South Park/Nightmare Fuel

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


HOW COULD A TAP DANCE COMPETITION GO SO WRONG?????


Being a VERY LONG RUNNING series, South Park was bound to have some horrors that little children should not see.

It's like Matt and Trey were trying to deconstruct the Animation Age Ghetto with this stuff.

  • Many of the things Cartman has done are without a doubt Nightmare Fuel.
    • Like the time he ground up a kid's parents into chili and made him eat them. And, to top it off, sang "Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah! I made you eat your parents!"
    • "Do you like it? Do you like it, Scott? I call it: Mr. and Mrs. Tennorman chili." The look on his face seals the deal.

"Let me taste your tears Scott. Mmmm, your tears are so yummy and sweet!"

    • Stan and Kyle put it best...

Kyle: Dude, I think it might be best for us to never piss off Cartman again.
Stan: Good call.

  • One of the first accounts of nightmare fuel came from "City on the Edge of Forever", in which the children on trapped on the edge in a school bus teetering on the edge of a cliff. One of the students, an actual Red Shirt, decided to take his chances outside even after Mrs. Crabtree said there was a big, black, monster outside. He seems alright at first but then the monster attacks, grabbing him and pulling him into a tree. As the students watch on to learn of his fate, WHAM! His eviscerated body hits the window. The children think they're safe until the monster rips the top off the bus and steals Kenny. Yes, it was All Just a Dream from Stan but the fact remains. That monster was something that comes from the bowels of your worst nightmares.
  • Kyle's nightmare in "Cartoon Wars" in which the town is attacked by terrorists, and Ike goes missing. Kyle finds him just as a nuclear warhead goes off, complete with a very graphic depiction of IKE'S BODY MELTING WHILE SCREAMING.
  • The scene in "You Got F'd in the A" where a traumatized Butters is looking through the box containing his old tap-shoes. The music starts off sad and sentimental as he looks through the articles about his winning performances, then turns darker and creepier, as do the articles. Later, we get a flashback to the trauma: during his last performance, his tap shoe flew off and knocked down one of the stage lights, setting off a small-scale massacre as people were cut in half by wires, crushed by falling objects and trampling one another. Oh, and Butters gets splattered with their blood as he watches in horror. Only South Park could turn a tap-dance competition into that. And when Stan and some other kids finally convince Butters to tap dance again as part of a dance squad competing against a rival squad, he ends his performance by having his shoe fly off again, disconnecting some stage lighting and killing the opposing squad. Which makes the South Park squad the winners by default. Which results in Butters yelling out in horror as his inadvertent killing of six people is celebrated.
  • The screwed-up, A Clockwork Orange inspired visions Cartman has every time he closes his eyes.
    • This exchange from Helen Keller: The Musical helps soften the blow a little bit:

Cartman: Oh, man!
Jeffery: Well, did you see anything?
Cartman: No, just the same old crap I always see when I close my eyes.

  • Mr. Garrison's Fancy New Vagina. All of it, including the opening scene, Gerald as a dolphin, and Kyle breaking his legs in his tall black kid body. Said opening is about Mr. Garrison getting a sex change, cutting between Mr. Garrison with live-action footage of a real sex-change operation!
  • The entire episode devoted to Britney Spears doing a graphically-animated impression of Mike the Headless Chicken. Urgh. (By the way, for more Nightmare Fuel, click that outgoing link.)Very little humor, lots of gore, and lots of biting, truly unsettling social commentary. For those too afraid to watch the episode, Britney shoots herself in the face after being tricked into thinking the South Park kids are her sons, but fails to kill herself and is left instead without most of the top of her head. She appears to be unaware of anything that's going on, but is still paraded around on stage as-is to do a concert. Being as in her current state all she's capable of doing is making a horrible gurgling sound she proceeds to get shot down by fans and media, and a frighteningly literal comparison is drawn between human sacrifice and the way society sets up celebrities, then viciously tears them down. The entire episode is both nausea fuel and nightmare fuel, but as always, Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped.
  • How 'bout poor Butters getting a ninja star in the freakin' eye. And his anguished screams afterward, and how they have to cover it up... Talk about the designated Woobie.
  • In "Night of the Living Homeless", a parody of the Zombie Apocalypse where the large group of homeless that overruns the town are the "zombies". Anyway, this episode is one part Wall Banger, one part Nightmare Fuel. And both are in the same few minutes. When the kids traveled to Evergreen Terrace, the last place these "zombies" were, there's only 3 guys left in the entire town, carrying shotguns and wearing filthy, plant-covered clothing. They tell the kids of how the homeless flooded their town, moaning about "spare change" (as opposed to brains). Eventually though, the homeless got enough to rent apartments...soon, it was impossible to tell who was "homeless" and who was not. The Wall Banger, of course, was that if you could rent an apartment, you weren't homeless anymore. But everyone treated it like it was an actual, incurable affliction, like most zombies are. So, the "leader" of the three guys "found out" that his wife was "homeless". He was shocked at that "information" and wondered how could he have possibly missed this after 20 years of marriage! So, he had to kill her...with a flamethrower. The Nightmare Fuel comes in when the rubble behind the "survivors" starts shaking...and this gray, vaguely-human shaped thing rises from the rubble, moaning. That's his wife, still somehow alive despite having maybe about 75% of her flesh burned away. After some rather useless dialogue "You nurned ny ips ough! (You burned my lips off), she shoots all three dead, after sustaining several bullet wounds herself.
    • In that same episode, a scientist tries to shoot himself to death...and fails. He then proceeds to keep shooting himself all over his body, with many shots to the head and heart and still doesn't die. When he finally does, there's a huge puddle of blood underneath him. Just think about living in all of that pain. It makes you shudder, doesn't it?
  • The scene with George Lucas and Steven Spielberg raping Indiana Jones. That scene is nothing short of disturbing.
  • The Woodland Christmas Critters?

