South Park/Tropes A-D

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Absurdly Powerful Student Council: Subverted and parodied in "Dances with Smurfs", and played straight in some episodes.
  • Abusive Parents:
    • Butters's parents, who will ground him for anything, including looking silly in his school pictures, even though he wasn't doing anything wrong. Once he was locked in the basement at the end of one episode, and was tellingly absent from the next episode, suggesting he may have been kept down there for up to a week. He sees his father as a kind of grounding-monster, suggesting that the beatings he has mentioned on occassion are more frequent than he lets on. Oh, and there was that whole bit about his mother attempting to murder him in his very own episode.
      • With the reveal that even his grandmother bullies him, it appears that Child Abuse runs in the Stoch family.
    • Subverted with Mr. Garrison in "World Wide Recorder Concert": he's shown to have issues with his father for reasons of sexual molestation, but it turns out that he's upset because his father didn't abuse him.
    • The McCormick kids' agnostic foster parents in "The Poor Kid". But the good news is that Kenny, as Mysterion, sets them up to get drunk on Pabst Blue Ribbon and get arrested.
    • It has been suggested that Cartman has both witnessed his mother performing sex acts (which would scar him mentally), and that he himself has been abused sexually too.
    • Clyde's mother, according to "Reverse Cowgirl". Her public humiliation of her son over the toilet seat makes you have to rethink Kyle's mom as the biggest bitch in the whole wide world. Lucky for him, she dies near the end of the first act by falling into the toilet, because he left the seat up.
  • Achievements in Ignorance: In "The Wacky Molestation Adventure", Kyle's mother tells him he can only go to the Raging Pussies concert if he takes out the trash, shovels the driveway, and brings democracy to Cuba. Taking it literally, Kyle writes a heartfelt letter to Fidel Castro (complete with song), and Castro is so touched he ends the communist dictatorship. Kyle gets pissed when his parents still forbid him to go to the concert because they deliberately gave him a task that they thought was impossible.
  • Acronym Confusion: "Cartman Joins NAMBLA" involves confusion between the North American Man/Boy Love Association and North American Marlon Brando Look-Alikes.
  • Act Break: There are four acts to each episode, though the fourth one is usually The Tag. The TV pilot has a weird case, with five acts (the additional break occurring during the forest scene, right before Chef appears).
    • However, ever since "The Death Camp of Tolerance", it had reverted to going on to only three acts ala like most TV shows.
  • Action Girlfriend: Based on her fight with Cartman in Season 12, Wendy might grow up into one.
  • Action Santa: He's Pals with Jesus Kung Fu Jesus.
  • Activist Fundamentalist Antics: One episode ended with a ban on secular Christmas as well as religious Christmas, all thanks to Kyle's mother. The only song left for the kids to sing for Christmas was "Kyle's Mom is a Big Fat Bitch" (in D minor, no less).
  • Actually Pretty Funny:
    • From '"Imaginationland", "Say what you like about Mel Gibson, that bastard knows story structure!" (after their previous portrayal of Mel, very sporting indeed).
    • "Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset" is an episode where the message is, "Do not let your kids idolize people like Paris Hilton, she is a terrible role model", using a caricature of Hilton herself to emphasize it. Hilton herself claimed the episode was hilarious.
    • "Butt Out". Rob Reiner is the antagonist, depicted as a rude and arrogant hypocrite who opposes smoking while constantly eating junk food. Reiner later said on Reddit that, "I thought it was funny, but I'm not quite that fat. (His words, not ours.)
  • Ad Break Double Take: Stan aiming a gun at a disguised Cartman in "Volcano".
  • Adults Are Useless: Pretty much every adult in South Park and then some is a moron, even when they're not subject to Plot Induced Stupidity. This clip pretty well sums it up (you can skip the first minute of the clip).
    • Most of the kids are either too scared of their parents to tell them the truth about anything (Kyle and Butters), are pretty good at manipulation (Cartman and to a lesser extent Stan) or are completely ignored most of the time (Kenny).
  • Adventurer Outfit
  • An Aesop: Spoofed, many times over, and used straight just as much! Always at the end of an episode, too.
    • One notable subversion: in "All About Mormons", Stan delivers what appears to be an Aesop about blind religious faith and gullibility, only for the episode's true Aesop to be delivered shortly after, stating that it doesn't matter that a religion makes no sense if it still inspires its members to lead good lives, and that people who can't look past one's religious affiliation are idiotic bigots.
      • Although this is doubly subverted overall, as EVERY religion that gets the South Park treatment comes off equally badly.
    • Another subversion is the episode where Kyle's stereotypically Jewish cousin, also named Kyle, comes to visit. In the end, the kids try to pull their usual "I've learned something today..." Aesop speech, only for it to die out several times when they realize that, no, they actually haven't learned anything this time.
    • Defied Trope in Real Life in "201" when the entire Aesop, spoken by three people, was bleeped out by the network prior to airing, which may be some of the saddest irony in the history of the show.
  • Aesop Ju Jitsu: Sometimes the Aesop summation devolves into this, not that the straight Aesops make much sense to begin with.
  • Affably Evil: Satan is portrayed as this. He's certainly less evil than Cartman.
  • Affectionate Parody:
  • Age-Inappropriate Dress: Mocked in a few episodes, "Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset" in particular.
  • All Asians Are Alike: In "City Sushi", the City Wok guy tries to get revenge of the owner of City Sushi due to this trope.
  • All CGI Cartoon: Switched to this format after the first episode. It, Beast Wars (released around the same time) and ReBoot were the only major ones of note that aired in America during the 90's.
  • All Elections Are Serious Business: Shown in how serious the kindergarten elections are taken in "Trapper Keeper" and taken to the extreme in "Douche and Turd" over the school mascot election.
  • Allergic to Love: Stan vomits every time Wendy talks to him. Though when they started dating as the show progressed (basically after The Movie), Stan stopped vomiting completely around her. However, in "The List", when they discover feelings for each other again (after having been broken up for some time), Stan vomits in front of her once more before they can kiss.
  • All Girls Are Lustful: All little girls want to get in the Jonas Brothers' pants, even if they're kindergarten age. Possibly Truth in Television, seeing as the line "My giney tickles" was something the young daughter of one of the members of the production crew actually said at one of their concerts.
  • Alliteration: "Allied Atheist Alliance. That way it has three aes! That is the logical choice!"
  • All Jews Are Cheapskates:
    • Kyle's parents and his cousin.
    • Parodied viciously in "Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow", where it seems that Cartman and Kyle are going to die, and Cartman demands Kyle's "Jew Gold". Kyle, appalled, tries to convince him that this is a Jew stereotype, but Cartman doesn't relent, and Kyle pulls out a small sack of gold that had been tied around his neck. Cartman proceeds to insist that all Jews carry a spare sack of Jew Gold, which is really fake, and demands that Kyle hands over an identical sack also tied around his neck. Kyle didn't hand over the real Jew gold either, he threw it into a fire rather than let Cartman have it.
    • Subverted in "Night of the Living Homeless", when Kyle gives a homeless man $20. Because of that, all of the homeless invade South Park. But it turns out that it wasn't Kyle's fault, but the fault of the neighboring town of Evergreen, who evicted the homeless.
    • And then subverted majorly in "Margaritaville", when he uses his American Express credit card (with no spending limit) to pay off the debts of all of South Park, much to the dismay of his mother Sheila, who say he's ruining himself. This is all to make a point of the nature of the economy.
    • In "Good Times with Weapons", Cartman mocks the fact that Kyle can't throw away his weapons because he paid money for them.
  • All Just a Dream: Sometimes played straight, but often subverted.
  • All Men Are Perverts: The plot of "Sexual Healing". More specifically, the extreme lengths men will go to to prevent women from finding this out.
    • In the The Lord of the Rings episode, all the boy's fathers are very knowledgeable when it comes to porn, much to their wives' disgust.
  • All of the Other Reindeer: While Butters is the most obvious victim, more recent seasons claim that not very many people beyond their clique like Stan, Kyle, Kenny or Cartman.
  • All Take and No Give: Cartman to everyone, especially his mom. In Season 1, you had to give him rather expensive toys to attend his party (who everyone only comes to because Cartman's Mom cooks damn good).
  • All Women Love Shoes: "The List".
  • Aluminum Christmas Trees: The episode where Cartman is excited to find candy-corn-filled Oreos, which Stan and Kyle are revolted by? Yeah, that was a real Halloween-exclusive flavor of Oreos.
  • Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: See the above Adults Are Useless. The parents are some of the worst offenders.
    • Randy's the Trope Codifier and many episodes starting from around Season 6 focus on this trope. Sharon is thankfully much more down to earth.
    • Broflovskis have Sheila, whose Moral Guardian elements have a tendency of doing things like starting wars or ruining Christmas for the entire town. Gerald is less this, but his tendency to be an Amoral Attorney as well as his cat piss addiction had him veer into this.
    • The McCormick parents joined a doomsday cult of Cthulu for free beer and are crackheads.
    • Ms. Cartman is apparently a famous enough porn star to end up on the cover of Crackhead Magazine.
  • Ambiguously Gay:
    • Cartman. He constantly says that girls are disgusting and vile, and he seems to have an extremely inaccurate idea of what sex with a woman even entails.[1] He's also engaged in sexual acts with men several times, thinking NAMBLA is an innocent organization. He presumably gave Ben Affleck a hand job as part of a bizarre plot to convince Kyle that his hand was a sentient con man named Mitch Connor (who turned out to actually exist in "200") who was impersonating a woman named Jennifer Lopez (much to the chagrin of the "real" Jennifer Lopez).
      • Then, of course, we have "Imaginationland", whose entire subplot is based entirely around Cartman's obsession with making Kyle suck his balls. Jimmy even points this trope out to him in part 1 of the trilogy.
      • "Cartman Finds Love" gives us Cartman telling the new girl, Nicole, that he and Kyle are a gay couple, so that Nicole will be more likely to go out with Token. Cartman puts a ton of effort into convincing the town that his lie is true, to the point where it's hard to tell if he's just really committed or playing out some sort of wish-fulfillment exercise.
    • Jimbo and Ned. They're unrelated, live together, evidently have hospital visitation rights worked out. And then, Jimbo can say "fag" without getting bleeped, which according to Mr(s). Garrison means that he is one. All the other guys at the bar are bleeped when they say fag. Make of that what you will.
    • Butters. He has been shown crossdressing, he's feminine, innocent, submissive, polite, and fits The Twink status. While he has shown affection toward girls, it's mostly blocked by his naivety.
  • Anal Probing: Eric Cartman was probed by The Greys in the Pilot episode, appropriately titled "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe". By "Anal Probe", we mean he eventually grows a satellite out of his bum.
  • Anatomically-Impossible Sex: For the boys themselves, we have these gems: Circumcision is castration. Urine is semen.
  • And That's Terrible: The antagonists in "Super Fun Time" robbed a Burger King.
  • Animal Athlete Loophole: The parody of You Got Served (and similar movies), had Stan's Ragtag Bunch of Misfits dancing team include a dancing duck. The duck gets injured, forcing Butters to finally join the crew, with disastrous results.
  • Animal Wrongs Group: PETA is so insistent on paralleling vegetarianism with civil rights that they promote Interspecies Romance.
  • Animation Anatomy Aging
  • Anti-Hero: All main characters verge on anti-heroism on occasion, though Cartman often verges on Villain Protagonist. Usually they learn their lesson at the end, however, and often are shown to be morally superior to the adults in town.
  • Anti-Villain: Satan, though his antivillainy isn't really of the Well-Intentioned Extremist variety so much as the loser variety. His expressed pride in his role in the world is always watered down by the way his gay lover, Saddam Hussein, treats him (see the movie, where Saddam interrupts his "my time to rise" speech to say "I love when you get all biblical, you know how to turn my crank!"). This show takes Sympathy for the Devil to a Literal Metaphor extreme. In addition, Hell is a decent place, besides the torture, and far better than the alternative (spending eternity with overexcited Mormons).
  • The Antichrist: Damien, though apparently he just wants friends and not to move around so much.
  • Anyone Can Die
  • Apocalyptic Log: Parodied in "Pandemic", as Randy's incessant camcordering of the disaster gets on Sharon's nerves. And it turns out he didn't have a tape in it.
  • Applied Mathematics: Underpants Gnomes. Step 1: Collect underpants. Step 2: ? Step 3: Profit!
    • Cartman's formula for gold.
  • Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering??: In "World Wide Recorder Concert", Stan and Kyle are thinking of a way to get back at the New Yorkers, when Cartman announces that he found the "brown noise" and demonstrates it on Kenny and a deliveryman.

