One very popular long running show that hasn’t appeared on this blog so far is South Park. The reason is that, as far as I know, chess hasn’t yet made an appearance on the show .So in absence of a South Park episode to talk about, we will do the next best thing: we’ll talk about Team America: World police. It is a satirical take on the 2003 invasion of Iraq and Bush’s famous war-on-terror rhetoric featuring animated marionettes. And it was written by Trey Parker and Matt Stone of South Park fame.
In the finale of the movie, our hero is at a peace conference in North Korea,1 trying to free his girlfriend and teammates. They are being guarded by famous actors Tim Robbins and Martin Sheen who, to wile away the dull hours, have decided on a chess game..
I have certain misgivings about people conspiring with Kim Jong Il, but I’m keeping an open mind. A decent position could make up for a lot. The fact that they’ve set up the board with a black square on h1 makes down for a lot.2 The exact positions and even identities were not easy to ascertain, especially on the queen’s side. This is my best attempt:3
White has just moved the knight to f3, when they get disturbed by our hero. And it serves them right: whoever plays on in such positions, and whoever plays Nf3 in them, deserves to be disturbed. Although they probably already were.
But I might be overthinking things again. Stone and Parker are probably just trying to get across that they think Sheen is much better than Robbins. Perhaps they weren’t happy with the 2004 Oscars.
Realism: 2/5 There’s no way anybody would arrive in such a position and then play Nf3. Even barring that, the pawn on f7 is very weird — and the bishop on g8 is possibly even weirder.
Probable winner: White. He has such an enormous material advantage he could start his own world police.
1. [I know that sounds like a fishing conference in the Sahara, but that’s sort of the movie’s point.] ↩
2. [A lot of ducks, presumably.] ↩
3. [The chess police suggest using this diagram editor.] ↩