Dead Celebrities

Dead Celebrites

Season	s13
Episode	e08
Written By	Trey Parker
Production Code	1308
Original Air Date	2009-10-07

Episode Chronology

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Story

Description

Ike is terrified by frequent encounters with the ghosts of recently deceased celebrities. He is haunted by people such as Farrah Fawcett, David Carradine, Ed McMahon, DJ AM, and especially Billy Mays, who repeatedly tries selling Ike products from the afterlife. Kyle is terrified when he finds out about the ghost his brother is encountering and tells Stan, Cartman and Kenny about the encounters. Cartman, who does not initially care, decides to help when Kyle mentions that one of the ghosts haunting Ike is Billy Mays. Cartman then shows commercials that feature Mays on television, implying that he is an enthusiastic supporter of a product which Mays promoted, called "ChipotlAway", which cleans bloodstains from people's underwear caused by eating food from Chipotle Mexican Grill. The boys call the team from the reality television series Ghost Hunters in to help, but they quickly, fearfully start ascribing supernatural meaning to random, ambient, environmental noises, before urinating and defecating on themselves, and finally running from the house. Eventually, Ike goes into a coma because of his multiple experiences with the ghosts.

The boys seek help from a medium (a parody of Zelda Rubinstein's character in Poltergeist), who explains the celebrities are trapped in purgatory, which she compares to being stuck on a plane waiting endlessly on a runway for permission to take off. The medium manages to contact the spirits and tell them that they have passed on. Much to her surprise, the celebrities say that they all accept the fact. Two deceased celebrities, CBS News anchorman Walter Cronkite and Patrick Swayze, tell her that Michael Jackson's refusal to acknowledge his death is the main cause of them being trapped. Some of the celebrities help the medium and the boys try to convince Jackson that he is dead, but Jackson keeps denying it and insists he is not only alive, but also a little white girl. His denial is so strong that he emits a very powerful force which flings the medium out the window of Ike's hospital room, where she falls to her death. The ghosts of these annoyed celebrities are shown in purgatory, which resembles the interior of an airplane, complete with seats, flight attendants and pilot voice-over announcements.

After the energy disturbance, Jackson's spirit takes over Ike's body, causing Ike to speak, sing and dance like Jackson himself. The boys find from online research that the only way to make Jackson accept his death is to make him experience the acceptance he sought in life, so they take him to a child beauty pageant for young girls. Dressed like a little girl, Ike/Jackson impresses two of the male judges by singing a tune sounding similar to Jackson's "You Are Not Alone," but they are promptly arrested for masturbating while watching the children, leaving a single, unimpressed female judge (much to the shock of the boys, who were unaware of the men's lewd acts and considered them the best judges). When Cartman notices the judge eating Chipotle, he bribes her with knowledge about the ChipotlAway product, and she declares Ike/Jackson the winner as a result. One of the other contestants is physically beaten by her mother for losing. Having found his acceptance, Jackson leaves Ike's body, and Ike is extremely surprised and disgusted to find himself dressed like a little girl.

Later on, Jackson and the other celebrities in purgatory are reunited and they are finally able to lift off. Initially happy, they are soon taken to Hell. To their annoyance, however, the flight attendant tells them that they must again wait as Hell is a tow gate.