Stan: (to Kyle) Dude, are you thinking what I'm thinking?
Cartman: That they should bring back Chicago Hope for another season? Totally.

  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
    • Cartman in the episode "Scott Tenorman Must Die", where he has Scott's parents killed, grinds their corpses into chili which he then feeds to Scott and causes Scott to cry in front of his favorite band. Who then call him a "crybaby".
    • In "The Death of Eric Cartman": "What awaits each person in heaven is eternal bliss, divine rest, and $10,000 cash."
  • Art Evolution: The difference between first season episodes and recent episodes is like night and day, even though they have kept the simplistic cutout style. Early on, the show had incredibly crude character and background designs and the animation was very shaky and choppy, while today the animation can be very sophisticated, the backgrounds are rich in detail (actually having perspective and shading), the characters are much more detailed, and animals being realistic (compared to, say, the game in the first season episode "Volcano").
    • Early on, the show tried to imitate some side effects of using construction paper, such as the aforementioned shaky animation and shadows under objects. Later on, it was dropped.
  • Artistic License Medicine: In "Timmy 2000", the kids take Ritalin to get out of doing homework and it makes them calm. Several adults take some and they're also calm, but in Real Life, Ritalin has the opposite effect on grown-ups.
    • In "Cartmanland", Kyle is at near-death from a hemorrhoid. To answer your question, no, hemorrhoids can't kill you. However, this was intentional given the show's nature.
  • Art Shift: Done several times: see "Chinpokomon", "The Simpsons Already Did It", "Good Times With Weapons", "Major Boobage" and "Make Love, Not Warcraft".
  • Ashes to Crashes: Cartman drinks Kenny's ashes, believing them to be chocolate milk mix. As a result of this, Kenny's soul becomes trapped inside Cartman, providing a story arc for the next few episodes.
  • Ash Face: "Summer Sucks" ends with the town covered in ash. Chef arrives from vacation to find everyone in Blackface and orders everyone to get in line for a butt kicking.
  • Asian Hooker Stereotype: On the episode "Cow Days", Cartman starts acting and talking like the Vietnamese prostitute of Full Metal Jacket after a Tap on the Head.
  • Asian Speekee Engrish: Basically, every single Asian character. Honourable mention goes to "fucking Mongoriansh!" Funnily enough, both creators are fluent in Japanese.
    • Taken to extremes in one episode where a Japanese man and Chinese man argue with each other with the nearly the exact same accent and can't understand each other.
  • Asshole Victim: Clyde's mother, Betsy in "Reverse Cowgirl", to the point she's still one beyond the grave.
  • An Asskicking Christmas: A few times, but especially "Red Sleigh Down".
  • Ass Shove: Happens to Cartman. A lot.
  • Ate His Gun: They love this trope.
    • Parodied in "How to Eat with Your Butt", in which Cartman does it literally with what turns out to be a gun-shaped piece of chocolate after writing an apparent suicide note (after nothing, not even Jimmy's stand-up comedy, could get him to laugh), then adds a request for more chocolate guns to the note (ones with marshmallow filling, not peanut butter).
    • When a line of pedophiles find out they've been lining up to see Chris Hansen, they immediately begin shooting themselves, one after another.
    • Butters is told to do this by a meme-hating teacher in "Faith Hilling". He ends up frozen in his seat with the gun in his mouth for nearly the entire episode's length.
  • Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Played for laughs with Scott the Dick in "Royal Pudding". At first, it appears to be played straight, but a change in the camera angle reveals that he's actually seven feet tall.
  • Author Appeal: This explains why a bunch of eight year old boys (in 1997) are gushing over Robert Smith.
  • Author Avatar: Stan and Kyle were originally Author Avatars for Trey and Matt (hence the similar personalities), but they slowly grew out of it as the show progressed. In one interview, they said something along the lines of "He's supposed to be Stan, and I'm supposed to be Kyle... but really we're both Cartman."
    • Terrance and Phillip also occasionally serve as author avatars for the duo, reflecting the reactions Trey and Matt expected their show to get from parents, most notably in The Movie. Terrance has black hair, as does Matt, while Phillip has blond hair, as does Trey - likely deliberate.
  • Author Tract: Particularly in later seasons.
  • Ax Crazy:
    • Cartman, most famously in "Scott Tenorman Must Die".
    • Saddam Hussein.
  • Back for the Dead: Pip is crushed to death in "201".
  • Badass: Jesus Was Way Cool.

My children, I must warn you... I'm packing.

