Jewbilee

Plot

Sheila and Gerald Broflovski are getting ready to go to Mr. Mackey's meteor shower party. Kyle and his brother Ike are preparing to go to Jewbilee camp: a Boy Scout-esque camp for Jewish boys called "Jew Scouts" and "Squirts". When Kenny arrives at Kyle's house to hang out, Kyle invites him to go with him to Jewbilee, so it won't "suck so much". But Kyle's parents explain to Kenny that because he is not Jewish he might not be accepted at Jewbilee. Kyle tells his parents that "Kenny will believe whatever you want him to" and asks his parents if they can take Kenny with them. They then grant Kenny permission and explain to him the basic tenets of Judaism on the car ride to Jewbilee. After dropping the boys off at Jewbilee, Sheila tells the boys to have fun, and advises Kenny to "act Jewish". She and Gerald then leave for Mr. Mackey's party.

Kenny then becomes initiated, despite not being Jewish. Meanwhile, Ike is assigned to go with the other tots to the Squirts camp, which is a Cub Scout-esque camp. After the initiation ceremonies, the boys make soap sculptures to honor their prophet Moses who demands arts-and-crafts-like things, including macaroni pictures that the Squirts were supposed to make, and popcorn necklaces. Kenny is then identified as not being Jewish and is banished from the camp. As he tries to reach home, the ATF and a couple of police cars are seen driving by, away from Mr. Mackey's house, where they thought a cult was residing. He then returns to the camp where Garth, the elder of the "Anti-Semitic Jews" sect, has captured Moses in a conch shell and has locked everyone else in a cabin at gunpoint while he tries to summon Haman to be the new leader.

Meanwhile, the Squirts master, Shlomo, wants to capture the bear the Broflovskis saw earlier in the episode, but only so he can get his chutzpah badge and therefore become a Scouts master instead of Squirts. One by one, the bear kidnaps the Squirts and Shlomo continues to devise plans that ultimately fail. Soon, the bear captures all the Squirts and Shlomo has to go to the Warden, but is shot in the shoulder by Garth, when he tries to release Moses from the conch shell in which he is trapped. Kenny gets captured by the bear only to find that the bear was not killing the Squirts but was finding friends for her cub, who was celebrating its birthday. Kenny gets the Squirts and they make their way back to Shlomo and they head back to camp to find everyone else in trouble. The Squirts stand on top of one another to reach the keys and unlock everyone from the cabin, as Kenny saves the day by smashing his head against the conch shell to free Moses, and Haman is defeated. Moses then kills Garth, and as everyone discovers Kenny died smashing open the conch shell, Moses declares they (the Jews) shall meet every year on that day to celebrate Kenny by making macaroni pictures and paper plate bean shakers decorated with glue and glitter.

Production

The writing process of "Jewbilee" helped South Park co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone realize the approach to writing most suited for the show. The episode had to be aired about a month after the film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut was released, at which time Parker and Stone could take a break from their intensive work. They were pleased with their work on the show and the film and decided to not care about how good the episode is and "just make it dumb and weird". Eventually, they thought that "Jewbilee" came out being one of the best episodes of the show, which helped them realize that they should not try to figure out the plots for too long, but rather "just be stupid and have fun".

Reception

John Sinnott of DVD Talk claimed that the episode is one of the third season's "strange shows that worked very well". In an article about Isaac Hayes' departure controversy, The Seattle Times referred to "Jewbilee" as one of the show's most outrageous episodes.