8x04 You Got F'd in the A

[9.7/10] What an episode. If there’s a good recurring approach for South Park, it’s taking something silly or mundane, treating it like the absolute most serious thing in the entire world, and thereby making fun of how seriously the real world takes it. That’s “You Got F’d in the A” to a tee, a You Got Served spoof that mines the comedy from treating competitive dancing like the most important thing to ever happen.

The humor comes from playing things straight at first, and then, in classic South Park style, escalating and escalating to the point of increasing absurdity. I love how in the beginning, the boys are just confused about what happened. The show treating dance battles like playground fights, replete with parental concern and encouragement to “dance back” while the usual foursome are just puzzled at what’s going on is brilliant and hilarious.

But then, of course, South Park kicks things up a notch. The idea of Randy getting “served” to the point of him going into the hospital, and Stan having to assemble a dance crew to avenge him is a nice step-up in the ridiculousness of the situation. The motley crew of dancers Stan finds are each funnier than the next, with the excitable duck being the piece du resistance. And Chef’s disbelief at what he has to work with is an all-time great South Park scene.

But really, the crowning achievement of this episode is Butters’s part of it. The lunacy of a simple tap competition resulting in eight deaths doubles down on the ludicrousness of how seriously people take these things, and diverges from the straight You Got Served parody into weirder, trademark dark territory for South Park.

Then, the show bundles it all together, combining the specific jabs at You Got Served’s heightened atmosphere and deadly serious tone, with gags about and pitch-perfect recreations of silly competition movies generally, and the gallows humor of Butters’s trauma and the bloody result of his return to competitive dancing.

Altogether, it makes for an absolutely hilarious episode, that riffs on the severity and sincerity with which T.V. and movies treat these things, expertly spoofs a then-popular movie, and throws in a trademark bizarre and gory South Park twist to boot. Outstanding.