Over Logging

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“Over Logging”
South Park episode
Stan's family packing the car to go to California
Episode no.	Season 12 Episode 173
Written by	Trey Parker Matt Stone
Directed by	Trey Parker
Guest stars	=
Production no.	1206
Original airdate	April 16, 2008
Season 12 episodes
South Park - Season 12 March 12, 2008 – TBA
Tonsil Trouble Britney's New Look Major Boobage Canada on Strike! Eek, A Penis! Over Logging Super Fun Time

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"Over Logging" is episode 1206 (#173) of the animated series South Park.^[1] It was originally telecast on April 16, 2008. Much of the episode is a parody of The Grapes of Wrath.

[edit] Plot

The episode begins with the Marsh family performing various online activities: Stan browsing, Shelley iChat-ing with her online boyfriend Amir from Montana, and Randy watching Internet pornography. Sharon has them all get off for bed but when they wake up the next day, they discover the Internet is not working. Then they go to Kyle's home, but the internet is not working there either. They then decide to go to Starbucks for free internet. While at Starbucks a man says there is no internet where he just came from which is similar to a scene from Dawn of the Dead. Soon it becomes apparent that no one's Internet in South Park is working, and without the Internet and websites like Drudge Report to find out why, they cannot figure out what to do. The TV news, which has nothing to report without the Internet, gives vague rumors of there being some Internet access in Silicon Valley. After eight days without Internet (indicated by a time card similar to the ones in the film The Shining), the family decides to head out "Californee way." As they spend the night in a transient camp, a man delivers a Grapes of Wrath-inspired monologue that California is so crowded from other travelers that there is not enough Internet to go around. The song Mr. Marsh sings, "goin' down the road feeling bad" is a take on the traditional blues song made popular by Elizabeth Cotten.

When the Marshes arrive they are placed in a "Internet refugee camp" which is so overcrowded that each family is only permitted 40 seconds of Internet access a day, which Randy complains isn't even enough time to look at Wikipedia. Shelley is angry about being unable to communicate with Amir and beats up Stan repeatedly out of frustration. Randy quickly becomes agitated and explains to a guard that he has not "jacked off" in over two weeks. Over the years, Randy became so used to being able to find any weird fetish he wanted with a click that he "can't just go back to Playboy." Following the guard's refusal to help, Randy encounters a fellow traveller who informs him that many men have come to California because of the same problem. In the background, a visitor of the type in the pilot episode looks on and observes this conversation. Randy's attempt to use an "Internet pornography simulator" (crude hand-drawn stick figures) fails, but when the camp's computer is locked inside for the night, he sneaks in to use it in secret. As he masturbates when he was watching pornography, his loud moans attract attention and he is discovered in front of the computer covered in his own semen. He tries to explain that a spooky ghost "slimed" him with ectoplasm.

Meanwhile, the government has attempted to find a way to fix "The Internet", a gigantic Linksys-like wireless router that has stopped working for some unknown reason. Several fruitless attempts are made to repair it: negotiating with it, communicating with it musically (with the melody from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but using the wrong last note), and even shooting at it. Acting on a hunch, Kyle power cycles the router by disconnecting and reconnecting its power cord. The network indicator now glows green to indicate that nationwide Internet access has been re-established.

Back at the camp, everybody discovers that their laptops are working (similar to real life) and celebrate the return of the Internet. Shelley, ecstatic that she will now be able to communicate with Amir, suddenly hears a boy call out her name. It is the actual Amir, whose family had also traveled across the country to get Internet. The two are initially awkward around each other, and make plans to e-mail each other instead of communicating in-person. At the end of the episode, Randy makes a speech similar to Steven Seagal's speech, wearing a Native Americanesque outfit, warning about overuse of natural resources in On Deadly Ground. Randy says they should learn from the experience and stop "over-logging...on," because they may be unprepared as a result if the Internet is lost permanently. He advises people to stop browsing pointlessly, to only use it when truly necessary and to only view Internet porn "twice a day... max."