  • Bad Bad Acting: The live action reenactment sequence in "I Should Have Never Gone Ziplining" uses very deliberately awful, over the top acting by actors about 15 years too old to play 10 year olds.
  • Bad Boss: Cartman in many episodes. Craig, too, in "South Park Is Gay!".
  • Bad Future: In "Trapper Keeper", "Goobacks" and the "Go God Go" arc.
  • Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work:
  • The Bad Guy Wins: The ending of "Stanley's Cup" and "Scott Tenorman Must Die".
  • Bait and Switch: If there is an episode where the preview involves anything that will get a large portion of the fanbase going "Ha ha, they're making fun of X", the actual episode will likely portray X in a much more endearing manner, while those that see it as a cheap, Acceptable Target will be the ones on the receiving end of a Take That. These episodes typically center around Cartman.
  • Barrier Maiden: Terrence and Philip in the movie. Although theoretically any Canadian living south of the 49th parallel.
  • Beard of Evil: Inverted Trope with Cartman in "Spookyfish" since he was already evil, his alternate universe counterpart was the good one. Played straight with everyone else.
  • Beauty Is Bad: Subverted in "The List".
  • Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Slash is really a mythological character based on the legend of Vunter Slaush. It was just one of their parents that actually played at Cartman's party.
  • Believing Their Own Lies: Cartman works himself into quite the frenzy over his own fabricated mythos of Jewpacabra.
  • Berserk Button: In "Conjoined Fetus Lady", Pip is one of the players on the dodgeball team. When he's called "French", he beats the world's best dodgeball team (who, of course, are Chinese) singlehandedly.
    • Scott Tenorman doomed himself the moment he burned Cartman's money.
    • Never call Bono #2, no matter how true it is. Literally.
    • Cartman also does not like to be compared to Family Guy.
    • Kyle isn't from Jersey Shore. Don't suggest that he is.
      • ...or make fun of him being Jewish, or cross the line with Ike, or call his mum a bitch, or say something stupid within earshot. Kyle is pretty much built on this trope.
      • Cartman is quite possibly the ultimate Berserk Button for Kyle.
    • "Are you looking at my headgear?"
    • Tom Cruise goes crazy when anyone says that he's packing fudge, even if he is literally packing fudge at the time, wearing a fudge packing uniform in a fudge packing factory.
    • Kenny (as Mysterion) gets one when he tries to tell the rest of the kids that he can't die, and Kyle says it'd be pretty cool to be immortal. Kenny, who knows better, flips out just a little bit.
      • He gets another one in "The Poor Kid". Don't mess with his little sister.
    • If you don't want to piss off Mr. Mackey, don't take a dump in the urinal. Or ruin the tooth decay play he worked on for six years. Or touch any part of the overwhelming trash and paper hoard that suddenly materialized in his traditionally clean office.
  • Beware the Nice Ones:
    • As proven in Season 1 - Don't fuck with Wendy Testaburger!
    • Subverted with Butters, who adopts a secret evil identity and attempts to plunge the world into chaos by switching restaurant orders, hiding chalkboard erasers at school, running the water hose in his front yard non-stop, and using ineffective spray cans to destroy the ozone layer.
    • Butters can be pretty badass if he wants to grow a spine. He's the Chosen One of "Imaginationland", and in "Butters' Bottom Bitch", he is temporarily the most successful pimp in Colorado. Yes, Butters.
  • Beyond the Impossible:
    • In "Fishsticks", Cartman has a series of Self-Serving Memory flashbacks where he remembers how it was that the "fish sticks" joke was written. Eventually, the flashbacks extend to having him slay a dragon in Jimmy's house... and that's not the end of it.
    • Cartman is so evil that he actually tricks Cthulhu into joining him to get rid of his friends!
  • Big Brother Instinct: Most prominent in the relationship of Kyle and Ike as demonstrated repeatedly.
    • You DO NOT want to fuck with Karen McCormick. You will invoke Kenny's wrath.
    • Let it be understood that only Shelley has the right to torture little brother Stan.
  • Big Damn Heroes: Al-Qaeda of all people in "It's a Jersey Thing".
  • Big Damn Movie
  • Big OMG: Generally used whenever Kenny died Once Per Episode. A notable example outside of that context (when Stan's parents accidentally send a porno to Butters's house):

Sharon: Wow, the production values are really good in this porno.
Randy: Yeah, it almost looks like... the Lord of the Rings... OH MY GOD!

  • Bilingual Bonus: Largely due to the fact co-creator Trey Parker is fluent in Japanese.
    • The Japanese part of the song "Let's Fighting Love" is grammatically correct and translates into something befitting South Park.
    • The name of the Okama Gamesphere.
    • "Chinpokomon". Sounds like just a play on Pokémon, right? It's not. In Japanese, it literally means "penis monster", or more figuratively "dickimon".
    • The running commentary of Butters crossing the border in "The Last of the Meheecans" refers to Cartman primarily as gordo
      • 'Mantequilla', Butters' pseudonym in the episode, is Spanish for 'butter'.
  • Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Don't fuck with Wendy Testaburger.
    • Barbra Streisand in "Mecha-Sreisand", at first.
  • Bittersweet Ending: "Lice Capades", "Over Logging" (hilariously).
  • Black and Gray Morality
  • Black Comedy
  • Black Comedy Rape: The Indiana Jones episode, "World Wide Recorder Concert," plus a lot more episodes.
    • The Christmas Critters also gang-rape a platoon of US soldiers to death in "Imaginationland."
    • The idea that Chef thought the boys took turns raping Ms. Choksondik and then murdering her afterward is played for laughs.
  • The Blank: During woodworking class in "Tweek vs. Craig", Clyde informs Mr. Adler that some kid named Tommy got his face stuck to a belt-sander, and Tommy shows up with no face.
  • Blessed with Suck: Mysterion's (Kenny's) power. He reveals to Captain Hindsight that he has the power to never die, even if he sees Heaven or Hell. Every time he does die, he later just wakes up in bed, in his regular clothes. The worst part is that no one has any recollection of his deaths. They always think he ran away or something, despite the fact that they saw him die with their own eyes.
    • Captain Hindsight. He knows instantly how a bad situation could've been prevented.
  • Bloody Hilarious: MANY episodes have really gratuitous gore, such as whenever Kenny dies.
  • Book and Switch: A rather reverse example, Stan Marsh hides a cookbook behind a Playboy magazine.
  • Boomerang Bigot: In "The Entity", Kyle exclaims in horror that the presence of his cousin Kyle Schwartz has turned him into a self-hating Jew.
  • Borrowed Catchphrase: Stan and Kyle do this to themselves in "Wing".

Kyle: Kenny?... Kenny! Don't worry, Kenny. You didn't die for nothing. We're gonna get Wing back as our client and and make a ton of money, I swear it to you! (returns to the other boys) They killed Kenny!
Stan: You bastards!

  • Brains and Brawn: Nathan and Mimsey.
  • Bratty Half-Pint: Most of the boys early on Cartman being most obvious.
    • Then there is Ike, who runs away to Somalia because he was already bored with life. He's about 4 years old.
  • Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: The stuff Trent Boyett had on his person when he first arrived in juvenile hall: a pack of crayons, safety scissors, a marble, and a knife.
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall: "This is just like when we got our money back for Baseketball."
  • Breakout Character: Butters, Randy and Jimmy.
  • Brick Joke:
  • Bridal Carry: Jimmy and the prostitute in "Erection Day".
  • Broken Aesop: Comes with the territory when your primary goal is to offend everyone. See examples under An Aesop, Aesop Amnesia, Green Aesop. Or All Jews Are Cheapskates, Anvilicious, Children Are Innocent, Corrupt Corporate Executive, Country Matters... oh, hell. Just look anywhere on this page.
  • Brown Note:
    • "World Wide Recorder Concert" involves Cartman trying to discover the actual Brown Note.
    • The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs makes people throw up if they read just two seconds of it.
    • The porno Back Door Sluts 9 from "The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers".
  • Brutal Honesty: Craig in "Pandemic", but Kyle also frequently veers in this territory.
  • The Bully: In "Butterballs", Butters is secretly bullied and beat up by his own grandma. She even follows him to school and bullies him in the bathroom. It's a running gag in the episode where people go to the bathroom to find a bully there waiting there for him.
    • Cartman seems to be the most evident in South Park Elementary, once even spearheading a tirade of abuse on a kid until he committed suicide. In earlier episodes, Stan and Kyle also had shades of this, it's implied even Cartman suffered heavily from them.
  • Bumbling Dad: Randy Marsh. Dear God Randy Marsh. He makes Homer Simpson look like Wally Cleaver. Some of his brilliant exploits include:
    • Attending Little League games for the express purpose of getting into fights with competing team members' dads.
    • Driving drunk, then after attending Alcoholics Anonymous shaving his head chemo-style and residing himself to a wheelchair under insane delusions of disease.
    • Listening to music he really perceives as shit, then performing said music in order to be "cool" and "in tune with" the "kids today".
  • Buried Alive: Cartman in "Go God Go", necktie variant.
  • But Thou Must!: In the episode "Woodland Critter Christmas", after Stan kills the mountain lion and finds out that the animals he had helped to build a manger are actually Satan worshipers, he repeatedly refuses to take her now-orphaned cubs to learn how to perform abortions. With a forceful "YES. HE. DID!" the scene jump-cuts to an abortion doctor, with Stan and the mountain lion cubs there. Stan is not amused.
    • Earlier than that, Stan attempted to stay home after learning the Critters' true nature.

