Freak Strike

Freak Strike is episode 601 of the Comedy Central series South Park. The original air date was March 6, 2002.

After seeing an episode of the Maury Povich show where a girl born with no midsection wins a gift certificate to a music store, Kyle, Stan, Cartman and Butters decide to try to get on the show with a faked deformity to win a prize. Cartman says that he has a friend with balls on his chin. The other three decide that Butters will be the one to go on the show. The boys visit the two geeks in town (the pair are a parody of the Lone Gunmen from the X-Files), to have them make fake balls to put on Butters. Butters then flies, alone, to New York City to appear on the show.

In the green room, he meets the other freaks: Man with Foot on Head, Girl with Rapid Aging Disease, Disfigured Country Singer, and Man With No Face (based on Mark Tatum[1]). The freaks tell Butters how they hate it when people fake a deformity. Man with Foot on Head tells of "Lobster Boy", who went on the talk show circuit as a freak, but ended up just being a lobster. When the freaks found out "Lobster Boy" was a fake, they boiled him alive. Butters nervously agrees that he hates fakers too.

On the show, Maury introduces Butters as 'Napolean Bonaparte'. Butters tells Maury how the kids at school make fun of him. At first, he forgets that he has a "deformity", and goes on about how the guys call him "Not-Kenny" and tell him he's not as cool as Kenny was. He then remembers why he's there, and says that the kids at school call him "chin balls" and "chin-ball boy". Butters wins a trip to the largest Putt-Putt golf course in the world, which he leaves for immediately.

Stan, Kyle and Cartman had been watching the show at home, and Cartman is terrible upset that he doesn't get to go. He calls the show, and tries to get on another freak show. The operator tells him they aren't doing freaks anymore, but they're doing "out of control kids". Cartman then convinces his mom to take him on that show and lie that he's out of control.

Back at the Stotch house, Butters' parents ground him after seeing the show, saying he embarassed them on national TV, and gave his grandmother a mild stroke. The freaks come to Butters house looking for him. They want him to strike with them, to get better prizes on the talk shows.

Cartman and his mom go on the Maury Povich show. Cartman dresses up as a slutty girl, and tries to "out bad" another girl on the show. Everything she says she has done, he one-ups her, saying he's killed baby seals with his bare hands, and one time, he ran for Senate, won, had sex with an intern, killed her and hid the body (a reference to Gary Condit). During this sequence comes one of Cartman's memorable one-liners of "Whateva! I do what I want!"

At the freak strike outside of the studio, all of the freaks are picketing to get better prizes. When the cops show up, the leader of the freaks (Disfigured Country Singer), says they are a union and they have the right to strike. The cop responds with "We're not saying you people aren't a real union, we're saying you're not really people." The freaks take over the video screen on Maury's stage, and broadcast a plea to the audience. They say that they are the 'real' freaks, and they shouldn't lose their shows to people who weren't born freaks, that are only freaks because they're stupid. The freaks sing a song (featuring 'Napolean') about looking for the 'True Freak label' when they watch talk shows. The audience starts to feel bad, and most of them leave.

Cartman is irate that Butters and the freaks had ruined his chance to win a prize. He runs outside and rips the fake balls off of Butters' chin. The freaks don't realize that the balls were fake, and that he has really ripped of the part of Butters' face that made him a freak, and chase Cartman. Butters' parents show up, and he knows he's in trouble again.