Culture continued from page 12 Four Mile Historic Park “Super Fun Time,” S12, E7 While Four Mile Historic Park isn’t iden- tifi ed by name, it’s hard not to miss the frontier setting and historic re-enactors during the school fi eld trip in “Super Fun Time.” Fortunately, the real Four Mile House volunteers aren’t likely to repeat what the re- enactors in this episode do: refuse to break character, even when the park is taken over by robbers trying to crack a modern safe and holding everyone hostage until they get the code — something frontiersmen would know nothing about. University of Colorado Boulder “Crack Baby Athletic Association,” S15, E5 Parker and Stone’s alma mater makes a bumpersticker when hippies take over South Park before Cartman drives them out in season nine favorite “Die Hippie, Die.” season twenty, when the Danish govern- ment feuds with Internet trolls and creates the website TrollTrace. The tracker fi nds Gerald Brofl ovski’s partner in crime, the troll Anthony Webster, in Fort Collins. After the Danes release the entire city’s Internet history for everyone to see, the city builds a wall surrounding it to prevent such an incident from happening again. In several aerial shots, Fort Collins is festooned with hot-air balloons, random tall buildings and a surrounding mountainscape. LoDo SoDoSoPa, which is showcased through- out season nineteen and onward, looks like a familiar section of any burgeoning city climbing the gentrifi cation ladder. But this is defi nitely LoDo. Kenny’s impoverished house is surrounded by newly constructed buildings fi lled with wine bars and organic markets, advertised through photos of beaming, multi- racial groups of friends holding their glasses in a “cheers” mid-laugh. Randy petitions for quent Sundays, and when Butters takes pity on the priest and begins hanging out with him, the townspeople are confused. School counselor Mr. Mackey calls the archbishop, who is seen at the Archdio- cese of Denver, and tells him that Father Maxi has gone missing. The archbishop assures Mr. Mackey that there’s nothing “suspicious” going on and requests he not call the authorities. After hanging up, the archbishop calls the “Catholic Cleanup Crew,” which is responsible for clearing up priests’ semen. (No, nothing happens between Father Maxi and Butters.) Ellie Caulkins Opera House “Broadway Bro Down,” S15, E11 The Ellie plays a role in the unforgettable “Broadway Bro Down,” when Randy discov- ers that Broadway musicals not so subtly encourage women to give blow jobs. Turns out that theatrical masterminds ranging from Stephen Sondheim to Andrew Lloyd Webber to Elton John are just a bunch of pops up when the boys try to take Biggie Smalls to Los Angeles. Of note: DIA is home to a real City Wok, the imagined Chinese restaurant that is owned by an ostensibly Chinese man, Tuong Lu Kim, who ends up being Butters’s murderous white psychiatrist with multiple personality disor- der. The food at the airport’s City Wok is just as bad in real life as it’s portrayed in the show. Airport Hilton “Ginger Kids,” S9, E11; “Miss Teacher Bangs a Boy,” S10, E10; “Tonsil Trouble,” S12, E1; “The Coon,” S13, E2; “200,” S14, E5; “Ginger Cow,” S17, E6; “Wieners Out,” S20, E4; “Douche and a Danish,” S20, E5 The Airport Hilton — which in reality is a DoubleTree by Hilton with a shuttle to DIA — is an integral setting in numerous episodes. Whether it’s used by ginger kids getting ready to murder non-gingers in the “Sunset Room” or serves as the venue for Cartman’s AIDS benefi t concert, this is where multiple memorable scenes happen. Bailey, close to Trey Parker’s hometown of Conifer, has two landmarks depicted in the show. But it gets a starring role in season fi fteen, when Cartman creates a nonprofi t called the Crack Baby Athletic Association after he sees a commercial styled in the form of the emotionally manipulative Sarah McLachlan ASPCA commercials, but with crack babies instead of puppies. He makes a business out of it by recruiting unwanted babies to play “crack baby basketball,” in which they fi ght over a ball of crack cocaine, and Kyle joins the operation, saying they’re not exploiting the crack babies, but giving them opportu- nities to be famous. (The episode aired in 2011, when there was an uproar over college athletes not getting paid while their images were sold.) Cartman