In 1997, South Park, the not-for-kids cartoon, made its debut. The show focuses on the lives of four elementary school students — Stan, Kyle, Kenny, and Cartman — and often crosses the line of good taste to make these kids’ adventures into laugh-a-minute entertainment. The first season’s Christmas episode is as good of an example as any. Kyle, who is Jewish, is chosen to play Joseph of Nazareth in the school play. Kyle’s parents object and the town’s grownups get into a heated argument about the appropriateness of such performances at a public school. But Kyle has a solution: he wants to sing a song about Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo, an anthropomorphized rod of feces which wears a Santa hat which, at this point, only Kyle is aware of. Kyle argues that Mr. Hankey is the perfect compromise, as he’s non-denominational and entirely inoffensive. In the real world? Kyle would be wrong. If you live in Catalonia, a manger isn’t a bona fide nativity scene unless it features a defecating figurine called a caganer. The caganer, as seen in the example pictured above, leaves little to the imagination. The figurine is squatting with its pants down around its ankles, … Continue reading Christmas Poo