South Park takes a poke at Apple data tracking controversy

South Park returned to US television on Wednesday night and wasted no time tackling the controversy surrounding Apple and its alleged "big brother" tendencies.

The sharply satirical and topical animated show, now in its 15th season, latched on to the recent revelations that Apple's iPhone and iPad keep track of everywhere you go, and stores the data in hidden files on the devices.

In the episode, which also parodies the 2010 Dutch horror film The Human Centipede, Apple chief Steve Jobs decides to create a new product – a HumancentiPad, a hybrid of the iPhone, iPad and three human beings. One of the boys from South Park, Kyle Broflovski, is chosen to take part in the experiment after he carelessly clicks on "I agree" without reading the new iTunes terms and conditions. The result can be seen below.

Elsewhere in the episode, South Park's resident misanthrope Eric Cartman gets rather upset when his mother refuses to buy him an iPad, offering to buy him the cheaper "Toshiba HandiBook" instead.

This is not the first time that technology icons have come under the withering gaze of South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker. In 2007, the show won an Emmy award for the episode Make Love Not Warcraft, which lovingly parodied the online roleplaying game World of Warcraft. That episode was created with the support of World of Warcraft developer Blizzard. And recent series have featured episodes about Facebook, Bill Gates, the internet and the movie Tron.

Critical reaction to the HumancentiPad episode has been largely positive. Writing at the Entertainment Weekly website, Ken Tucker said:

Joining together two wildly disparate elements, one of the best-known entities in the world (Apple and its products such as the iPad) and one of the least-known (the cult film The Human Centipede), the half hour was an unspeakable pleasure.

IGN.com critic Ramsey Isler says the ridiculousness of user agreements and those who don't read them is a point well made:

We should all be a wee bit more cognizant of exactly what we're agreeing to (although the enforceability of unreasonable terms in EULAs can always be judged by the courts). But the bigger issue here is one of putting your faith in a corporate giant that may not have your best interests in mind.

Myself, I thought the episode was largely hilarious – particularly the selfish Cartman's foul-mouthed tirade when his mother refuses to buy him an iPad. And big respect to Stone and Parker for not taking the easy route and making jokes at the expense of Jobs's ongoing cancer battle – fair play for attacking the company, and not the man. But I do wonder if maybe the Human Centipede references were not a step too far.

What did you think? Have you seen the episode, and if so, will you be queuing outside the Apple Store when the HumancentiPad hits the shelves? And if you haven't seen it yet, here's a clip ...