Starvin' Marvin (South Park) - Cultural References and Impact

Cultural References and Impact

Starvin' Marvin proved to be a popular minor character, even though he would only appear in one more episode, the third season episode "Starvin' Marvin in Space". The character was later featured in South Park Rally, a 2000 racing video game from developer Acclaim, in which Marvin races the other characters in a motorized wheat sack. Marvin is also featured in South Park 10: The Game, a platform mobile game featuring a number of South Park characters. Eric Cartman's line, "That's a bad Starvin' Marvin!", became one of the most popular lines from the first season of the show.

The title character, Starvin' Marvin, is from the African nation Ethiopia, which experienced two famines in the mid-1980s. The American authorities who address his parents identify his family's surname as "Click Click Derk."

The scenes in which Chef, and later the lead turkey, don blue and white war paint and speak inspirational words to their armies are a parody of Braveheart, the 1995 Mel Gibson-directed film about Scottish historical hero William Wallace. Parker said it was the first of many times a film was spoofed in a South Park episode, even though both said they enjoyed Braveheart. During class, Mr. Garrison incorrectly tells the children the internationally known British pop singer Engelbert Humperdinck was the first man to walk on the moon. Also in the classroom, when it is suggested some poor people would rather die than go to a poorhouse, Cartman says, "Well then perhaps they should - and decrease the surplus population!" The line is lifted word-for-word from the Charles Dickens novella A Christmas Carol, prompting Mr. Garrison to respond, "Okay, kids, that's enough Dickens for one day." Kyle incorrectly tells Stan that Sally Struthers appeared on Full House, an American sitcom that ran from the late 1980s to early 1990s; she actually starred in the 1970s series All in the Family. When Dr. Mephisto asks Chef to look into his microscope, Chef says he sees "an extreme close-up of Vanessa Redgrave's private parts", a reference to the Academy Award-winning British actress. At the end of the episode, Stan said it is important to remember the images of starving children on television are "just as real as you or I". Kyle says by that logic, MacGyver is a real person too, a reference to the secret agent protagonist from the 1980s television series of the same name.

Tom Vogt, who served as the editor of South Park for several years, was inspired to join the show after watching a bootleg copy of "Starvin' Marvin". He had never seen the show before, but was so impressed by the episode he decided to drive to Colorado and seek a job with Parker and Stone. He was hired as the show's editor after contacting one of the South Park animators who used to work for the same company as he had.