South Park parodied the media coverage of Britney Spears in a new episode on Comedy Central last night. I’m not a huge South Park fan, but the show started out hilarious and ended with a creepy message that had me nodding.

The episode starts with the kids sitting around watching a television debate between Obama and Clinton, which is interrupted with breaking Britney news. Reporters go crazy over the news that Britney is camping in Colorado and that she took a pee outside on a ladybug. The newscast states that Britney has since moved to a hotel. Cartman notes that she’s in their town, South Park.

Once the guys learn that the photo of Britney peeing earned $100,000 they decide to go find her at the local hotel.

Kyle: “$100,000 for a picture of Britney peeing on a ladybug. Imagine what a picture of her crapping on a squirrel is worth!”

The guys claim to be Britney’s kids to gain access to her hotel room and once she learns that she was tricked she gets depressed and shoots herself in the head.

Britney survives, but she’s headless. It’s gross, but you can’t help laughing.

They sneak Britney out of the hospital and help her stage a singing comeback, in which she can only grunt because she has no head. The people in the studio make fun of her and call her fat and a train wreck.

After that Britney performs on the MTV Music Awards, with people calling her fat and saying that she’s lipsynching. The fact that she doesn’t have a head is mentioned as an aside.

The guys try and save Britney and shield her from the paparazzi. Kyle eventually gives a lecture to the media about how it’s time to let Britney go before it’s too late. A photographer says “Son, you don’t seem to understand. Britney Spears has to die.”

It goes on from there, with the press explaining that “Our lust for torture and death is no different than it was in gladiator times. The only difference is now we like to watch people put to death through magazines and photographs.”

Photographers eventually surround Britney and photograph her to death in a scene that’s reminiscent of the public stoning in that famous short story by Shirley Jackson, “The Lottery,” in which a town holds a lottery to see who will be killed to ensure a good harvest.

Everyone in town acts normal afterwards and life goes on as usual. The news then breaks to a story about Miley Cyrus and the townspeople start chanting eerily, setting her up to be the next victim.

I enjoyed the way this episode skewered the media frenzy surrounding Britney and made them look like clueless swarming zombies. It really had a good message.

Here’s the clip where Britney shoots herself. Warning: it’s violent.

A clip where the news makes fun of Britney’s cameltoe.

And Britney is photographed to death. Again disturbing.

If you want to watch the whole episode, I’ve clipped it into three segments. Thanks to Redlasso for making the television streams available.
Britney Spears on South Park Part 1
Britney Spears on South Park Part 2
Britney Spears on South Park Part 3