie promises to shape up... But just decides to get high instead.



Now high once more, Towelie decides that his best chance to get his book published is to embellish the truth a bit by replacing any instance of the word "towel" with "person". And with his new name of "Steven McTowelie" (complete with hat and mustache), he manages to succeed in getting his book published. The book is such a success that even Oprah invites Towelie to the show. But since talking to a towel is boring as hell, let's focus instead on Oprah's talking minge and asshole.

And this becomes the true crux to the story. Not so much Towelie's deception because that's boring as hell, but the fact that Oprah Winfrey is so busy in her life that she never finds time to play with herself. And if the thought of Oprah Winfrey masturbating while fingering her butt just made your brain hurt, then I guess mission accomplished Mr. Parker and Mr. Stone.



As Oprah's minge laments over not being played with, Oprah makes Towelie's book her "book of the month" making Towelie a major name in the industry. Meanwhile, Oprah's minge continues to while, but Oprah's asshole (named Gary for some reason), is tired of Minge's complaints as he too has never gotten any love from Oprah in years. They decide the only way to get love from her again is to get her fired. They managed to realize that Towelie is... surprise... a towel.

Minge calls the greatest detective in history... but gets Geraldo Rivera. He tells Geraldo about the Towelie issue, and to look into the author. We then see Towelie on Larry King Live (while High of course). Geraldo interrupts (live from Afghanistan for some reason), as he reveals to the world that Steven McTowel is just a towel. Minge and Gary celebrate the chance of Oprah being fired, and with people ready to kill Towelie for their refunds, it may just work.



Oprah invites Towelie to the show, and Towelie needs to come up with what to say. So, of course he gets a little high. Turns out the Oprah invite was more of an attack. With everyone back on Oprah's side, this means no play for Minge and Gary. She gives everyone a torch, and the plan is to burn Towelie once and for all.



But Minge has other plans as he pulls out a gun from Oprah's vaginal region and holds people hostage until he finally gets the play he's been wanting. He shoots a cop, which sickens Gary, and both her minge and asshole vomit, because I don't even know what's going on anymore. Towelie almost gets high again, but he decides against it as he tries to come up with a plan.

With it now being a full hostage situation, Minge demands a chopper and a jet awaiting a way to France. Gary wants Minge to stop, but things have gone too far. Towelie gets the hostages to safety, and a sniper ends up shooting Gary, killing him. Minge blames Oprah, and kills himself too. Oprah gets taken to the hospital as Towelie learns a lesson that he should only get high as a reward for coming with ideas.

And that's "A Million Little Fibers". This episode is boring. The concept isn't funny, the writing isn't creative, and even the focused topic about James Frey's deception isn't even all that interesting to warrant a South Park episode. Towelie just isn't all that deep a character to focus an episode on, and the fix was certainly not focusing on Oprah's vagina and asshole. This is considered by many as the worst of the series. I dunno, there's been some really reprehensible episodes that are far worse than this. But for this dull piece of tooncrap, I'd say ditch the towel and avoid this one.