Story

Starvin' Marvin returns to South Park with an alien spaceship and enlists Cartman, Stan, Kyle and Kenny's help to seek out a new home for his starving people.

Description

When an alien lands in Ethiopia to make first contact with Earth's intelligent life, the pilot is immediately eaten by lions. The next morning the starving locals, who attend a missionary school in the mistaken belief that they'll get food, find the alien's ship. The crowd includes Starvin' Marvin. He climbs aboard and takes the ship on a world-spanning joyride.

Meanwhile back in South Park, CIA agents round up Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny and torture them until Cartman reveals where Marvin's village is located. Later that same day the starship crashes into Cartman's house, and Marvin takes the boys for a ride. They fly through a wormhole to the ship's home, the distant planet of Marklar where the word "marklar" is used in place of all nouns. Marvin is delighted when the Marklars allow his starving tribe to move to their planet.

But when he and the boys return, their ship is seized by the CIA. The boys create a distraction by posing together as Tom Brokaw, allowing the Ethiopians to board the ship and take off. The boys make it aboard too except for Kenny, who's recaptured.

The CIA wants the ship's technology and enlists Sally Struthers (now swollen to Jabba the Hutt-like proportions) to help retrieve it. As part of the deal, the agents give her Kenny who she immediately encases in a block of carbonite. Also in hot pursuit is a starship piloted by missionaries from Pat Robertson's 600 Club. After an epic space battle, the three vessels land on Marklar where its citizens take in the Ethiopians and tell everyone else to leave. The boys catch a ride home with Sally Struthers, who had a last minute conversion away from the Dark Side.

What I Learned Today

"Marklar, these Marklars want to change your Marklar. They don't want this Marklar or any of his Marklars to live here, because its bad for their Marklar. They use Marklar to try and force Marklars to believe their Marklar. If you let them stay here, they will build Marklars and Marklars. They will take all your Marklars and replace them with Marklars. These Marklars have no good Marklar to live on Marklar, so they must come here to Marklar. Please, let these Marklars stay where they can grow and prosper without any Marklars, Marklars or Marklars."

Memorable Quotes

• "Here on Marklar, we refer to all people, places and things as Marklar." (Marklar)
• "Here at the 600 Club we need your money to spread the word of Jesus and build more advanced deflector shields for our galactic cruiser." (Pat Robertson)
• "Remember Reading Bible + Accepting Jesus = Food!" (Missionary Woman)
• "Ooh! Kyle's making mud pies, you guys want one?!" (Eric Cartman)
• "Back away from spacecraft, children!" (CIA Guy)"
• Young Marklar. Your Marklars are wise and true." (Marklar)

Characters

Stan Marsh

Kyle Broflovski

Eric Cartman

Kenny McCormick

Starvin' Marvin

Pat Robertson

Sally Struthers

FBI Agents

Missionary Girl

Ethiopians

CIA Agents

Herbert Garrison

Character Debuts

The Marklars, with their incredible habit of using the word "marklar" for every single noun.

Marklar

Body Count

The explorer from Marklar who was eaten by lions. And possibly Kenny. When we last see him he's encased in a block of carbonite, but this isn't necessarily fatal.

Locations

Space

Ethiopia

South Park Elementary

Military Complex

Marklar (location)

Cartman Residence

Australia

Original Songs

The inspirational little song snippet "Soaring So High" plays on the radio of Starvin' Marvin's spaceship.

Behind The Scenes

Like the episode "Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics", this episode is dedicated to Mary Kay Bergman who was the voice actress for nearly all of South Park's female characters. "Hooked on Monkey Fonics" was the last episode she worked on for South Park. This episode aired on Nov 10, 1999, the day before her suicide. Broadcast a week later, "Starvin' Marvin in Space" was the last South Park episode to use her dialogue.

Where Did The Idea Come From

"Starvin' Marvin in Space" was both a chance to feature Starvin' Marvin as the main character and to write an homage to sci-fi space series like Star Wars and Star Trek. The episode doesn't open with the show's opening, the feeling being that this was an episode of a different show.

Pop Culture References

Shout Outs

This episode has many Star Wars references. This episode's version of Sally Struthers is a parody of Jabba the Hutt and has a Tiberian Junker spaceship like the Hutts. The CBC spaceship is modeled after X-Wing starfighters. Finally, Kenny is frozen in carbonite like Han Solo.

The wormhole Starvin' Marvin and the boys travel through and its warping effects are similar in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The CBC spaceship's bridge is loosely designed like the bridge of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 from the Star Trek universe.

The Christian Broadcasting Channel (CBC) is a parody of the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), a real televsion channel that hosts religious shows such as The 700 Club (parodied in this episode as The 600 Club) with founder of the network Pat Robertson. CBC is also the acronym of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

The scene where Starvin' Marvin is flying over Australia, with the music in the background, is reminiscent of the 1986 sci-fi film Flight of the Navigator.

The Marklar language uses "marklar" as a noun, similar to the blue humanoid Smurfs from the Belgian comic franchise of the same name.

Pwn'd

Sally Struthers, now drawn even bigger and more hideous than she was in "Starvin' Marvin". Her massive slug-like form and deep talking is a parody of Jabba the Hutt from the film saga Star Wars. However, it must be said that at the end of the episode she has a change of heart and becomes a force for good.

Tom Brokaw, who the boys poorly impersonate with a crappy mustache and grey toupee. Tom Brokaw is a television journalist, best known as the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News from 1982 to 2004.

The CIA worries what "sadistic, backwards third world country" will get their hands on the Marklar spaceship, and it turns out to be Australia. Although they're inviting, the Australians are portrayed as less than intelligent.

Bonus Factoids

Pointless Observations

• According to the government agents who greet his parents, Starvin' Marvin's surname is "[click]-[click]-Derk". Some of his family member's names are also revealed: his father David and his younger brother Joshua.
• At the beginning of the episode Cartman and Kyle both accuse each other of "going number two" in a school urinal. This subject serves as a major part of the plot in "Mystery of the Urinal Deuce".
• The unreleased song "I Am Chewbacca", which plays over the closing credits, is performed by Matt and Trey's band, DVDA.
• When two FBI agents are about to meet Sally Struthers and one warns the other about her weight, the latter replies with: "Oh, I would never say anything. I saw some show where they made fun of Sally Struthers' weight, and I thought it was totally cruel. I mean, she helps people, you know." This is an ironic, fourth wall-breaking call back to "Starvin' Marvin" where South Park makes fun of Struthers' weight.
• The boys experience a new, brutal torture method at the hands of the CIA: the sounds of a balloon being rubbed.

Season 3

e1 Rainforest Shmainforest

e2 Spontaneous Combustion

e3 The Succubus

e4 Tweek Vs. Craig

e5 Jakovasaurs

e6 Sexual Harassment Panda

e7 Cat Orgy

e8 Two Guys Naked in a Hot Tub

e9 Jewbilee

e10 Chinpokomon

e11 Starvin' Marvin in Space

e12 Korn's Groovy Pirate Ghost Mystery

e13 Hooked on Monkey Fonics

e14 The Red Badge of Gayness

e15 Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics

e16 Are You There, God? It's Me, Jesus

e17 World Wide Recorder Concert