Best Friends Forever

"Best Friends Forever" (also known as "Kenny's PSP") is episode 904 of the Comedy Central series South Park paralleling the Terri Schiavo controversy. The episode won a 2005 Emmy Award. It first aired on March 30, 2005, hours before Terri Schiavo died.

Plot summary
Kenny is the first person in town to get a new PSP videogame system and becomes inseparable from it. Meanwhile, Cartman, who couldn't get his own because he was late getting to the store, grows envious of Kenny's new toy. Kenny quickly works his way up to level 59 of the game Heaven vs. Hell, but because of his parents having an argument, he goes to complete the 60th level outside; there, he is run over by an ice-cream van (driven by someone playing the same game who just reached level 4) and dies.

In Heaven, Kenny learns that God created the PSP to search for what the angels call "our Keanu Reeves" &mdash; the person who can command His legions against the forces of Hell in a manner like that of the videogame. Unfortunately, Kenny is revived just after hearing this. Because he had been dead for too long, he cannot talk or communicate and has suffered permanent brain damage. He is kept alive through the use of a feeding tube. The reading of Kenny's will, in which Cartman is given the PSP (out of pity) and Stan and Kyle are given everything else, is interrupted by the announcement that Kenny is still alive. The lawyer mentions a passage about Kenny's wishes in the event of him being in a vegetative state, but the last page of the will is missing, making it impossible to tell what his wishes were.

As Satan's army begins to close in, the angels need Kenny dead so that they can win the battle of the Apocalypse. Meanwhile, Cartman, claiming his status as Kenny's "best friend forever" to the Colorado Supreme Court with the first half of the BFF medallion, gets an order to take out the feeding tube, and he removes the tube after tracking down and finding Kenny's other BFF medallion half. Kyle and Stan, along with Kenny's parents and other protesters, including Skeeter and Mrs. Garrison (who gets arrested for trying to bring food and water to Kenny), wage a media war to put the feeding tube back in and keep Kenny alive, while Cartman enlists supporters of the rights of "best friends forever" to leave Kenny's feeding tube removed.

After a long, intensive media campaign, the two sides are arguing in Kenny's hospital suite when Kenny's lawyer announces that the last page of the will has been found, and that Kenny's wishes were that if he were ever in a vegetative state, "please, for the love of God…don't ever show me in that condition on national television." In full twist of irony the two sides immediately realize that they have both been disrespectful of Kenny's wishes, and they leave Kenny alone to die in peace.

Kenny returns to Heaven just in time to command the angels to victory; the battle is not seen, but is described ("Oh, how I wish I had a camcorder!", "Ooh, now they're calling in their demon dragons! Look at the size of them!", "Oh, this battle is bigger than the final battle of the Lord of the Rings movie! It's TEN times bigger than that battle!!!") The battle ends with a few surviving angels weakly cheering and dancing and Kenny receiving an awesome prize: a golden statue of Keanu Reeves.

Parallels to the Terri Schiavo case

 * Kenny is in a persistent vegetative state, and his parents cite things like blinking or smiling as signs of awareness, rather than categorizing them as the involuntary movements that are characteristic of those in a persistent vegetative state.
 * In making his case for the removal of the feeding tube, Cartman points to his rights as Kenny's "best friend forever" (or BFF for short) and he is given custody, instead of Kenny's parents and real friends. In the real-life case, custody of Terri Schiavo was initially given to her husband Michael Schiavo (who wanted the feeding tube removed), not to her parents, though he later gave up authority over the key decision to the court system and a state appointed guardian.
 * Cartman is seeking Kenny's removal from life support purely out of self-interest, as he will only get the PSP if Kenny dies. Some have argued that Michael Schiavo was also acting out of self-interest because of the $400,000 insurance money or for other selfish reasons (although he was offered over $1,000,000 to keep Terry Schiavo alive). Both Michael Schiavo and Cartman claimed they were only following the wishes of their loved ones. Some think this was done by Michael Schiavo because he was engaged during her vegetative state, initially with the blessing of Schiavo's parents.
 * Members of the Republican Party rally to the cause (in Kenny's case: they are unwittingly being controlled by a hooded minion of Satan (called Kevin), which uses the Republicans to achieve its goals).
 * Mrs. Garrison tries to bring food and water to Kenny but gets arrested, as many in favor of keeping Terri Schiavo alive did in a symbolic effort during her dying days.
 * The misplaced page of Kenny's will (as written above) implicates the media and both arguing sides of his friends and family as being disrespectful for displaying him on national television to try and gain supporters for their argument. As many South Park episodes end with a stated moral lesson, the implied lesson here is that both sides of the Terri Schiavo debate are wrong for making a private issue and family struggle a politicized media spectacle.
 * Terri Schiavo herself died the day after this episode aired, two weeks after having had her feeding tube removed.

Awards

 * This episode won a 2005 Emmy Award in the category of "Outstanding Animated Program (for programming less than one hour)". This is the first time the show has beaten other nominees, such as The Simpsons and other winners. It also becomes the fourth prime time animated cartoon to win the award, behind The Simpsons, King of the Hill and Futurama.

Cultural references

 * HBC's world news show looks like the BBC's world news
 * After Satan is defeated, he turns on his adviser, who resembles (especially given the other references in this episode) Gríma Wormtongue from The Lord of the Rings but wears a black cloak more in keeping with Darth Sidious from Star Wars. His appearance also arguably resembles the Devil's portrayal in the Mel Gibson directed film The Passion of The Christ. Satan refers to him by name as Kevin, and zaps him. The advisor could also be considered to be a parody of Desaad, Darkseid's advisor. (This character later appears again in Hell on Earth 2006.)
 * A Lord of the Rings reference in the episode includes the orb used by Satan, a reference to the palantír held by Saruman, the gates of Heaven being deliberately designed to look like Minas Tirith and Satan's minions are reminiscent of the Orcs and Uruk-hai from the movies. The council of the Angels is also a reference to The Lord of the Rings's Council of Elrond. Also, during his description of the battle, Archangel Michael comments that the battle is "ten times bigger" than the one in the last Lord of the Rings movie, referring to the CGI battles in the film trilogy. The armies of Heaven and Hell are clearly modeled after those in the final battle in the series.
 * There are many references to Monty Python and the Holy Grail in the episode. When Kenny is at the gate of Heaven, a Pythonesque "Open the gate!" is heard - this is also said by King Arthur in the film. Moreover, Heaven's army celebrates winning the war by cheering in a manner not unlike the similar moment of "much rejoicing" in the film's animation segments of Terry Gilliam.
 * The references to Keanu Reeves throughout the episode are based on Reeves' regular appearances as savior type characters, upon whom the triumph of good over evil depends, in films like The Matrix and Constantine.
 * This is the second and final time Kenny is killed in this season. The first was in the episode that aired right before this, Wing.
 * While the catchphrase "Oh, my God! They killed Kenny! You bastards!" is not uttered in its entirety during the episode, it is referenced twice: Once during the protests, Kyle leads the protesters by yelling, "Don't kill Kenny!" with the crowd responding, "You Bastards!" After removing the feeding tube which leads to Kenny's final death (so far) and return to heaven, Archangel Michael happily observes, "Oh my God! They killed Kenny!"
 * Heaven recruiting its ultimate hero through a video game may be a reference to the film "The Last Starfighter," wherein a young man is chosen to defend an alien race based on his skills at an arcade game the aliens placed on earth to test humans. The concept of a boy who is brought to fight an epic battle in the guise of a game is, again, reminiscent of the novel "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card.
 * This episode aired just six days after the Playstation Portable was released.

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