Costa Rica Steamed Over South Park Episode
Costa Rican government officials don't think South Park is one bit funny. Why? Because a recent episode places the characters in the country declaring, among other things, that it smells..."like ass":

The main characters, a group of children, are on a trip to San José, aboard a bus from which a teacher shows them the city.

The woman explains that Costa Rica is a third world country, as the children observe through the windows prostitutes, shantytowns and trash, and they complain of the smell "of ass" that they detect in an unidentified government building.

Government officials are not amused. According to Spain's 20 Minutos, Costa Rica's Tourism Minister, Carlos Benavides, put it like this: "We should look at it as the trash that it is. It's a program of that nature on a network designed for people with a lowly upbringing and bad customs."

South Park is the Emmy-award winning animated show about four boys living in one screwed-up town in small town of South Park, Colorado.

Parents, teachers, assorted celebrities and strange beings from other planets can't stop the boys from having fun no matter what local or global tragedies may befall the town of South Park.

The series is created and written by Matt Stone and Trey Parker, and has been distributed and aired by Comedy Central since 1997. It is known for its blunt handling of current events and its pop-culture parody.

Since its premiere on August 13, 1997, 153 episodes have been produced over ten seasons.

South Park's early episodes tended to be shock value-oriented, and featured more Pythonesque humor than later episodes.

Although satire had been used on the show occasionally in its early and middle years, it has become more evident around the eighth season. Such examples include Michael Jackson visiting South Park ("The Jeffersons"), the boys seeing The Passion of the Christ ("The Passion of the Jew"), blue-collar workers in South Park losing their jobs to immigrants from the future ("Goobacks"), and an episode featuring a "Paris Hilton" toy video camera ("Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset").