South Park (TV Series) Goobacks (2004) User Reviews

Love the concept so much that I think a South Park feature film could have been based around it

[SLionsCricketreviews · 9/10 · 13 December 2017]

I find "Goobacks" to be an absolutely hilarious little episode. It continues the fine form of season eight so far and deals with immigration and the tension that can result between a preexisting community and an immigration community. In this episode, THEY TOOK ER JEWBS!

The conflict in this episode is hilarious, clever, insightful and compelling and represents what SOUTH PARK so often does so well. On top of being hilarious and entertaining and insightful, this is also a beautiful looking episode and the design on the Goobacks is striking. The opening is hilarious because of how it transitions from one so uneventful to absurdly hilarious. It begins on a highway and shows the vacancy of daily human life through passing traffic and tumbling tumble weeds. I adore SOUTH PARK doing both outrageous humour and banal visual humour (such as in the aforementioned instance OR for another example, the opening scene of "Kenny Dies").

The visual of the first Gooback, who has traveled back in time, navigating his way through traffic to cross the street is something that I find so hilarious, whether it ought to be that funny. In much the same way, I find the entire episode hilarious.

Stan and Randy are both magnificent here, especially their contrary conflicts that both reach a similar boiling point. Stan is immediately cynical and frustrated of the immigration situation whereas Randy is very cooperative until the moment he loses his job....THEYTUKERJEBS.

I adore "Goobacks" for its cleverness, hilarity, relevance and all out sense of entertainment. I find the story and visuals so fun and striking that I feel a cinematic cadence to the visual language here and I think it would have made a very fitting second SOUTH PARK feature film. The entire episode is a wonderful experience and every stage of the plot development is fresh and exciting. Wonderful episode.

They took our jobs!

[gangstahippie · 8/10 · 18 January 2009]

Goobacks is a fairly funny episode of South Park.It brings up the issue of immigrant workers taking over jobs once done by Americans due to their low wages.A group of people from the future called the "goobacks", travel to the year 2004 to search for a job.They take all the jobs of the South Park townspeople away and a lot of people are angry at them.The episode has people trying to get the Goobacks go back to their time(or to stop them).Then there are the people who think they should be able to stay and get jobs in South Park.This is a good episode with funny moments and a great one liner(they took our jobs(pronounced jewbs)).

One of the best South Park Episodes ever made

[analogeezer · 10/10 · 9 December 2023]

Ok I am writing this review first because I have always loved this episode but also because it has a personal connection to me.

Back in 2006 they announced they were closing our office, and similar offices in two other locations and moving all the work to the one remaining office. I was losing my job and wound up in charge of about 75 people, all of whom were also getting laid off.

It was all so depressing and one night I was watching some old South Parks on Comedy Central ("Goobacks" came out in 2004) and lo and behold PEOPLE WERE LOSING THEIR JOBS!

Now here is where the story gets more interesting. The place where Randy works? It's a one word variation on where we worked. All they did was change the last word, and it's on a sign on the front of his desk, and he has a map on the wall in the background.

The coincidence was astounding. Sure I knew Randy worked at an imaginary version of where we worked but with the Goobacks episode it became very personal.

So of course Randy is all for the Goobacks because he gets a cheap housekeeper out of the deal, but of course then he shows up at work and they have a Gooback to replace HIM. Turns out his replacement from the future knows a lot more than Randy does, plus he will work for half the money. "Sorry Randy but with the budget cuts and all, well we had to do this" his boss tells him.

So then Randy, at his desk "looks into the camera and says "I can't believe it; THEY TOOK MY JOB!"

So then Randy joins the blue collar guys who all lost their jobs, suddenly it has impacted HIM not just other people.

So that July I went to Denver for a meeting to plan the demise of our jobs in the three locations to be closing. Extremely depressing to have to do this. The last day of the meeting me and my colleagues from our West Coast office (also losing their jobs) skipped the end of the meeting and got drunk at Red Rocks.

Before I left the office back home, I showed the episode (well the key part where Randy loses his job) on YouTube to a handful of people who thought it was hilarious in a gallows humor sort of way.

I get back to the office after three days and someone had made a screen grab of Randy at his desk, complete with the sign on the desk, and put in a cartoon balloon that said "THEY TOOK MY JOB". These posters were posted all over the corridors in our section of the building. About 50 of them.

On the way to my office I pass one of the people now working for me and they go "THEY TOOK MY JOB" and I reply "TOOK MY JERB!"

So for about the next two weeks (until management made us take the posters down) our standard greeting passing each other in the halls was "THEY TOOK MY JOB", "TOOK MY JERB!" "THEY......TOOK.....MY JOB"

I did wind up getting another job but my start date was about two months away, so I had to close the place down get laid off and lay everybody off; worst experience of my life. A lot of people got burned financially and never recovered. I did fine but it took a lot of my soul in the process.

But for a good while there, South Park's "Goobacks" episode kept our spirits up. To this day I keep a downloaded version on my phone and watch it about once a year on my phone (showing it to people) or on TV.

Great episode

[Jamilahbulawayo · 10/10 · 28 January 2023]

I'm sure most of you can use your brain to determine what parallels are being made. I gotta say personally, credit to south park for admitting that the people from the future are able to work more for less. If you really support human rights, you should want everyone to work 80 hour days for as minimal wages as possible.

American conservatives are just lazy, and for the betterment of the future we should aim towards legislation that requires us to work as many hours as possible. It's not like you're doing anything productive by consuming media during your free time. I'm all for the future. Let's go!