He tried to forget all about it by watching TV,
but his conscience caught up with him and to the forest he did flee.
(Stan stays put.)
He thought he could hide from his problems - not true!
He knew in his heart the thing he had to do!
(Stan is getting annoyed by the persistent narration.)
He knew that only by going to the forest could he--
(Stan finally gives in and leaves the house.)

  • Butt Monkey: Kenny filled the role due to his constant deaths. Pip was the other buttmonkey who is constantly humiliated until his spot was taken by Butters.
    • Clyde in some episodes.
  • But You Screw One Goat!:
    • Several episodes and The Movie reference or, God forgive, portray zoophilia for comic effect.
    • In a strange variation, Cartman attempts to train a pony to bite Scott Tenorman's penis off. He builds an effigy of his enemy, and attaches a hotdog to represent the pe—well, you can picture it. Cartman is dismayed when, instead of biting the hotdog, the horse fellates it. It becomes a Funny Background Event while Cartman has a conversation with Jimbo and Ned.
  • Cain and Abel: Lemmiwinks and Wikileaks in "Bass to Mouth".
  • The Cake Is a Lie: Sorry if you came to La Résistance hoping for punch and pie.
  • Call Back: In the first Halloween episode, Wendy wins the school costume contest with a Chewbacca mask. In the third, Kenny enters the contest with an insanely elaborate Humongous Mecha costume and seems a shoo-in to win... only for Wendy to win again with the exact same mask. They might even have relooped Mr. Garrison's announcing her winner for that one.
    • Also in the first Halloween episode was a conversation where Cartman got confused about what planet Wookies come from...
    • In the Season 3 episode "Starvin' Marvin in Space", Cartman blames Kyle for a turd in the urinal. Season 10 makes an entire episode [2] out of finding out who took a crap in the urinal. Cartman blames Kyle, obviously. After a purposefully convoluted plot, it turns out to have been Stan.
    • In the Season 8 episdoe "Awesom-O", a disguised Eric Cartman asks Butters to reveal private aspects of his life. After mentioning a particularly embarrassing bowel condition, he mentions a bully named—you guessed it—Eric Cartman who likes to play tricks on him. The two incidents he names are from previous episodes: "Jared Has Aides" and "Stupid Spoiled Whore Playset".
    • In "Elementary School Musical", the boys are asked rhetorically "where have you been" when they say they don't know anything about High School Musical. Craig replies "Peru", a Call Back to "Pandemic" earlier in the season.
  • Came Back Strong: Parodied when Cartman throws himself off a roof and wakes up from a coma in the hospital, and the cops who have the Idiot Ball believe he has precognition. Kyle later does the same thing at the end of the episode so people will believe him about the serial killer and Cartman. Eerily, the lights flicker violently when he gets frustrated.
  • Came Back Wrong: When Butters fakes his death, his dad buries the mutilated pig remains he thinks is Butters in an Indian burial ground - when Butters goes back home his parents assume this is what's happened, and chain him up in the basement.
  • Canada, Eh?: Canadians are usually portrayed as having floppy pac-man esque heads and black beady eyes.
    • All Canadian anatomy and technology is shown to be rather, uh, odd. Terrance and Phillip seem to have square testicles—yes we've seen them on screen. Canadian automobiles are shown to have square wheels.
  • The Can Kicked Him: The fate of Clyde's mom in "Reverse Cowgirl".
  • Captain Ersatz: The Movie featured an assortment of original songs that were obvious tributes to numbers from classic American musicals. Oklahoma! got quoted quite a bit ("Mountain Town"/"O What a Beautiful Morning"; "Uncle Fucka"/the title song; and even "It's Easy, Mmmkay?"/"The Farmer and the Cowman"), but there were others. "Kyle's Mom's a Big Fat Bitch" was a pretty generic tribute to early 1900s musicals in general, complete with a "showstopper" climax followed by a "Good evening, friends!" finale.
  • Captain Obvious: Captain Hindsight is a hop and a skip away from this.
  • Captain Superhero: Captain Hindsight.
  • Captivity Harmonica: In The Movie, by Ike. Also in "Whale Whores", by Eric Cartman, and in the Season 3 episode "Jakovasaurs".
  • Car Meets House: Played with in the episode that covered the dangers of elderly drivers. Said old people chase the boys through the house serial-killer style, using their cars.
  • Cassandra Truth: Often happens, somewhat justified as some of what the boys say is hard to believe, but this is South Park after all. Sgt. Yates never seems to listen to Kyle. Stan trying to prove that John Edwards is only conducting a parlor trick, or that there is a fish that is out for blood.
    • "I broke the dam".
  • Catapult Nightmare: South Park loves this trope.
  • Catch Phrase: Stan and Kyle's "Oh my God, they killed Kenny!" "You bastards!" exchange, Cartman's "Screw you guys, I'm going home!", "Respect mah authoritah!" and "Goddamn it!" with cocking head and squinted eyes.
    • They also toyed with the "They killed Kenny" line a lot; one of the best was when it became a version of "Marco! Polo!" to let Stan find Kyle in "Super Best Friends". Then there was the "I found a penny!" bit from "Chef's Chocolate Salty Balls".
    • Butters is always saying things like "Gee whiz fellas, mah parents'll be awful sore" and "Ah figure ah'll get grounded for sure" in a piping Southern accent.
    • The classic Butters catchphrase: "Oh, hamburgers!"
      • In "Butters' Bottom Bitch", he learns a new one off the pimps, with it becoming increasingly natrual for him to say...

Butters: Do you know what I am saying?

    • Randy Marsh: "Well, that sucks."
  • Catchphrase Interruptus
  • Caught with Your Pants Down: In "Over Logging", Stan's dad Randy has gone for weeks without masturbating to internet porn, eventually near the end he sneaks into the camp's computer room, looks at a bunch of perverted things, and eventually ejaculates all over the room, everyone comes in thinking he was grunting in pain and with his pants down, he tells them that he was doing that because "a ghost was attacking him and left his ectoplasm everywhere."
  • Censored Title:
    • The episode "Chicken Lover"—the name of the villain is actually "Chicken Fucker", but the name of the episode was changed.
      • The term "Chicken Lover" was used in the episode, to be fair—three times by Officer Barbrady and once by Cartman.

Officer Barbrady: Uh, Mayor, please. When we're around children we prefer to call him the "Chicken Lover".

