"The Scoots" is the fifth episode of the twenty-second season of the American animated television series South Park. The 292nd overall episode of the series, it first aired on Comedy Central in the United States on October 31, 2018.^[1]

The episode parodies the popularity of scooter-sharing systems and e-scooters, which cause a candy shortage on Halloween, and a hoarding problem for the citizens of South Park. The episode's title is a parody of the classic horror-thriller film The Birds and elements of the film are referenced in the episode.^[2] The episode also includes Halloween costumes and plot elements inspired by the video game Fortnite.^[3]

An adult narrator opens the episode by explaining that this Halloween night was different from the ones that came before, and changed everyone's lives forever.

While putting his garbage out on the sidewalk, South Park Elementary School counselor Mr. Mackey trips over an e-scooter, one of many ride share scooters left anonymously all over town. Despite their popularity, Mackey is skeptical of the trend and hopes it is only a fad, especially after the vehicular collisions he experiences at the hands of scooter users. That night, he collects all the abandoned e-scooters he can find in a pickup truck, and throws them off a cliff. He nonetheless finds the town filled with them the next day, even inexplicably in his bathroom.

Eric Cartman, Stan Marsh, and Kyle Broflovski decide to use the e-scooters to go trick-or-treating, but because using an e-scooter requires a cell phone, this excludes their impoverished friend, Kenny McCormick, who does not own a cell phone. Kenny learns that all of his other schoolmates are using e-scooters on Halloween too, leaving him alone on the holiday.

At the South Park Community Center the day before Halloween, the police inform the citizens that the use of e-scooters, which allows riders to cover more ground in a single night, means that citizens will be visited by trick-or-treaters from surrounding towns, and will need at least $6,000 of candy to prepare for this. This leads to a shortage of candy and panic by some of the townsfolk, including Mackey. However, when a despondent Kenny tries to seek his counsel, and Mackey learns that cell phones are needed to use e-scooters, they join forces to resolve both of their problems by driving to a cell phone tower. On Halloween night, citizens and the police are swamped with trick-or-treaters using e-scooters, a problem that occurs nationwide as even dense urban areas like New York City are reported to be out of candy. Mackey and Kenny disable the cell tower, and along with it, all of the trick-or-treaters' cell phones and e-scooters which are then abandoned as the trick-or-treaters return to going door to door on foot. As the narrator, revealed to be an adult Kenny. relates that this was the last, good Halloween that felt like Halloween, one of the abandoned e-scooters stands up by itself and drives off without a rider.

Jesse Schedeen with IGN rated the episode a 7.8 out of 10 and summarized in his review, "While not the best Halloween-themed South Park episode, 'The Scoots' certainly has its moments. The e-scooter storyline is a bit repetitive at first but eventually has great payoff after a candy-fueled apocalypse sweeps over South Park."^[3]

John Hugar, writing for The A.V. Club, gave the episode an A- grade, stating in his review, "So, why does 'The Scoots' still manage to work so well? Because it focuses on comedy and characterization more than message. Yes, this episode wants to make a point about the degree to which our phones control our lives, but it mostly just wants to tell a story about a kid being left out on Halloween, and a counselor being tortured by seemingly magic scooters."^[2]