Spontaneous Combustion

"Spontaneous Combustion" is the second episode of the third season of the American animated television series South Park, and is the 33rd episode overall. It originally aired in the United States on April 14, 1999. In the episode, Kenny and many other townsfolk start dying from spontaneous combustion. Mayor McDaniels puts Randy Marsh in charge of finding out why people are dying from it. Plot Kyle discovers that his father Gerald and his mother Sheila are having marital difficulties caused by Gerald's erectile dysfunction, and he and the others (Kenny, Stan, and Cartman) try to give him "a ne-rection" (which the boys confuse with "a resurrection"), unaware of what it actually is. Meanwhile, various members of the town, beginning with Kenny, start to spontaneously combust, which causes the townspeople to attend church more, and compels Mayor McDaniels to order Randy Marsh to discern the cause for the combustions. The boys get drawn into presenting the Stations of the Cross in church, with Cartman tied to the cross in the role of Jesus, after repeated pleading that he could not play any other role. Afterwards, the boys take the cross and put it up outside the church, with Cartman still attached, so that he will die and get a "res-erection" to give to Gerald. Meanwhile, Randy manages to find out that the combustions are caused by people refusing to flatulate in front of their partners (Kenny was spending some time with Kelly, his girlfriend from the previous episode) and so he encourages everyone in town to flatulate every few seconds. For this, he wins the Nobel Prize and a statue is made for him, much to the ire of South Park's only other scientist, Dr. Mephesto, who wanted to win the prize for creating a Galapagos turtle with seven asses; he then plots revenge.