ends up proposing a trade deal to the dean at CU — a scene that takes place in the dean’s offi ce — but is swiftly castigated and told to leave after he keeps referring to student athletes as “slaves.” Fort Collins “Scott Tenorman Must Die,” S5, E4; “The Losing Edge,” S9, E5; “Fort Collins,” S20, E6; “Oh Jeez,” S20, E7 Fort Collins fi rst shows up in the famed 14 episode “Scott Tenorman Must Die,” when Scott tricks Cartman into going to the city for a “pube fair.” The South Park Little League baseball team also plays the Fort Collins team in “The Losing Edge.” And Fort Collins is included twice in a Whole Foods, where he is later shamed for not giving donations to African orphans. Cherry Creek “The Tooth Fairy’s Tats 2000,” S4, E1 Cartman gets greedy after receiving $2 from the tooth fairy, and he, Stan and Kyle (who’ve already lost their baby teeth) recruit Kenny and others to give Cartman their teeth so that he can put enough under his pillow to buy a Sega Dreamcast. When Cartman’s mom breaks the news that the tooth fairy is fake and she’s given him all the money she has, Stan comes up with the idea of hiding a tooth under a “really rich kid’s” pillow and taking that money. They take a bus to Cherry Creek, which Stan calls “the richest part of Denver,” adding that the kids there “probably get at least $10 a tooth from the tooth fairy.” Turns out they aren’t the only ones with that idea. Archdiocese of Denver “A Boy and a Priest,” S22, E2 This episode aired in 2018, when the Catholic Church was facing yet another round of scandals regarding inappropriate sexual behavior by its priests. Stan fi nds out that his parents and other adults in town only go to church so they can mock Father Maxi with Catholic priest jokes. Father Maxi locks the church on subse- frat bros who hang out at Hooters, and after a “bro down,” they join forces with Randy to help him with his musical, The Woman in White. But when Randy discovers that his daughter, Shelley, is being taken on a date to a Broadway show, he charges the Ellie dressed as Spider-Man, swinging from its bizarre chandelier. Denver International Airport “The Entity,” S5, E11; “Freak Strike,” S6, E3; “Hell on Earth 2006,” S10, E11 Denver International Airport’s fi rst ap- pearance is in “The Entity.” The episode begins at the airport, where Mr. Garrison is trying to navigate security lines and misses his fl ight, leading him to rail about a $15 bil- lion bailout taxpayers provided for airlines. He decides to create his own homoerotic device called “IT” that “beats dealing with airline companies,” despite the multiple penetrations required to operate it. “Freak Strike” is Butters’s fi rst episode as a replacement Kenny, and the boys have him attach testicles to his chin so that he can get famous on TV with other disfi gured people used by shows such as Maury to boost rat- ings. DIA appears only briefl y, when Butters is shipped out on the talk-show circuit and joins the “freaks” in their union efforts. In “Hell on Earth 2006,” which revolves around a Sweet Sixteen party for Satan, DIA St. Mary of the Rockies “Bloody Mary,” S9, E14 Catholicism is the target of South Park yet again. While the church is called St. Peter’s in this episode, it is unmistakably St. Mary of the Rockies in Bailey (not far from Conifer, where Parker grew up). You can tell by the white statue of the Virgin Mary, seen IRL outside the rectory, which begins to spout blood from her backside and inspires pilgrimages to the site. Randy visits with Stan, hoping to be cured of his alcoholism through the blood. Coney Island Boardwalk “City People,” S25, E3 Colorado and South Park converge again in the show’s last season, when Eric Cart- man and his mother are forced to move into a hot dog-shaped home that is identical to the Coney Island Boardwalk hot dog stand in Bailey. The hot dog stand, which was originally located on West Colfax Avenue when it was built in 1966, went up for sale this spring for $1.5 million. It would look swell standing next to Casa Bonita. The South Park 25th Anniversary Concert, 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, August 9, and Wednesday, August 10, at Red Rocks. Although the shows are sold out, the concert will be streamed on Paramount+. AUGUST 4-10, 2022 WESTWORD | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | westword.com
