How I Met Your Mother may be Britney Spears' TV guest spot of choice this month, but it's not her only one.
The life and times of the beleaguered pop star got even more cartoonish Wednesday night, when Spears was given the full-on South Park treatment, with her animated alter ego suffering through a botched suicide attempt and, ultimately, death by camera flash.
More thought-provoking than hilarity-inducing (though featuring a fair amount of yuks), the episode not only skewered Spears as the Comedy Central show had done with Tom Cruise and Marilyn Manson before, but also targeted the relentless media attention on the Blackout star and the indifference to her plight by her many hangers-on.
The episode, dubbed "Britney's New Look"—available to watch in its entirety on SouthParkStudios.com—begins with a "Britney Watch" breaking news update interrupting a Democratic presidential primary debate: Spears, camping near South Park, has been caught on camera peeing on a ladybug.
After learning of the hefty payday that results from such an embarrassing amateur snap, Cartman, Kyle, Stan and Kenny pass themselves off as Spears' sons and a squirrel, respectively, and sneak into the singer's local hotel room, where she is desolate over her newly perceived hatred of the red-and-black bugs.
Still passing themselves off as her Federtots, the boys enter her room and, after Spears learns she's been tricked and her beloved boys are not there after all, she sticks a rifle in her mouth and pulls the trigger, blowing off more than a majority of her head and leaving the foursome in stunned silence.
Quick to spot an opportunity for reinvention, Spears' manager, after learning the singer survived the gunshot wound with little more than a chin and a garbled, incoherent way of speaking, fast-tracks the star back into the recording studio and on to the stage at the MTV Music Awards, where her suicide attempt is ignored, but where she is roundly criticized for being "chubby," "lip-synching"—despite having no lips—and her "crazy, radical, no-top-of-head look."
To give her some semblance of peace, Kyle and Stan hatch a plan to take the headless singer to the North Pole, only to learn en route of a mass public conspiracy aimed at killing Spears. The reporters, photographers and "Britney Watch" voyeurs explain they need Spears to die so they can offer her up as a human sacrifice for their annual corn harvest.
After a last-ditch, unsuccessful plea from Kyle ("You guys are going to end up killing her. I know watching celebrities go down can be fun...but maybe it's time to let this one go."), the mob descends on Spears and ultimately kills her with the relentless flashes from their cameras.
Only after the headless Spears lies lifeless on the field does the group agree "it's time...to leave the poor girl alone."
As the screen cuts to shots of the year's bountiful corn harvest and the South Park citizens reaping the benefits in their local supermarket, the store's television just happens to switch on to Entertainment Tonight, which features a segment on 15-year-old Hannah Montana superstar and pop culture's newest princess, Miley Cyrus.