The drug addiction of Towelie, a living and talking towel, is growing so overwhelming that the South Park boys make attempts to help him.
Towelie's history is shown, using interview clips and on-screen captions (in a parody of Intervention), starting with years of drug addiction to cannabis, crystal meth, heroin and crack.
His life continues in a downward spiral, leaving him in heavy debt and offering oral sex to strangers for money in the alleys.
Cartman instead reads a long collection of anti-Semitic remarks, infuriating Kyle Broflovski, but the interventionist allows him to continue without interruption until he is finished.
Mimsy repeatedly misunderstands Nathan's instructions, resulting in Nathan falling victim to his own sabotages: nearly being bitten by a venomous black mamba placed in his team's canoe, falling victim to an attack by a hostile Indian tribe living near the campsite after following the wrong map, and being anally raped by a shark that responds to a mating call whistle.
An exasperated Nathan berates Mimsy for his ineptitude and plays the solo correctly (a spoof of "Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms" as used to trigger explosives in Looney Tunes cartoons), inadvertently setting off the C-4 and launching him across the campsite.
It originally aired on Comedy Central in the United States on April 28, 2010 and served as the mid-season finale of the fourteenth season before a months-long hiatus for the series.
As a result, they completely revamped the episode and focused it on talk show host Oprah Winfrey and the controversy surrounding the James Frey book A Million Little Pieces, rather than Towelie's addiction.
It's pure silliness, with a lot of old-school comedy devices mixed in with the usual crass South Park brand of humor.
Ramsey Isler of IGN called "Crippled Summer" a brilliant episode, particularly praising the return of Towelie, who he said "has a slew of great moments in this story, making up for his long absence from the series".
Isler said after the controversy raised from the depictions of Muhammad in the previous two episodes, "200" and "201", he appreciated that the show returned to a simpler plot and provided "a little comedy relief".
MTV writer Adam Rosenberg thought the episode "just wasn't very funny", and said it missed an opportunity to continue the creative edginess demonstrated in "200" and "201".
Rosenberg found the jokes about disabled children "pointlessly mean", and said the fact that they are allowed where depictions of Muhammad are censored "makes a point about the absurdity of what is and isn't TV-acceptable".
[12] The television website TV Fanatic praised the Towelie storyline and the use of his son "Washcloth", but said the jokes about the disabled children were unfunny and irritating.