Over Logging

"Over Logging"

"Over Logging" is episode 1206 (#173) of the animated series South Park. It was originally telecast on April 16, 2008. It parodies the novel and film The Grapes of Wrath.

Plot

The episode begins with the Marsh family doing their various online activities: Stan browsing, Shelley iChat-ing with her online boyfriend Amir from Montana, and Randy watching Internet pornography. Sharon has them all get off for bed but when they wake up the next day, they discover the Internet is not working. Soon it becomes apparent that no one's Internet in South Park is working, and without the Internet to find out why, they cannot figure out what to do. The TV news, which has almost nothing to report without the Internet, gives vague rumors of there being some Internet access in Silicon Valley, so the family sets off for "Californee way." On the way there a man, in a Grapes of Wrath inspired monologue, reports that California is so crowded from other travelers that there is not enough Internet to go around.

When the Marshes arrive, they are placed in an "Internet refugee itinerant camp," which is so full that each family is only permitted forty seconds of Internet access a day (which, as Randy puts it, isn't even enough time to look at Wikipedia). Shelley is angry about being unable to communicate with Amir and constantly beats up Stan out of frustration. Randy quickly becomes agitated and explains to a guard that he has not "jacked off" since the Internet went offline. Over the years, Randy became used to being able to find any weird fetish he wanted with a click that he "can't just go back to Playboy." His attempt to use an "Internet pornography simulator" (crude stick figures) fails but when the camp's computer is put inside for the night, he sneaks in to use it in secret. The first page he visits contains 'Japanese girls puking in each others mouths'. His loud moans attract attention and he is found sitting in front of a computer with the entire room covered in semen, which then Randy claimed a "ghost" slimed him with sticky ectoplasm (a reference to Ghostbusters).

Meanwhile, the government has attempted to find a way to fix "The Internet," a gigantic Linksys-looking router which no longer works properly for unknown reasons. Several methods to fix the internet: negotiating with it, communicating with it musically (with the melody from Close Encounters of the Third Kind), were tried to no effect. Kyle then discovers the problem and power cycles the modem by disconnecting and reconnecting the power cord. The network indicator now glows green to indicate that the internet has been re-established.

Back at the camp, everybody discovers that their laptops are working and celebrate the return of the Internet. Shelley, ecstatic that she will now be able to communicate with Amir, suddenly hears a boy call out her name. It is the actual Amir whose family had also traveled across the country to get Internet. The two are unable to look at each other, and awkwardly make plans to e-mail each other instead of communicating in-person. At the end of the episode, Randy makes a speech to the town about the abuse of overlogging. This is similar to Steven Segal's speech about the abuse of oil in On Deadly Ground complete with the Native American attire. Randy says to everyone that they should learn from the experience and stop "over-logging...on," because the result may be that they will be unprepared if the Internet is lost again. He advises that people stop browsing pointlessly; only use it when truly necessarily and to only view Internet porn up to two times a day - max.

Cultural References

• The Marsh family traveling west is based on the experiences of the Joad family in The Grapes of Wrath and its movie adaptation, where they travel to California looking for jobs and end up in a itinerant camp.
• Shelley has her first lines since "More Crap", and her personality stays consistent with the episode "An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig".
• The first reveal of the Internet is a reference to the movie Independence Day, when they show the alien ship for the first time.
• When the government attempts to communicate with The Internet, which is a giant router, the sequence of tones that are played are similar to those in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
• The end scene is similar to the end of the 1994 Steven Seagal Movie On Deadly Ground.
• "The Internet" is shown as a gigantic wireless router similar to many Linksys routers. The router has a flashing orange LED, which is "supposed to be solid green," which implies a routine problem such as failure to obtain a DHCP lease. Kyle repairs the router by power cycling it.

External Links

• Episode preview clip at South Park Studios
• The Dancing Kitty dot com