Sacred cows make the best burgers, which made last night's South Park episode that much more tasty. The grilling includes Matthew McConaughey shilling for Lincoln, Elon Musk and his D, and ride-sharing as the future of personal transportation. With that much material, it's hard to understand how it all fell flat.
The thing that's always been great about South Park is its ability to skewer the obvious object of ridicule (see: Kayne West, Tom Cruise, the Prius) with their own actions. With "Handicar", Trey, Matt and Co. decide to explain rather than lampoon when it comes to ride-sharing.
It comes across more like a stoned conversation with your friend about the Darwinian nature of the market and how if taxis could just get their shit together – with clean cabs and an app to call them – all would be right in the world. And yeah, they're right. But it just wasn't that funny.
The shots at McConaughey and his Lincoln ads were whiffs, with the impression of McConaughey funnier than the actual jokes. They mock a Hummer dealer, despite the brand being dead for years. And they rightfully take aim at Musk's over-the-top presentation of the P85D last week, where – in the South Park universe – he's pissed about the popularity of ride-sharing and how it threatens his vision of electric cars.
While that's obviously not true, the point was marginally salient. Do we all really need to drive EVs to make the planet a better place? Or considering that most of our cars – whether electric or gas-burning – are parked most of the time, wouldn't ride-sharing be a better, more economical, more environmentally friendly way of getting around? They're all valid questions hobbled by the hamfisted delivery.
Then again, I have no idea how to make a topical TV show in six days.
Per usual, no one came out the other end looking particularly good, but at least Musk got a kick out of it: