In the first episode of South Park's eighth season Stan, Kyle, Kenny and Cartman buy ninja weapons at the South Park County Fair. The boys imagine themselves as real ninjas, and what ensues is a madcap adventure drawn in a parody of Japanese and American action-oriented cartoons.
The comedy comes by way of the fact that we in the audience get to see both sides of the fantasy. We see peeks of the boys both in their own fantasy world, and we get to contrast that against the real world, which usually intrudes at the most inopportune times. (E.g. Butters gets a ninja star stuck in his eye and the kids have to deal with taking him to the hospital without their parents finding out.) Even when we're in the fantasy world, though, it's obvious that we're really watching a bunch of 9-year-olds because the fantasy is just so ridiculous. "I have the power to have all the powers I want," Cartman says at one point. Not to mention the hilarious theme song.
Now, imagine the South Park boys successfully avoided all real-world intrustions for as long as they liked, and instead of buying ninja weapons, they went to a gun show and bought assault rifles and chainsaws. I wonder what that equally ridiculous fantasy would look like.
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