South Park DBWI: Cartmen and Wendy not together?

OOC: After recently rewatching some old South Park Seasons, I had an interesting idea for something different.

In the season 4 episode Chef goes Nanners, the characters of Cartmen were paired up for debate team on changing the South Park flag. This pairing lead to a rather surprising turn of events at the end of the episode. Specifically, that of Cartmen becoming Wendy's boyfriend and vice versa.

I've been having some discussions with fans of the show before Season 5, many of who think that this move ruined the show when it became clear that it wasn't some temporary thing.

Me, I think it was an interesting twist, and besides, Stan being her boyfriend never made much sense anyways.

Anyways, what differences might there have been in South Park if Wendy had stayed with Stan?
 
OOC: After recently rewatching some old South Park Seasons, I had an interesting idea for something different.

In the season 4 episode Chef goes Nanners, the characters of Cartmen were paired up for debate team on changing the South Park flag. This pairing lead to a rather surprising turn of events at the end of the episode. Specifically, that of Cartmen becoming Wendy's boyfriend and vice versa.

I've been having some discussions with fans of the show before Season 5, many of who think that this move ruined the show when it became clear that it wasn't some temporary thing.

Me, I think it was an interesting twist, and besides, Stan being her boyfriend never made much sense anyways.

Anyways, what differences might there have been in South Park if Wendy had stayed with Stan?

I loved the old episodes where the 4 guys would stumble their way through a disaster.. there just weren't that many of them after Wendy & Cartman got together.

Season 5 was the worst - the episodes all started being about their love/hate dynamic, or the triangle with Stan.

I think without the Cartman/Wendy relationship, maybe South Park could've explored some minor characters that never got a chance after season 4.

Sure we got to see more of Cartman & Wendy's family, but Stan's family was pretty much relegated to the role of "Stan, snap out of it".. in fact that almost became as big a catchphrase "Oh my God they killed Kenny!", but I think there was some real potential in there.. especially his Grandpa & Shelley.
 
Well I always found it quite an interesting twist on things, certainly not as good as the first 4 seasons, but not bad at all. And that was the problem for me. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't all that good either. Nothing really memorable in Season 5 & the first half of Season 6.

At least they managed to recover though, when they shifted the focus away from Cartman/Wendy all the time and put more attention towards other characters. Especially so in the Season 7 Two-Parter, "Kenny Dies".
 
I think the Wendy/Cartmen focus was important for Trey Parker and Matt Stone's career. They are the #1 names in comedy movies for a reason. Hell, Nerd: The Musical won two Academy Awards, that's insane to think about. With six absolutely great films under their belt, I really have to say maybe South Park getting left behind was for the best.

It's not the only example. The Simpsons may be a bit lackluster now, but Futurama is doing great. Family guy may have been cancelled after a pretty damn good season (Brian Wallows and Peter's Swallows is still my favorite, although the fifth season on Adult Swim had some great episodes too), but American Dad is doing just great. (And MacFarlane's new The Flintstones movie is going to get a TV adaptation.)

Over all, it may have hurt South Park in the long run, but we gained a lot from it in terms of movies.
 
Terrible move and it totally destroyed the character's relationships. Cartman became horribly out-of-character as they focused more and more on his relationship with Wendy. His negative qualities were played further and further down as he was catered to doing things for her. Take for example, the early Season 6 episode "Fun With Veal" where the boys have to save a bunch of baby cows, and Cartman's sole motivation is he might impress Wendy. The lovesick moments like in "Cartmanland" are almost sickeningly out-of-character compared to the early episodes.

Then there's Wendy, who's reduced to a fucking prop character half the time solely serving to motivate or otherwise be used only in relation to Cartman. In Season 5 she got some solo development to jumpstart the relationship - we learn her parents' names are Sean and Deborah, we find out her mom works for the mayor, etc. - but by a season later, she's just a prop. Cartman wants to impress her and she does nothing of her own accord, and at best, gets a few lines here and there. Still hasn't changed either.