Jason: Man, I do not want to meet the kid that dreamt those things up.

Wendy: Bye-bye, Miss Ellen.
Kyle: Wendy, you didn't...!
Wendy: I warned her... Don't. Fuck. With Wendy... TESTABERGER!

  • The episode "The Jeffersons" (The episode about Michael Jackson). The whole episode has a creepy atmosphere, but the worst part has to be the end of the episode when parts of the face of Mister Jefferson fell off, starting for the nose.
  • Passion of the Jew. Kyle has an EXTREMELY DETAILED dream where Jesus is crucified, and Kyle, in the end, is the one poking Christ with the spear. *shudder*
  • Kenny McCormick's deaths. Sure, it is played as a running gag, but there are quite a few of them not for the faint of heart.
    • "Mysterion Rises" makes it even worse combining Nightmare Fuel with Fridge Horror, Kenny states that he is unable to die:

Kenny: I can't die. I've experienced death countless times. Sometimes, I see a bright light. Sometimes, I see Heaven or Hell. But eventually, no matter what, I wake up in my bed wearing my same old clothes. The worst part? No one even remembers me dying. I go to school the next day and everyone is just like "Oh, hey Kenny," even if they had seen me get decapitated with their own eyes.

  • "Sexual Healing". The chimp's face.
  • In the episode, Insheeption, Stan, a sheep hearder and Mackey go into Mackey's therapy dream to reveal a field trip where Mackey runs from bullies, hides in a building and is molested by Woodsy Owl only to reveal Freddy Kreuger piercing Woodsy Owl's chest open and Mackey waking up so Stan doesn't want his therapy and Kyle asks how he knows that wasn't his.
  • Much of Shelley's over-the-top abuse of Stan, like electrocuting him with a TV, running over his face with a lawnmower, burning and dousing him (though that was a Deleted Scene), and crushing him (and Kyle) with a piano. DO NOT piss her off.
    • Also, when Cartman once badmouthed her behind her back, he reacted with absolute fear when Shelley addressed him. Oh, and did I forget to mention she's based on Trey Parker's sister, personality and all!
  • "The Return of Chef": He was burned, battered, impaled, shot, his face (including one eyeball) was pulled off, and his limbs were torn apart by a grizzly bear and a mountain lion, and he finally defecated as he died.
  • "Trapper Keeper." On one hand, it's an awesome episode with a cool homage to Akira (among other sci-fi classics). On the other hand, it has an homage to Akira. And then the B-plot is about Rosie O'Donnell...
  • In "Asspen" the B-plot features the parents being held hostage by realtors trying to sell them timeshares. The Nightmare Fuel comes when they try to leave the room... only to step through the door into the exact same room multiple times.
    • The ending of the same episode is also a little... troubling, to say the least. To wit, the scene where the nerdy girl lifts up her shirt to reveal two grotesque creatures in place of her breasts.
  • In the episode "City Sushi" Dr. Janus and his multiple personalities were quite scary. Mainly the part parodying Paranormal Activity where he comes into Butters' bedroom, stares at him for 3 hours, urinates on his face, then beats him quickly leaving before he wakes up.
  • Kenny's death scene in the movie, Bigger, Longer, and Uncut. It even gets a Hope Spot, which comes to a gory end (in exactly three seconds).
  • All the "shit" imagery in "You're Getting Old". Also counts as serious Nausea Fuel.
  • The show's unsettling fixation on suicide. It really makes you wonder about the mental health of the creators.
    • In the episode "Marjorine", the reaction of Butters' parents when they think he's committed suicide, especially his mother's shriek when she sees his "body" hit the ground. It is one of the few times that I've found the show to fully cross over into Dude, Not Funny territory.
    • The multiple gay suicides at the camp Butters is sent to in "Cartman Sucks" might've been darkly funny when the episode first aired in 2007, but the recent rash of Real Life gay suicides and homophobic hate crimes in 2010-11 really give the episode a very macabre feel, in addition to being, frankly, terrifying to watch.
  • The end scene of 1% with Polly Prissy Pants. Cartman is more fucked up than anyone thought.
    • The charred body of Peter Panda.
    • Muscle Man Mark being boiled alive.
  • In "The Poor Kid" the police remark on how it's supposed to feel safe. However when they show the soft room surrounded by pictures of creepy looking clowns...
  • Wendy getting breast implants. There's tons of blood and it's uncensored!
  • "Pre-School."
    • First we have the horrible fate of Miss Claridge the preschool teacher. Burned nearly beyond recognition, confined to an electric wheelchair, and her only method of communication is beeping once for "yes" and twice for "no."
    • Then we have Trent Boyett, who was wrongly imprisoned because he was believed to be responsible for Miss Claridge's fate (in reality, the four main characters talked him into it). In his crazy drive for revenge, he hospitalizes Butters and a whole gang of older boys with a series of stereotypical bully attack moves (wedgies, Indian burns, noogies, etc.), but also a lot of nastier ones, like one which involves "tabasco sauce, a telephone pole, and the anus."
    • The boys' complete apathy when it comes to the situation, both Miss Claridge's fate and Trent's wrongful imprisonment. They do try to tell Miss Claridge that they caused the accident, but only because Stan's older sister made them do it in exchange for protection from Trent.
  • The expression on Wendy's face at the end of Tom's Rhinoplasty was pretty freaky.

"I told her...don't...fuck...with...Wendy... TESTABURGER.

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