South Park Mocks Catcher in the Rye with 'Scrotie McBoogerballs'

Videos

J_D_ Salinger, Reclusive Literary Icon, Dies at 91

see larger video

sourced by Jacob Zinn

Last night’s episode of South Park poked fun at the controversy surrounding J.D. Salinger’s expletive-filled classic, The Catcher in the Rye, when the boys write their own offensive novel titled, The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs.

In January, Salinger passed away at the age of 91, making the episode suddenly timely.

The boys' 4th Grade teacher, Mr. Garrison, assigns Salinger’s 1951 novel as reading material for his students. When the boys first hear about it, they’re excited to be reading a book that had once been banned.

The Catcher in the Rye was the most censored book in America from 1961 to 1982, and in 1981, it was the second-most taught book in U.S. public schools. It supposedly inspired Mark David Chapman’s murder of Lennon and John Hinckley, Jr.’s attempted assassination of Reagan.

Catcher in the Rye Doesn't Faze South Park Students

When they read the book, the desensitized students aren’t offended by it in the least, prompting them to write, The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs in a challenge to get their own book banned.

The only South Park Elementary student who is obviously influenced by Salinger’s novel is Butters Stotch, who gets a sudden urge to kill John Lennon and former president Ronald Reagan.

The boys’ novel is filled with lewd acts, many involving Sarah Jessica Parker, who is mentioned in the book 465 times. Stan Marsh’s parents find the novel and vomit in disgust as they read it, but simultaneously agree it is worthy of a Pulitzer Prize.

Scrotie McBoogerballs Becomes a National Treasure

When Marsh realizes his parents found their book, they blame it on Stotch, who ends up taking credit for the next worldwide literary phenomenon. He changes his appearance and goes on national television to promote the work while the rest of the boys try to get their original work banned, which is greatly misinterpreted by critics as a severely overrated classic.

Cartman realizes that if someone kills Parker and blames it on their book, it will surely get on the banned list. The boys dress her up as a moose and lure her into a hunting forest, but abandon her when they learn Stotch is writing another book .

With no expletives in the book, Stotch’s second work looks to be a literary failure, but critics again overanalyze it and call it less edgy. However, one crazed man reads into it too much and kills the entire Kardashian family, which saddens Stotch and ends his writing career.

The episode was well-received by critics and “Scrotie McBoogerballs” trended on Twitter in the United States after it aired.