    • The episode "You Got Fucked in the Ass" as well, usually switched to "You Got F'd in the A" or just "You Got...".
    • Also, in the newspaper's TV sections, "Make Love, Not Warcraft" became just "World of Warcraft", and "Miss Teacher Bangs a Boy" had the word "Bangs" removed, making the title just "Miss Teacher ... a Boy".
    • "The Biggest Douche in the Universe" is truncated in TV listings to just "The Biggest". The two-parter that closes Season 1 ("Cartman's Mom Is a Dirty Slut") and "officially" opens Season 2 ("Cartman's Mom Is Still a Dirty Slut") has "(is) a dirty slut" replaced by ellipses. The "bitch" in "Butters' Bottom Bitch" is replaced with a "B".
  • Cephalothorax: The "girl born without a midsection" on the Maury Povich show.
  • Cerebus Retcon: Kenny's recurring deaths and the explanation behind the subsequent Snap Backs given in "Cartman Joins NAMBLA" are given a dark twist in "Mysterion Rises".
    • And it's not about Kenny's dad getting raped by the 30 or so middle aged men in that episode either.
    • You know all those wacky activities that Randy hilariously takes as Serious Business? Well, it turns out.... that Randy was trying to distract himself from the fact that he's unhappy with his life.
    • It might have always been there, but "Cash for Gold" revealed that Stan's grandpa has Alzheimer's disease, making him calling Stan "Billy" all those times a little less funny.
  • Cerebus Syndrome: While the show is still very much a comedy, its tone has changed significantly over its run. Early seasons were silly and sitcom-like, with a sense of humor reminiscent of Monty Python's Flying Circus and The Simpsons; later seasons became increasingly topical, with most episodes featuring recent political or social issues, while the Black Comedy became even blacker to the point of becoming a Dramedy with a Downer Ending or two and increasingly common and graphic violence.
  • Character as Himself: In the movie, the end credits read, "And Saddam Hussein as Himself" in the "Cast" section, though the voice was actually done by Matt Stone.
  • Character Development: In "Coon 2: Hindsight", Liane actually puts her foot down and disciplines Eric. Borders on an Out-of-Character Moment. This development continues in Season 15, though.
    • Cartman has developed both ways. At first, he was just a spoiled brat who got worse and worse. He evolved into a Manipulative Bastard capable of rounding up a lynch mob with a stirring speech, and rose to the point where the writers had trouble thinking up how to top himself. "Tsst" suggests an attempt to take him back down to sane levels. He's still spoiled, selfish and agressively dominant, but a few of the demons have been exorcised.
    • "1%" appears to have furthered this development.
  • Characterization Marches On: The children characters were generally more childish and Bratty Half-Pint early on. Stan and Kyle were generally lower scale bullies (compare their treatment of Butters in early and later episodes) while Cartman was less calculating and sociopathic and more just a Jerkass. That said, they can still be immature at times in later seasons.
    • Stan went from your run-of-the-mill kid and low-grade bully to a cross between the Only Sane Man and The Knight.
    • Kyle went from your average occasionally-caring-occasionally-kind young boy to a cross between The Paragon and The Conscience (except when it comes to Cartman).
    • Cartman went from a cross between Bratty Half-Pint and Jerkass to a complete psychopath.
    • Kenny went from The World's Expert on Getting Killed to The Hedonist.
      • And that change may be justified as him trying to live his life to the fullest, because he dies all the time, and really has no reason to avoid potentially life-threatening activities. Could also be considered Fridge Brilliance.
        • That and the fact that the creators have stated that the "Kenny dying every episode" trope had gotten stale and/or they had reached the point where they had trouble thinking of original deaths (almost) every episode. This was one of the reasons for the episode "Kenny Dies".
    • Randy underwent a huge change. Compare his very first scene—where he casually sips coffee after learning of a volcanic eruption—to his main character trait later on, i.e. freaking out over every little thing, including non-existent threats.
  • Chekhov's Boomerang: In the episode "200", just about every celebrity/ famous figure that has been on South Park is back in this episode. Tom Cruise, Barbara/Mecha Streisand, Mel Gibson, Bono, Paris Hilton, R. Kelly, Sally Struthers, you get the point... They're ALL back to sue the town...
  • Chekhov's Gag: In "You're Getting Old", there's a joke where Stan can't tell the difference between a turd in a microwave and an ad for Kevin James's Zookeeper. In the following episode, at the very end, Stan's friends ask him to come watch a movie together. Guess which one it is a sequel of.

Cartman: Zookeeper 2: Zookeepier!

  • Chekhov's Gun: The "goo" that came out of the Rob Reiner at the end of "Butt Out" has become a plot point in the episode "200".
    • "The Death of Eric Cartman" establishes that the boys love KFC. KFC only serves as part of the Lead In for the episode. The plot of "Medicinal Fried Chicken" revolves all around KFC.
    • The V-Chip implanted in Cartman's head near the end of The Movie.
    • The "Kenny born for the 52nd time" gag at the end of "Cartman Joins NAMBLA" becomes a major plot point in the Coon and Friends trilogy.
    • In "Margaritaville", Kyle holds a Sermon about the economy, saying he applied for an American Express Platinum card to prove a point, and holds it up to show his audience. Near the end of the episode, he uses that same credit card to pay off the town's debts.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: In the Coon and Friends saga: who'd have thunk that Mint-Berry Crunch, who basically came out of nowhere, had no real significance to the plot, and was a noticeably lame superhero, would wind up being the one to fix everything? Even Cartman's surprised.

Cartman: (in disbelief) Fucking Mint-Berry fucking Crunch...

    • Of note, this was done in such a way that many fans of Kenny/Mysterion were seriously pissed off, as the show completely swerved the viewers. Instead of giving us the actual backstory behind how the hell Kenny is apparently somehow One of the Old Ones, we got a rip-off of Superman's origin with Mint-Berry Crunch. In the episode itself, Kenny was basically going what the fuck the entire time he's hearing this. It was actually a bit of a heartbreaking moment for Kenny, who goes through all that crap over the course of the series, creates a superhero alter ego who became something of an Ensemble Darkhorse, and the creators screw him over instead of actually resolving how he gets his powers and why they work the way they do seemingly for the sake of a complete Screw You to him, his fans, and the entire concept of Mysterion. At the end of the show, he was so upset with the whole mess he shoots himself in the head because he feels tired. Then resurrects at home and just sleeps the night away. Poor guy.
      • On a more relevant note, many other fans realize the above was an example of the show's tradition of making something stupid become a major plot point and subverting the expectations of those taking the story too seriously, and are just fine with it, thanks. Compare with the Imagination Song.
        • Actually, it is revealed that Kenny got his "powers" because his parents went to the Cthulhu cult meeting that was mentioned earlier in the trilogy...
  • Chekhov's Skill: Parodied in the episode "You Have 0 Friends" with Stan's ability to... roll Yahtzee?
  • Cherry Tapping:

Kyle: Cartman, what are you doing?
Cartman: I'm killing you. Unfortunately I could only afford a wiffle bat, so it's gonna take a while.

  • The Chessmaster: Both Cartman and Kyle frequently engage in this with one another. Typically involves Cartman developing a scheme and Kyle attempting to counter it. This can get quite elaborate as both are more than familiar with the other's capability.
  • Child Prodigy: Ike is the most blatant version of this trope with his recreation of the last supper using macaroni and contributing to a diamond heist and becoming a knight in Canada before reaching 4.
    • To a lesser extent, Kyle can be this. He has regularly been portrayed as the smartest in the 4th grade class. Existential philosophy, crossbreeding of animals, photoshopping well enough to fool a foreign government and single-handedly thwarting a terrorist plot while the government sits by idly isn't exactly typical of an eight to ten year old.
    • Cartman may be somewhat Book Dumb, but he is a certifiable master at scheming and manipulation and when enticed will go to great lengths to get what he wants. Is frequently capable of getting the better of Kyle's attempts to stop his plan of the week.
  • Children Are Innocent: Usually subverted, most often with the murderous Cartman and the sex-crazed, glue-sniffing Kenny. It's also often played straight. Butters is most usually portrayed as innocent, while other children are sometimes shown to be uncorrupted by various stupid or disgusting aspects of adult culture.
    • In the commentary for the episode "Bebe's Boobs Destroy Society", Matt and Trey explicitly state that they disagree with this trope, instead believing that people are born corrupt and that "society keeps us just barely in line."
    • Played straight in some episodes even by Cartman, like the one where the kids simply cannot fathom that people kill each other for having different-colored skin, or when they use "fag" without implying gay (for obnoxious Harley riders).
  • Christian Rock: Parodied in "Christian Rock Hard" as taking pop love songs and substituting "Jesus" for one's lover.

Cartman: "I want to get down on my knees and start pleasing Jesus, I want to feel his salvation all over my face..."

  • Chuck Cunningham Syndrome:
    • Major character Pip went from featuring heavily and even getting his own solo episode, to vanishing permanently and never being mentioned again until "201" where he was promptly killed by Mecha-Streisand.
    • A lot of early season characters on South Park haven't been seen much (or at all) in later episodes, such as:
    • Officer Barbrady: Effectively replaced by a full police force around Season 7, though he is still brought back for small appearances every now and again.
    • Kenny's brother, Kevin (the dirty kid who speaks like a hick, when he speaks at all). He was only seen on "Starvin' Marvin" (from Season 1), "Chickenlover" (from Season 2) and "Chickenpox" (also from Season 2). He still makes some appearances in the show's later seasons, but they're only cameos.
    • Lampshaded in "Cartman's Incredible Gift", when Ms. Crabtree is murdered by a serial killer.

Lou: I owe it to that victim over there! I know she hadn't been in any recent episodes, but DAMMIT, she deserved better than this!

