The New Terrance and Phillip Movie Trailer

Plot

The boys (Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Butters) stay the night at Stan's to see the new Terrance and Phillip movie trailer, which will premiere during one of the commercial breaks of Fightin' Around the World with Russell Crowe. Shelley, Stan's short-tempered older sister, being on her period, allows them to watch if they bring her some tampons. Cartman thinks the TV's color is "saturated" and attempts to fix a loose cable, causing the TV to explode. The boys leave to watch at Kyle's house, but have to force Ike away from the TV. Gerald reprimands Kyle for pushing his little brother around and allows Ike to watch the MacNeil/Lehrer Report, forcing the boys to find another place to watch the show.

Throughout the episode the Fightin' Around the World with Russell Crowe show depicts Crowe with an insecure manner and an exaggerated Australian accent, sailing the world with his tugboat friend Tugger and randomly beating people up. He fights many different nationalities, and at one point fights his own editor. He also attempts to cheer Tugger up by singing him a song from his album, but instead, it annoys Tugger so much it drives him into a failed suicide attempt.

Since Cartman's house is being fumigated and Butters insists they cannot go to his house, they go to Chef's instead to watch on his new plasma screen TV. To their disappointment, the trailer is not shown during the break – and to make matters worse, Chef's confused fumbling with the remote causes the TV to transform into an ED-209-like robot. The TV wreaks havoc on the street, and throughout the remainder of the episode, Chef follows the destructive television around South Park, while talking to customer service on his cellphone in an effort to deprogram the machine. The boys go to watch TV at the local bar, only to be kicked out for being underage. They arrive at the Retirement Community where they manage to catch another commercial break, but the trailer is once again not aired. The elderly grow annoyed with the boys and force them out by simultaneously releasing their bowels.

In desperation, they try to brave the fumes at Cartman's house, but it is too much for them to handle. The boys decide to head back to Stan's house to use an old black-and-white television that Stan claims he has, only to be pushed back by a large flood of Shelley's blood, when Butters realizes he hasn't given Shelley her tampons and resort to watching TV in an alley with a group of crack-addicted homeless people, only to be attacked by Chef's rampaging television-robot again. The boys are forced to flee and have nowhere else to go. Finally, they ask Butters why they cannot watch at his house – and Butters, obedient to a fault, explains that it is because his parents are not home and he does not have a babysitter, much to their anger. They rush to Butters' house and arrive just in time to view the last commercial break, wherein the trailer is finally shown. It is revealed to be something of an anti-climactic teaser—very vague and nondescript, showing nothing but Terrance and Phillip wearing cowboy hats and farting, but nevertheless, the boys are still very ecstatic over finally getting to see it after all.

Production

In the DVD commentary for this episode, Trey Parker states that this episode was made "just to rip on Russell Crowe" after he and Matt Stone had an uncomfortable incident with the actor. According to Parker, he and Stone were invited to Crowe's house to listen to and give their thoughts on the demo tape for his album. However, when they arrived, Parker claims, there were a handful of Crowe's friends there; and the "Demo tape" was, in fact, a complete album that Crowe simply wanted all his friends to listen to in its entirety. Parker offered a suggestion to improve one of the songs, which apparently did not sit well with Crowe and led to this episode. Despite this, however, Parker and Stone claim there are no hostile feelings between them and Crowe. Crowe has since publicly stated that he enjoyed the episode and even contacted the duo to congratulate them on the success of their movie Team America: World Police. Parker also stated that Crowe was "a really cool guy" and "a very talented actor", the latter referencing how bad he and Stone secretly thought the album was, which Parker described as Bon Jovi meets Hepatitis B.