A Ladder to Heaven
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- This article is about the South Park episode. For the ladder to Heaven in the Bible, see Jacob's Ladder.
| “A Ladder to Heaven” | |
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| South Park episode | |
 Cartman drinks Kenny's ashes |
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| Episode no. | Season 6 Episode 91 |
| Written by | Trey Parker |
| Directed by | Trey Parker |
| Production no. | 612 |
| Original airdate | November 6, 2002 |
| Season 6 episodes | |
| South Park - Season 6 March 6, 2002 – December 11, 2002 |
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| ← Season 5 | Season 7 → |
| List of South Park episodes | |
"A Ladder to Heaven" is episode 91 of the Comedy Central series South Park. It was originally broadcast on November 6, 2002.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
The boys win an all-you-can-grab candy prize. However, they cannot claim it without the stub of the ticket they bought. After thinking hard, they realize that they gave the ticket stub to Kenny to hold on to before he died. Upon visiting Kenny's house, the boys find out that Kenny was cremated. Not understanding what this means, the boys hope to find the ticket in the urn that Kenny's parents say he is now in. They steal the urn and are disappointed to find it only contains black powder. Cartman assumes it must be some kind of chocolate milk powder. He mixes the ashes with milk and drinks Kenny.
The boys decide to build a ladder to heaven to find Kenny so he can tell them where the ticket is. Of course, when questioned why they're building the ladder, the boys neglect to mention that candy is involved and merely say they want to see Kenny again. As a result, the adults, thinking that the boys desperately want to see their dead friend again, are touched. The whole country gets involved in supporting the ladder to heaven. When the boys announce they have run out of stuff to build the ladder, the adults consider telling them the truth that they're not actually going to reach heaven. However, just then the United States military arrives and starts to build a reinforced tower in order to beat the Japanese (who have started building a ladder of their own) to heaven.
Suspicious photos taken of heavenly clouds are reported to the President as indicating a potential factory making WMDs run by Saddam Hussein, now dead and permanently living in Heaven. The US decides to bomb heaven, believing Hussein to be building nuclear warheads there.
Meanwhile, Cartman starts channeling Kenny, while the adults try to tell the boys to get back to their lives. When the boys express their urgency to see Kenny, the adults inform them about Kenny's cremation. When they try to show Kenny's ashes, they discover that it has been replaced by kitty litter. Cartman then admits that he drank Kenny's ashes, to the disgust of the others. Now realising why he has been channeling Kenny, Cartman goes to an abortion clinic in an attempt to get rid of Kenny from his body. His subsequent argument with the nurse there causes a woman to reconsider her own abortion. Cartman ends up getting hit by the woman's boyfriend and remembers where the ticket is. The boys lose interest in the ladder after they get the ticket and their confectionery.
Meanwhile, it is announced via television that the Japanese have reached heaven, and although the "heaven" depicted is obviously set in a studio, this convinces the adults that heaven is real. They continue building the ladder and preparing an attack on heaven when they spot the boys. They are disappointed to find out the boys were "only interested in candy", to which Cartman replies, "I've never heard the word 'only' and 'candy' in the same sentence before."
The boys explain that heaven is not some white fluffy place. In fact, Kyle adds, "Maybe heaven is this moment right now." The general responds by ordering his subordinate to hold off on firing on heaven, and instead he issues an order to "Fire on this moment right now." Before he does, Randy Marsh stops him and says, "Instead of waiting to get into heaven, we should be trying to create heaven here on Earth." The crowd sighs in acknowledgment of this pithy truth and disperses. As the boys are about to go home to count their confectionery, Kenny starts speaking through Cartman.
The episode ends with a shot of heaven, where Saddam Hussein is in fact building a WMD factory, disguised as "Saddam's Heavenly Chocolate Chip Factory". When God suspects this, Hussein uses reverse psychology by saying, "Look God, if I was building a chemical weapons plant, I wouldn't make it look like a chemical weapons plant, would I? No! I would make it look like a chocolate chip factory or something," which God prompty falls for. Saddam exits laughing as he mutters "stupid asshole."
[edit] “Ladder to Heaven” lyrics
Once the boys gain national media attention by building the ladder to heaven, country singer Alan Jackson shows up, singing a song he wrote about the ladder. As noted in the episode, Jackson wrote a song called “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)” about 9/11, and the song he performs, “Where Were You When They Built the Ladder to Heaven,” is a parody. The parody song’s lyrics are:
Where were you when they built the ladder to heaven?
Did it make you feel like cryin’
Or did you think it was kinda gay?
Well I, for one, believe in the ladder to heaven.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah... 9/11.
I said 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, Ni-hi, hi-hine...
...Eleven
Following this verse of the song, Alan Jackson announces that he is selling all of his 9/11 songs on a CD.
Jackson changes the lyrics slightly to reflect developments in the ladder to heaven's construction. In such cases, only the first line is performed before the action cuts away. Some changes are:
- When the boys run out of things to add to the ladder:
- “Where were you when they ran out of stuff to build the ladder to heaven?”
- When the Army offers help to the boys to beat the Japanese:
- “Where were you when they saved that ladder to heaven?”
- When the boys convince the townspeople that heaven is what they should make Earth like now:
- “Where were you when they decided heaven was a more intangible idea ’n you couldn’t, you couldn’t really get there?”
However, this last alteration is very hard for Jackson to sing and people lose interest in the song, upsetting Jackson. He shouts to the boys, in a completely different voice from the songs, “You little bastards ruined my latest song!” and breaks his guitar, leaving frustrated. [1]
[edit] Censorship
- The two news reports where a fat man on the street compares the boys climbing the ladder to Heaven to a little boy climbing his penis and the U.S.A bombing Saddam Hussein to his penis bombing a little boy (with the camera steering away to cut him off before he got too graphic and him trying to get back on screen followed by the anchorman imitating static to fully cut him off) was cut in the syndicated version.
- When Cartman has one of his Kenny-visions, 'blood-belching vagina' is changed to 'belching vagina' in syndication. It is later referenced in the episode where Cartman gets Tourettes, in which one of his outbursts is "bloody vaginal belch!"
[edit] Pop culture references
- When Cartman sees things through Kenny's eyes, the scenes are similar to scenes in Being John Malkovich.
- The race to Heaven between Japan and the US in this episode is comparable to the Space Race between the US and the USSR. The Japanese ladder to Heaven resembles a space elevator. Coincidentally, one of the main themes in the 2008 anime, Mobile Suit Gundam 00, is the existence of three orbital elevators which functions as both a space elevator and a solar power satellite.
- Bombing Heaven is a parody to the Iraq disarmament crisis.
- When the townsfolk gather around the ladder and sing is similar to the townsfolk in "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!"
- When the boys build the ladder to reach above the clouds, Stan mentions the lack of the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk. This is preceded by another observation: that the boys have not seen Cloud City from The Empire Strikes Back yet, either.
- The creators were spoofing America's sensitive emotions (and the exploitation of said emotions) widely observed around the 1-year anniversary of 9/11 through their caricature of Alan Jackson.
- Japan's staging of reaching heaven in order to win the “race to heaven” is comparable to the discredited belief that the United States actually shot the moon landing in a studio in order to win the Space Race.
- The golden ticket is a reference to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as is the prize.
| Preceded by “Child Abduction Is Not Funny” |
South Park episodes | Followed by “The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers” |
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