Production and Themes
In the emotional elements of its plot, "More Crap" is based on the 2007 documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. The documentary follows Steve Wiebe as he tries to take the world high score for the arcade game Donkey Kong from reigning champion Billy Mitchell. In the documentary, Wiebe beats the record but is suspected that his machine may have been tampered with. To prove his gaming skills, Wiebe performs the high score live, in front of an audience, but then is trumped by a low-quality VHS tape sent in by Mitchell, depicting himself achieving a higher score. Bono's personality in the episode is much like the depiction of Mitchell in the documentary, including how he is allowed to play by different rules than other competitors. South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone spoke highly of the documentary, and called it a "really well-done movie".
South Park has a history of using toilet humor from its earliest days, such as the recurring character Mr. Hankey, a talking piece of feces. While the series gained reputation for its use of political humor as it progressed, scatological humor still remained to be a staple in its later seasons. "More Crap" was named as "perhaps most poo-centric episode of all time". In the episode, females – such as Randy's wife Sharon – are constantly portrayed as not understanding the pride men can feel for the size of their feces. This has been viewed as a conscious sign of the creators' awareness that such toilet humor is mainly appealing to males. This female–male divide in the appreciation of toilet humor was further satirized in the thirteenth season episode "Eat, Pray, Queef". Randy's love for his growing excrement is portrayed at one point in an analogy of a mother's love for her unborn child. In the scene, Randy's clinician shows him his "unborn" feces via Medical ultrasonography, and warns him against travelling by airplane, as he is in his "turd trimester" – a pun on the third period of pregnancy.
"More Crap" was written and directed by Trey Parker, and was produced and broadcast as the second episode of the second run of the show's eleventh season, after the season premiere, "Le Petit Tourette". The episode originally aired on Comedy Central in the United States on October 10, 2007, and is rated TV-MA. The episode features regular voice acting from Parker and Stone for most characters (with Parker doing the voice for Randy and Stan), as well as Eliza Schneider and Mona Marshall for female voices. South Park staff writer Kyle McCulloch also provided his voice to the episode.
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