    • Damien hasn't reappeared in years despite his father making numerous reappearances.
    • Nurse Goodly (the nurse with no arms from "Cartman's Mom Is Still a Dirty Slut") hasn't made a reappearance in scenes taking place in Hell's Pass Hospital.
  • Church of Happyology: Quite notably averted. Even ended the episode by daring them to sue.
  • Circumcision Angst: Subverted: Kyle thinks they're going to cut off his brother's penis!
  • Cliché Storm: Invoked in "About Last Night...." is intentionally full of Heist Film cliches.
  • Clip Show: Spoofed in "City on the Edge of Forever", in which all the flashbacks are incorrect and all inexplicably end with the characters involved eating ice cream.
  • Closer to Earth: Initially subverted, with most of the female residents often being twice as obnoxious as the males (it's hard to believe that Randy Marsh was actually the more laid back of the two earlier on). Played more straight in later episodes where even the more obnoxious females such as Wendy and Sheila are far less shrill and prone to Idiot Balls. Of course for most of the adult characters, this is about only as "Closer To Earth" as Jupiter is to Pluto (and naturally all female celebrities are free game).
    • Played pretty straight with Sharon. Paired with her husband they're pretty much the stereotypical "Woman smart, man stupid" sitcom couple.
  • Cloudcuckooland: Canada, Eh?. Watch out for Scott!
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Anyone from Canada of course. Butters and Cartman count, too.
    • Also, Randy Marsh (Stan's father).
    • President Bush. Apparently he thinks Saddam Hussein is Satan's gay boyfriend and that he is somehow building chemical weapons plants in Heaven. Subverted in that he is completely right about everything.
    • Mel Gibson.
      • "Ow, my nipples! They hurt when I twist them!"
    • Hell, Parker and Stone are Cloudcuckoolanders themselves. Seriously, many of the plots to these episodes simply have to be seen to be believed.
  • Cluster F-Bomb: Happens a lot.
    • Cluster S Bomb in "It Hits The Fan".
      • Also contains a Cluster F Bomb of a different sort, in regards to Mr. Garrison.
    • Cluster B Bomb in the "Kyle's Mom is a Bitch" song.
    • Cluster N Bomb in "With Apologies to Jessie Jackson".
  • Color Me Black: One episode has the boys making Cartman think he's... a ginger. Freckles and hair dye. The episode then turns this trope on its head - rather than making Cartman rethink his horrible attitude, he actually starts a ginger supremacist movement.
  • Comedic Sociopathy: And how.
  • Come to Gawk: Someone's about to get beaten up! Let's call the entire town, so that everybody can watch!
    • "CRIPPLE FIGHT!!"
    • This is also what happens in "Breast Cancer Show Ever".
  • Comic Book Time: The boys started out as 8-year-olds in 3rd grade. In Season 4, they moved onto 4th grade and are now 9-year-old boys. They have remained 9-years-old and in 4th grade ever since (though occasional recent episodes make reference to them being either 8 or 9).
    • In "Crack Baby Athletic Association", Stan says that everyone present (Cartman, Kyle, Butters, Clyde, and Craig) is ten years old. Later in "You're Getting Old", Stan himself turns ten, so this is probably the default age for all the kids now.
  • Comically Missing the Point: Cartman tends to exemplify this one, the episode "Major Boobage" in particular. Mainly due to the sub-plot of his rescuing the cats from being put into the pound (eventually taking in around 100). When asked by Kyle (a Jew) why the cats are in his attic, he replies with "They're innocent victims in this! They have to hide or they'll be put to death. Something you just can't understand." By the end, we have this exchange between Cartman and Kyle:

Cartman: But ya know, we've all learned something, you guys. We can never persecute living beings and force them into hiding. It's wrong.
Kyle: And you don't see any parallel between that and anything else in history?
Cartman: Hmmm, nope. I have no idea what you're talking about, Kyle.

    • Although, since it IS Cartman, this could just be him being a Jerkass.
    • In the episode "201": Scott Tenorman's father was Cartman's father. Cartman killed his own father and fed him to his half-brother. Cartman has a Heroic—well, a BSOD of some other character alignment over the fact that this means he is latently ginger.
    • In "Death", the earlier airings feature the following exchange:

Liane: Eric, dear? I just got a call from your friend Kyle's mother. She said that this show is naughty, and might make you a potty mouth.
Cartman: That's a bunch of crap! Kyle's mom is a dirty Jew!
Liane: Ohhh, okay, hon.

Later airings censor the word "dirty", making the joke seem less like Cartman's mother is ignorant of her son's racism, and more like she's just plain stupid.
  • Coming of Age Story: "1%", in a rather twisted way.
    • "You're Getting Old" was this for Stan.
  • Confession Cam: Parodied heavily at the beginning of "It's a Jersey Thing", culminating with when Sheila admits she's from Joisey.

Sharon: Sheila, who are you talking to?
Sheila: You wouldn't understand. It's a Jersey thing.

    • And again in "I Should Have Never Gone Ziplining".
  • Conservation of Competence
  • Contemplate Our Navels: "The Tooth Fairy's Tats 2000" has Kyle start to doubt his own existence after discovering the tooth fairy isn't real. He spends the rest of the episode reading various philosophy books and talking about the nature of reality, even when the conversation around him is something totally different. He finally has an out-of-body, one-with-the-universe experience, and comments that it was weird. It's never, ever spoken of again.
  • Continuity Cavalcade: "200".
  • Continuity Nod: There's a Whale and a Tom Cruise on the Moon in "Coon 2: Hindsight".
    • Then we finally have Mysterion's identity and actual power explained. Mysterion is Kenny, who is literally unable to die. On top of that, the conclusion to the Coon/Mysterion saga showed Kenny's mother giving birth again, sans pregnancy, and regretting going to any of the Cult's meetings. This is a direct nod to the episode when she gave birth to a Kenny look-alike, after Kenny had died trying to prevent the new kid from being born.
    • In "1%", an Okama GameSphere can be seen in Token's room.
  • Contractual Purity: Parodied in "Britney's New Look". The climax reveals that the public intentionally set up celebrities like Britney Spears (and later Miley Cyrus) on a high pedestal just to see them fall. All so they can have a good harvest.
  • Cooking Duel: When Stan battles his Facebook profile in a game of Yahtzee.
  • Cool Teacher: Parodied with Mr. Cartmanez.
  • Corrupt Corporate Executive: Mickey Mouse in "The Ring".
    • And, to tease Disney and mock its legalistic ways that result in lawsuits, Mickey Mouse turns into a giant monster that breathes fire all over South Park.
    • Other Corrupt Corporate Executives included several Native Americans owning a large casino who threatened to tear down South Park to make way for a highway, and the CEO of Wal-Mart in another episode.
    • "Chef Aid": "I am above the law!"
  • Counterpoint Duet: Between Randy and Skeeter in "I'm a Little Bit Country". The song was reprised at the episode to show that they had reconciled.
  • Country Matters: The only swear word that isn't thrown around with gleeful abandon. There are a few times they sneak it in though.
    • Stan tries to get Wendy back by having Jimmy tell her she's a "continuing source of inspiration" to him and his stutter makes it sound like... that.
    • Randy calls Sharon this in "Clubhouses" ("did you just say the 'c' word?"), but it's censored. On the other hand, Tiger Woods calls his wife this in "Sexual Healing", and it is not censored.
    • Russell Crowe starts to call a woman this in "The New Terrance and Phillip Movie Trailer", but it's cut short.
    • And in Wendy's audition song for Fingerbang: "Balzac was a writer/ He lived with Allen Funt/ Mrs. Roberts didn't like him/ But that's 'cause she's a/ Contaminated water can really make you sick..."
      • That song uses subverted rhymes on several curse words, and even outright uses the word "fuck" (bleeped on TV, of course, though in such a way that it's obvious what it was, as always with South Park). Yet, the title of the song (never mentioned on TV) focuses on just one of the words so subverted - guess which one. [1]
  • Courtroom Antic: Spoofed in "Chef Aid".
  • Coy Girlish Flirt Pose: Natalie Portman when she demurely turns down requests to open her wormhole.
  • Crap Saccharine World: The show in its initial state, before it became Darker and Edgier.
  • Crapsack World: Especially after the (relatively) tamer and sillier early seasons.
    • Gets a literal treatment with "You're Getting Old"/"Ass Burgers": Poor Stan watches his life fall apart around him; and after it all, right as he finally regains his enthusiasm in life, he's dragged back into the status quo against his will, turning to alcoholism just to go on living normally.
  • Crisis of Faith: Kyle has one when Cartman gets his own theme park and he gets... haemorrhoids.
  • Crossdresser: Butters has been dressing as a girl on and off ever since his first significant role in "Two Guys Naked in a Hot Tub" - not only did he suggest playing Charlie's Angels with women's clothes, he also said he should get to play Jacklyn since it was his idea. This little game got more intense in "Marjorine".
    • Cartman has dressed up as a girl a couple of times too.
  • Cross Referenced Titles:
    • "Do the Handicapped Go to Hell?" "Probably".
    • "Cartman's Mom Is a Dirty Slut". "Cartman's Mom Is Still a Dirty Slut".
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Butters gets a surprisingly high number of these moments.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: The bubonic plague is portrayed in this setting as causing victims to vomit out their own intestines. The bubonic plague couldn't do that in real life, of course...but considering how horrifying it was at the time, it might as well cause people to vomit out their intestines. And yes, it happens to Kenny, though it's not so offensive when you consider that Kenny tempted fate before it happened.
  • Crush Parade: Kenny's first ever death on South Park sees him blasted onto a road by an alien raygun, trampled by a herd of stampeding cows, and the killing blow comes when he's run over by Officer Barbrady's police cruiser. After that, his body is eaten by rats.
  • The Cuckoolander Was Right: In "Reverse Cowgirl", Butters admits he thought the correct way to sit on the toilet was to sit inward so you can rest your reading material on the top and reach the handle without having to look down. Near the end John Harrington's ghost confirms that this is how he intended it to be used.
  • Cultural Translation: Sega Dreamcast is changed into Playstation in the Polish translation simply because no one there knew what a Dreamcast was.
  • Culture Police: Sheila is the freakin' CHIEF.
  • Cure Your Gays: Butters sent to a camp.
  • Cute Is Evil: The Woodland Christmas Critters.
  • Cut the Juice: In the 24 parody episode.
    • And "Over Logging".
  • Cutting the Knot: When Stan and Kyle try to destroy the Wall Mart by destroying its core, they see that the core is a mirror. The Wall Mart CEO goes on about the symbolism about how it is the citizens of the town that are fueling the Wall Mart, etc. Stan shrugs and says the guy told them to destroy the core, so Kyle shatters the mirror which destroys the Wall Mart.
  • Darker and Edgier: Pre-Season 5, the show was really silly and amusing. But once we get to the season of uncensored cursing, Cartman killing two people and grinding them up into chili, brainwashing Earth Day cults, life-threatening hemorrhoids, genetically-engineered towels, and butt-faced people, sooner or later, you'll realize that the show has gotten a near-complete overhaul.
    • "Bigger, Longer & Uncut". Whenever it airs on T.V., it's always uncensored. On Comedy Central, it airs very late in the evening.
    • The Coon and Friends episode trilogy takes Darker and Edgier and runs with it. Kenny turns out to have experienced every single death consciously, waking up in his bed the next morning unharmed, and having to live with the fact that no one who witnessed his death has any memory of it. When he realizes he has a legitimate super power, he develops a secret super hero identity as "Mysterion". At first, he only uses the secret identity to thwart Cartman's plans and to scare his crack-addicted parents into actually taking care of him. ...and then he gets sucked into R'Lyeh, realizes it looks all too familiar, and kills himself to be transported back to his bed the next morning so he can save his friends who are stuck in a Lovecraftian nightmare. And then it's revealed that he's the spawn of Cthulhu, used as an infact in Lovecraftian cult rituals, as depicted in the Necronomicon.
  • A Day in the Limelight:
    • The Goth Kids in "The Ungroundable".
    • Wendy in "Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset", "The List", "Breast Cancer Show Ever" among others.
    • "Butters' Very Own Episode" deserves a special mention, although he later became a major character.
    • Jimmy is definitely a running second to Butters in this category. "Erection Day", "Krazy Kripples", "Crippled Summer", "Fishsticks", "Up the Down Steroid" just to name a few.
  • Dead Line News: In "Night of the Living Homeless".
  • Deadpan Snarker: Stan and Craig. Especially Craig.

