‘Simpsons’ Viewers Cry ‘South Park Did It’ for the First Time
This week’s episode of The Simpsons, “Last Man Expanding,” found the majority of Springfieldians embracing a new miracle weight loss drug called “Othinquic,” which even a character from the show accidentally refers to as “Ozempic” at one point.
But Homer, one of the town’s famously portly residents, rejects the drug. As a result, he ends up being kidnapped by “Slim Tony” so that his body fat can be harvested and injected into Othinquic users’ sagging faces.
If the idea of an animated series satirizing the Ozempic craze sounds familiar, that’s probably because last year South Park released the streaming special The End of Obesity, which tackled the same issue.
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Both cartoons ended (spoilers) with the Ozempic/Othinquic users being targeted by a gang of aggrieved food workers: In “Last Man Expanding” it’s all the chefs, bartenders and fast-food employees living in Springfield. In The End of Obesity, it’s a cabal of angry cereal mascots, including Tony the Tiger and a cigar-chomping Trix Rabbit.
So, now, seemingly for the first time ever, Simpsons fans are having to admit that “South Park did it.”
As South Park fans are well aware, back in Season Six of the show, Butters’ villainous alter-ego Professor Chaos was constantly frustrated by the fact that so many of his dastardly plans turned out to be retreads of Simpsons plot lines, with his sidekick General Disarray/Dougie constantly pointing out that “Simpsons did it!”
The episode not-so-subtly allowed South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone to vent their behind-the-scenes frustrations around having to come up with storylines that hadn’t already been used by Fox’s long-running cartoon. “That show came from life experience,” Stone once explained, “sitting the writers’ room, coming up with something, spending a couple of hours on it and (having) someone say, ‘Oh yeah The Simpsons did that.’”
But The Simpsons’ lengthy production schedule means that responding to current issues will inevitably take a while, whereas South Park has historically been able to produce new shows within a week. So really, it’s no surprise that The End of Obesity was able to beat The Simpsons to the punch.
It’s also worth noting that the South Park special was arguably a more nuanced take on the subject matter. “Last Man Expanding” ultimately concludes with Homer giving a rousing speech on the importance of unhealthy, addictive food, which is clearly the show’s ironic condemnation of corporate America’s efforts to promote mass-consumption. And both shows include a subplot focusing on the criminality sparked by Ozempic’s jacked-up prices.
But crucially, the South Park special also offers up a scathing indictment of the wildly confusing American healthcare system, illustrating how corporations, including insurance agencies and pharmaceutical companies, are monetarily incentivized to make people less healthy.
And so far, no doctors have recommended that the Simpsons episode should be mandatory viewing for medical students.