And flippikat already went into Stan's family, who became background characters for several seasons. Stan's depression went unresolved for quite a while and became a very annoying gag - the result was he fell into the background with Kenny while Butters, Kyle, and Cartman became more the stars. Rumor is they almost killed Stan at the end of Season 5, too. Thank Jesus he got over it later, even if he has a nasty drinking habit now.

Now, let's ignore all of this for a second and pretend none of this happened. The show would have probably been a lot better. Stan might've remained a major character through the whole series, Kenny might still be alive, Cartman might remain funny instead of just being awkward and depressing, the Mayor might not be such a huge character, we might have gotten that rumored Scientology ep in Season 9, Pip might not have gotten re-used, etc.

(ooc: I'm not afraid to call myself the resident South Park expert. My apologies.)
 
Terrible move and it totally destroyed the character's relationships. Cartman became horribly out-of-character as they focused more and more on his relationship with Wendy. His negative qualities were played further and further down as he was catered to doing things for her. Take for example, the early Season 6 episode "Fun With Veal" where the boys have to save a bunch of baby cows, and Cartman's sole motivation is he might impress Wendy. The lovesick moments like in "Cartmanland" are almost sickeningly out-of-character compared to the early episodes.

"It's just for us!" he said to her. Meh.
Cartman was never about 'us', he's supposed to be the archetypal 'bad' only child.. spoiled to the core & only in it for himself.

Then there's Wendy, who's reduced to a fucking prop character half the time solely serving to motivate or otherwise be used only in relation to Cartman. In Season 5 she got some solo development to jumpstart the relationship - we learn her parents' names are Sean and Deborah, we find out her mom works for the mayor, etc. - but by a season later, she's just a prop. Cartman wants to impress her and she does nothing of her own accord, and at best, gets a few lines here and there. Still hasn't changed either.

Not just a prop - she did pull some feelings out of him, some degree of humanity.. but if Cartman was ever going to learn some lessons I'd rather he did that out of sheer crushing defeat rather than the charms of his girlfriend.

And flippikat already went into Stan's family, who became background characters for several seasons. Stan's depression went unresolved for quite a while and became a very annoying gag - the result was he fell into the background with Kenny while Butters, Kyle, and Cartman became more the stars. Rumor is they almost killed Stan at the end of Season 5, too. Thank Jesus he got over it later, even if he has a nasty drinking habit now.

The change in that family just jarred me.. all of a sudden they just antagonize Stan about his failed relationship?
I wasn't surprised at Shelly - that's always been the big sister's way - but the others seemed happy to just ignore him in the first few seasons.

And whatever happened to Uncle Jimbo? He was the one guy who was actually quite warm towards Stan, but he disappeared without a trace. I liked that guy - plenty of potential for stories in his exploits.

One episode that stands out as an opportunity lost was "Things you can do with your finger" (Season 4 Episode 7) - Randy Marsh going nuts over Stan & the guys starting a boy band was hilarious. Maybe Randy could have had some episodes where he goes nuts a bit more?

[OOC - I've switched a couple of episodes - S4E07 & S4E08, in this timeline the Boy Band story is the episode BEFORE Cartman & Wendy get together, not the episode after. Just so that I get a semi-Randy story in before the relationship takes over things.]

Now, let's ignore all of this for a second and pretend none of this happened. The show would have probably been a lot better. Stan might've remained a major character through the whole series, Kenny might still be alive, Cartman might remain funny instead of just being awkward and depressing, the Mayor might not be such a huge character, we might have gotten that rumored Scientology ep in Season 9, Pip might not have gotten re-used, etc.

As Zacoftheaxes said above, we got some good movies out of Matt & Trey - but it's a shame that they had to use South Park as a test-bed for how to write relationships. They even admitted it in the Rolling Stone interview they did around just after the release of Nerd: The Musical.

I really think that another series APART from South Park would've been a better place to practice writing relationship dynamics - perhaps a live-action sitcom based around mixed-sex roommates?
 
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