Craig: This is fun. Let's walk for miles through a spooky jungle. It just keeps getting better and better.

  • Deconstruction: In "Kenny Dies", they took their Overused Running Gag of Kenny dying and played it absolutely straight, with similarly unconventional results. For a while.
    • Also in the Coon and Friends trilogy, Kenny as Mysterion finally decides to speak to his friends about the matter without the muffle, and completely seriously. It turns out that no one has the ability to remember the deaths, and Kenny reappears in his bed, or occasionally somewhere else.
  • Deconstructive Parody: "Crippled Summer" has one of Looney Tunes and its Amusing Injuries.
  • Defied Trope: In "Butt Out", Kyle attempts to avoid Cannot Spit It Out, only to get Cassandra Truth.
  • Demoted to Extra: Most of the characters from the early seasons, particularly Officer Barbrady and Dr. Mephisto, who were major characters in many episodes, and often had whole shows featuring them (both later vanished, and South Park even got a real police force). The Mayor appeared far less as time went on, and even Chef was showing up less and less (after being more or less the fourth most important character on the show) before he was killed off. Most of the one-off characters, too.
    • Hell, the boys themselves. More and more episodes seem to follow the formula of "Randy does something stupid, while Stan and Kyle get maybe one or two lines in the beginning."
    • Tweek, Pip, Wendy, Ike, Jimbo and Ned, Fr. Maxi, Kenny, Mrs. Cartman, Kyle's parents and Mr. Garrison have scarcely appeared in later seasons.
  • Depraved Homosexual: Mr. Garrison.
    • Though, as Chef once noted, "there is a BIG difference between gay people and Mr. Garrison." Liking men is the least weird thing about his sexual preferences.
    • Cartman. Jimmy put it best in "Imaginationland".
      • And put on display (quite literally) in "Cartman Finds Love".
  • Designated Monkey: Kyle, and to a lesser extent, Stan.
  • Determinator: Cartman may be a gigantic prick, but when he wants something he'll go to almost ridiculous lengths to get it.
    • Kyle at times too. Both can be pushed easily if it's at the other's expense actually.
    • Butters in "Super Fun Time".

Butters: "Teacher, my partner is back on the bus."

    • Jimmy in "Erection Day" and "Up the Down Steroid".
  • Deus Ex Machina: Mintberry Crunch, full-stop. Also, the ending of the film.
  • Devil in Plain Sight: Averted, in that many characters know that Cartman is a Jerkass. However, authority figures like Mr. Garrison, Principal Victoria, and Mr. Mackey oftentimes treat Stan and Kyle as if they're just as bad (or, in "Toilet Paper", worse!) despite this being far, far from the case.
  • The Devil Is a Loser: Originally a headstrong rebel and pretty badass his first appearance, his later appearances he's a whiny little bitch. God even calls him out on this. He's also gay for some reason.
    • South Park was actually fairly progressive in this area. He's gay because he happens to be attracted to males. It wasn't done for a quick gag or gay plot, it's just a personality trait.
    • Possibly Fridge Brilliance - what other reason could the Bible have for condemning homosexuality?
  • Diabolus Ex Machina: Quite common in the show, especially in later seasons, most notably in "Stanley's Cup".
  • Did You Just Make Friends With Cthulhu?: Cartman did.
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Mintberry Crunch did it using the power of berries and mint before dragging him back to whence he came (then he flipped off his fat sister).
  • Dinky Drivers: Occurs with Stan and Kenny in the episode "Towelie".
  • Discriminate and Switch
  • Disney Creatures of the Farce: The Woodland Critters.
  • Disproportionate Retribution:
    • The ending to "Scott Tenorman Must Die".
    • In the beginning of "Tsst!", Cartman is in trouble for chaining a boy to the school flagpole, telling him he poisoned his milk (and the only way to stop it is to cut off his leg), and (of course) supplying the poor boy with a hacksaw (it is implied the boy used it). This is a punishment for... calling Cartman chubby. Especially bad if you consider that Stan, Kyle, and Kenny regularly call Cartman MUCH worse names for "chubby".
    • In "The Death of Eric Cartman", the boys pull one on Cartman just because he ate all the chicken skins on the chicken they decide to ignore him, despite him having done far worse things than that.
    • A more meta-example would be the sex-change episode. Okay, we understand that Trey and Matt think that it's wrong but... did they have to have Mr. Garrison as the primary example? It's the equivalent of having Satan pop out of the ground and say how much he loves a political party!
    • How about the one involving the OTHER Scott, Scott the Dick, of the Terrance and Philip fame? Scott, disliking fart jokes is completely reasonable, but is it really enough to validate wishing cancer upon someone, letting Saddam Hussein and his army into Canada in hopes that they'd repeatedly shoot and then decapitate Terrance and Phillip, and then trying to get the people you hate to sacrifice themselves in a suicide bomb attack to fix something you screwed up?
    • In "Douche and Turd", the slogan "Vote or Die"; meaning if you don't vote, P.Diddy will KILL YOU. In the same episode, the town banishes Stan for not voting. They tear off his clothes bit by bit, spitting on him, then tie him to a horse and put a bucket on his head, sending him off into the wilderness. ("Isn't this a little extreme?") This was most likely a piss-take on MTV's youth voting campaign at the time called, you guessed it, "Vote or Die".
    • "Pandemic". The Department of Homeland Security takes every Peruvian flute band they can find and takes them away to Miami where they plan to make them spend the rest of their lives. Why? For the sole reason that they find them annoying. That is what it seems like, until Part 2, when we find out that the Peruvian flute bands were the key to keeping some monstrous guinea pigs from causing massive destruction. The DMS did that knowing full well what would happen.
    • In "T.M.I.", a psychiatrist tries to purposely antagonize Cartman by hurling fat jokes and insults at him to test how he deals with anger. Cartman does not respond with the usual emotional reaction one might expect. Rather, he uses an iPhone to produce fake evidence that the psychiatrist was involved with a teenager online. The psychiatrist's wife calls the psychiatrist and kills herself over the phone.
    • In "1%", Cartman responds to being teased about "crying to his stuffed animals" every time he is persecuted by trashing all of his stuffed animals one by one and blaming it on his friends. Also known as, Cartman's interpretation of "growing up".
  • The Ditz: Butters.
  • Divine Date: Satan and Saddam Hussein (later, Satan and Chris).
  • Documentary Episode: "Crippled Summer" and "I Should Have Never Gone Ziplining", which are repectively parodies of Intervention and I Shouldnt Be Alive. The latter episode even had a dramatic reenactment (filmed in live action) for the third act of the episode.
  • Dodgeball Is Hell: Pip becomes a Dodgeball savant when he gets pissed off over people calling him French.
  • Does Not Like Shoes: Kyle's character in World of Warcraft.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: "Crème Fraiche" has a meta-example with the Shake Weight, only taken Up to Eleven.
  • The Dog Bites Back: Butters occasionally gets back at Cartman and/or his relatives for their abuse of him; for example, "Awesom-O", "The Ungroundable" and "Cash for Gold".
    • In "Poor and Stupid", the Vagisil CEO's wife gets in a race car and deliberately uses it to wreck the Vagisil car after he repeatedly humiliates her for her... feminine odors.
  • Dogged Nice Guy: Both Kyle and Token in "Cartman Finds Love".
  • The Dog Was the Mastermind: In the episode "About Last Night....", Kyle's toddler brother Ike was the key player in Obama and McCain's Ocean's Eleven-style heist.
  • Don't Explain the Joke: Subverted. In "Fishsticks", the fishsticks joke becomes funnier when, upon Cartman repeating the joke to Clyde and delivering the punchline, Butters runs up and explains the joke.

