Volcano (South Park) - Cultural References and Impact

Cultural References and Impact

The episode features a fictional education film called Lava and You, which says lava will pass harmlessly over potential victims who duck and cover their heads. The film was inspired by actual "Duck and Cover" films from the 1950s and 1960s, in which children were instructed to hide under tables or lean against walls in the case of a nuclear weapon attack; Parker and Stone, like many critics of the films, found the methods painfully simplistic and did not believe they would actually help in the case of such an attack. Jimbo and Ned are described as veterans of the Vietnam War, the military conflict between North Vietnam and South Vietnam that lasted from 1959 to 1975; Cartman, who is far too young to have participated in the war, claims to have flashbacks to his experiences in it. Patrick Duffy, the American television actor best known for his roles in the shows Dallas and Step By Step, appears in the episode as the living leg of Scuzzlebutt. Matt Stone claimed there was no particular reason Duffy was chosen as the leg except that he is such a nondescript actor: "He's just super bland. Like, how could you possibly be a fan of Patrick Duffy?"

The scene where Scuzzlebutt puts a star on top of a tree is a reference to a similar scene in the 1964 television special, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, in which the Abominable Snow Monster places a Christmas star atop a large tree. Mount Evanston, the fictional mountain in "Volcano", was named after the real Mount Evans in the Front Range region of the Rocky Mountains in Clear Creek County, Colorado; Nichols Canyon in the episode was named after Kirt Nichols, a friend of Trey Parker. Jimbo blames the Democratic Party for passing overly restrictive laws on hunters and gun owners. Upon learning children are in danger due to the volcano, Mayor McDaniels seeks publicity for herself by contacting the television news programs Entertainment Tonight and Inside Edition.

Several lines of dialogue from "Volcano" became especially popular among South Park fans, including "It's coming right for us!" by Jimbo, and the two Cartman lines, "Democrats piss me off!" and "Cartoons Kick Ass!", the last of which was featured on T-shirts. Despite the relatively small role Scuzzlebutt played in the series, he nevertheless became a popular minor South Park character. He was included in the South Park video games South Park 10: The Game and South Park Rally. The song "Hot Lava", sung by the Chef in the episode, was featured on the 1998 soundtrack Chef Aid: The South Park Album.