Manbearpig: half man, half bear, half pig, but all global warming? South Park is a popular animated comedy series written by Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Although South Park episodes are always humorous on the surface, each show usually has a deeper, much deeper meaning and moral. An episode of South Park called Manbearpig, named after the monster in the episode, has a particularly powerful deeper meaning. On the surface, the episode makes fun of monster stories, politics, and especially Al Gore. More profoundly, however, this monster story can be read as a national allegory alluding to the dangers of global warming, the political issues behind global warming, and the eventual catastrophe we will all face if we do nothing about it . The story of South Park centers on four fourth graders, Eric Cartman, Kyle Broflovski, Stan Marsh, and Kenny McCormick, who attend South Park Elementary School in South Park, Colorado. Although much of South Park's humor is scatological in nature, the series is well known for its political satire. In other words, “no matter how nasty and scatological [South Park] gets, it's never just stupid and stupid. Besides all the bathroom humor, the show is built on a clever satire of equal opportunity” (Johnson-Woods 25). Strauss 1 Jeffery Weinstock states in his book Taking South Park Seriously that South Park “intrepidly launches itself into the American ideological fray” (14). The episode Manbearpig uses a simple monster story to address an important ideological issue facing America. Just as the stories of werewolves were born from fears about feudal society, and how the story of Godzilla was born from fears about nuclear war, the story of Manbearpig was born from the issue of global warming. The episode Ma...... middle of paper .. ....amplifies the use of monsters in literature. In appearance, Manbearpig is a human-animal hybrid monster. However, like many monsters in Strauss's literature, Manbearpig has a deeper meaning. This episode of South Park can be seen as a national allegory alluding to the dangers of global warming, the political issues behind global warming, and the possible catastrophe if nothing is done to solve the problem. South Park uses this monster story to illustrate the problem of the politicization of global warming. This suggests that to solve the problem we need to move away from our political parties and actually look at the real facts and data. The episode also shows how blindly believing in global warming can be just as dangerous as not believing in it. Hopefully one day the world can put aside political differences and we can all be eradicated from Manbearpig..