Butters: You said you like to put fish sticks [3] in your mouth, that makes you a gay fish!

  • Do They Know It's Christmas Time?
  • Double Aesop: "Simpsons Already Did It" tells us "Nobody cares if It's Been Done." It also tells us, literally in its last seconds, "War is the natural order of life."
  • Double Standard: Spoofed quite a few times.
    • It's not okay to show Mohammed even if he's just standing there looking normal, yet it's okay to show Buddha snorting coke and Jesus watching Internet porn.
    • After the censorship debacle, Matt and Trey said they'd "come back next week with something completely different and see what'll happen." That "something" was showing a shark raping a mentally handicapped child. Uncensored. Twice.
    • Double Standard Abuse (Female on Male): Revolves around Stan being beaten and everyone being sympathetic toward him over it... until they find out that the one beating him up is his sister. Then they mock him and call him a pussy. This is despite the fact that Stan's sister is older and bigger than he is, and is also a violent sociopath.
    • Double Standard Rape (Female on Male): "Nice..."
  • Downer Ending:
    • The Season 15 mid-season finale episode "You're Getting Old" and its somewhat serious tone is likely to be debated among loyal fans for awhile. Either it is set up as a turning point in the series, or Parker and Stone hit the Reset Button again in the subsequent episode "Ass Burgers". Essentially, by the end, Stan, who has celebrated his 10th birthday and become too cynical to hang around Kyle, Kenny and Cartman, is teased as splitting from the other three. His parents, Sharon and Randy, split up as Randy admits his man-child attitude is a cover for his unhappiness. Juxtaposing these points across Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide" and having no music play over the end credits, the episode creates intrigue on whether the show's character dynamic will be changed again, only this time without the Plot Coupon of Kenny being Killed Off for Real in Season 5 and continuing to stay dead throughout Season 6. Not to mention that Kyle and Cartman, two characters who historically hate each other, are seen playing video games together and smiling, a scene that may be Nightmare Fuel.
    • The subtext of the episode, that Matt and Trey are "getting old" and outgrowing the show, led to speculation that they may be planning to either end or radically change the series. This turned out not to be the case, as they have since renewed the show for two more seasons and the next episode ends with all the changes of the previous one being undone (albeit with a lingering note of ambivalence - see below).
    • In the return episode "Ass Burgers", the four boys, as well as Sharon and Randy, have reunited tenuously by the end of the episode, again set to "Landslide". Kyle and Cartman go back to hating each other. The episode still ends on an ambiguously bitter note, as it is suggested that Stan has not really overcome his cynicism, but merely learned to repress it for the time being.
  • The Drag Along: The characters generally take turns with this. Craig spends two whole episodes lampshading this. But after years of improbable adventures it was about time somebody called them on it.
  • The Dragon: Kenny or Butters usually act as this to Cartman.
    • Cthulhu hmore or less became this to Cartman in "Mysterion Rises".
    • General Disarray to Professor Chaos.
  • Drama Bomb: As soon as Season 5, the show starts to have these, beginning with "Kenny Dies". Other episodes include "Fun with Veal", "The Death Camp of Tolerance", "Toilet Paper", "Red Man's Greed", "Raisins", "Preschool", "The Return of Chef" and "You're Getting Old".
    • And in the case of Stan and Kyle's friendship, "Follow That Egg!" was the first of several episodes to have these dropped on it in contrast to earlier, sillier episodes such as "Prehistoric Ice Man".
    • Cartman himself has quite a big one in "1%".
  • Dramatically Missing the Point: Stan not getting what a terminal illness means.
  • Dramedy: Believe it or not. The entire series became this as soon as "Kenny Dies" or as late as "Toilet Paper".
  • Driven to Suicide: In "Coon vs. Coon and Friends", Kenny/Mysterion attempts to goad Cthulhu into either removing his curse of immortality or simply killing him once and for all. After a particularly irksome situation where a mysterious stranger behind a CGI portal gives a revealatory speech about powers and destiny interplanetary origin etc. only to find out he's talking about Mintberry Crunch, who then disappears along with Cthulu and Cartman, Mysterion goes back to headquarters/Cartman's basement after Minteberry Crunch saves the world. There, he tells his gleeful superhero buddies that he wants to "take a nap" then promptly shoots himself. For the third time in the trilogy.
    • In "Pinewood Derby", Emmett Hollis' father shoots himself with a gun after feeling ashamed to have lost to Randy in the derby-in front of Emmett-much to his horror. Emmett than says, "He's okay, he's okay, he's okay..." quickly before the scene changes.
    • In "Something Wal-Mart This Way Comes", the owner of the local Wal-Mart faces an angry mob of townspeople fed up with its influence, nervously going back and forth between lauding its qualities and expressing his own negative yet defeated opinion of it. During the conversation he writes and shows a note telling the crowd to meet him outside. After then townspeople leave the office confused and disappointed, the owner suddenly jumps through the window, hanging by a noose. Seconds later, he craps his pants, proving Cartman right about the phenomenon to his satisfaction. The same thing happens later with the founder of Wal-Mart, who shoots himself. And then craps his pants.
  • Dropped a Bridge on Him:
    • Chef, literally.
    • Halfway through the "Professor Chaos"/"Simpsons Already Did It" two-parter, Ms. Choksondik dies off-screen, with the cause of death never revealed.[4]
    • Pip in the episode "201" gets stepped on by Barbara Streisand for no reason.
  • Dug Too Deep: BP in "Coon 2: Hindsight".
  • Dying Like Animals: The people of South Park are really prone to mass stupid behavior, regardless of age or gender. One of them even dies simply because he thought global warming was chasing him and he lagged behind too much. Then he checks to make sure.

Back to South Park

  1. ↑ "Get a boner, slap her titties around, stick it inside her and pee. If you don't want to get her pregnant you pull it out and pee on her leg."
  2. ↑ "Mystery of the Urinal Deuce"
  3. ↑ "fish dicks"
  4. ↑ Though it may be safe to guess that her name is not meaningless.
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/South_Park/Tropes_A-D?oldid=2015384"