Narrowing the episodes from thirteen seasons of South Park to just a select ten is no easy task. But someone had to do it. Whether you love or hate the show, there is no denying the huge success and cultural impact of it. By parodying current events and celebrities, the creators manage to produce fresh material that has kept the show from going stale. You may not agree with all of the choices on this list, but if not, just add your own to the comments. Each item contains a video commentary by the creators. Warning: video clips contain some bad language.
All About the Mormons?
This episode starts with a Mormon family moving to South Park. One of the children in the family seems like the perfect child so Stan is recruited to beat him up. The best parts of the episode are when the Mormon family tell of the prophet Joseph Smith, who is the founder of the Mormon religion. Whenever, they are talking about Smith there is an upbeat tune in the background that repeats the words “dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb.”
Full title: “The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers”. In this episode the boys are recruited to bring the Lord of the Rings movie to Butters house. Instead, Randy accidentally gives them a hardcore pornography video to bring to his house. After, Butters watches some of the movie he is transformed into Gollum. The show continues with Butters following them while the Parents and Sixth graders are all trying to hunt them and get the movie. All while the unsuspecting Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny try to return the movie to its origins of the movie store in order to remove the evil spell it has.
This episode makes fun of former vice president and presidential nominee Al Gore. In the episode, the Al Gore character is hunting ManBearPig. He claims that ManBearPig is going to destroy the world. The Al Gore also has no friends and recruits the boys to help him, before getting them stuck in a cave. During this episode Cartman eats fake treasure to try to keep the other boys from stealing any of it.
Something You Can Do With Your Finger
This episode of the show made it because it has the best Randy Marsh scene out of all the South Park episodes. Stan wants to be in a boy band with the other bands. Randy will not let him. The best scene of the show is when Randy breaks down and says that he was in a boy band when he was younger. How he left South Park for the fame, but came home being lame. Indeed, it was a tragic tale. Stan and Randy both end up joining the boys band Fingerband and performing at the mall.
Make Love, Not Warcraft
In this episode the boys become confined to Cartman’s basement for twenty one hours a day playing World of Warcraft. They become overweight, get acne, and grow long hair. They only eat hot pockets and never go outside. Cartman even has his mom bring him a bedpan when he has to go to the bathroom so he does not have to leave the computer. I think this scene is disgusting but it makes the episode hilarious.
In this episode the boys get served by some kids from the next town over. They then put together their own dance crew. They find out that Butters used to be a famous tap dancer before an accident that he had when he was younger. During a show his shoe flew off and eleven people were killed in the ensuing chaos. Butters is still traumatized from the event and originally refuses to join the dance crew. He is finally convinced to join the dance crew, the day of the show. He begins to join the dance crew and his shoe flies off knocking down the lights and killing the opposing dance crew. The boys celebrate while Butters gets another memory to suppress.
Cartman pretends to be Butters’ robot friend in order to keep a secret safe, but ends up under a cardboard box for much longer than he hoped. Butters does not let Cartman leave his side and they end up going to Hollywood. Cartman has to come up with movie ideas for Hollywood executives. The whole time Cartman is going without food and water.
This was episode was three in one. It all started when Cartman bet with Kyle that leprechauns where real. If leprechauns are real then Kyle has to suck Cartman’s balls but if they are not then Cartman has to give Kyle ten dollars. The boys go into the forest in search of the leprechaun. They do find him and he warns of a terrorist attack on Imaginationland. The boys all go there but Kyle, Cartman, and Stan escape before the terrorist attack. Butters is left there by himself and must imagine weapons for the good characters before Imaginationland is destroyed. Also Cartman’s case goes before the Supreme Court but he never gets Stan to suck his balls because leprechauns are imaginary.
Good Times with Weapons
It’s all fun and games until Butters takes a ninja star to the eye. The boys tell a carnie that their parents are dead in order to get him to sell them weapons. They pretend that they are Japanese warriors. In one scene Cartman says that he is invisible and walks naked across the stage in front of the whole town. The town is in an outrage and it is not because Butters got hit in the eye with a ninja star. It is because Cartman walked across the stage naked. The other boys return the weapons and stay out of trouble.
Scott Tenorman Must Die
Cartman buys pubic hair from a ninth grader for ten dollars in order to become a man. When his friends tell him that he needs to grow his own to be a man, he demands his money back. Scott refuses and Cartman comes up with a sick and twisted plot for revenge. I think that how unrealistic yet believable Cartman’s plot was makes this such a great episode. You don’t even believe that what you saw just happened. The episode is just so twisted. The following quote goes along with the picture after Scott finds his mom’s finger in the Chili and Radiohead calls him a baby. Cartman has exacted his revenge upon Scott. “Yeah, yeah, oh let me taste your tears Scott. Ummm, your tears are so yummy and sweet . . . Oh, the tears of unfathomable sadness. Yummy, yummy guys!”