The Best 'South Park' Characters

You'd think because his mother appeared on the cover of CrackWhore Magazine, Eric Cartman would be a rather disturbed little boy. But not so! Sure, he's selfish, hot-tempered and swears like a sailor, but that's only because he's insecure about being the fattest kid in school.

And what third-grader doesn't need to blow off a little steam by screaming racial slurs now and again? The important thing is when times have been tough for the boys (such as when they needed to replace Kenny with another friend) Eric's been there to make matters worse.

Some of Cartman's evil schemes include pretending his hand was Jennifer Lopez, running an amusement park, locking away Butters so he could join the party at Casa Bonita, and breaking out of fat camp. See the many faces of Cartman that include some favorite disguises.

• "Weight Gain 4000," Season 1 - Cartman tries to slim down by mistakenly drinking a protein shake mix and ends up bigger than ever.
• "Cartman's Silly Hate Crime 2000," Season 4 - Cartman is jailed and befriends a seasoned con to help him bust out.
• "Trapper Keeper," Season 4 - Cartman's precious Trapper Keeper becomes an organism set to destroy the world.
• "Cartmanland," Season 5 - After inheriting a fortune from his grandmother, Cartman builds an amusement park so he can control who is allowed to enter.
• "Fat Butt and Pancake Head," Season 7 - Cartman's hand suddenly becomes the talented Jennifer Lopez, and Ben Affleck is attracted.
• "Cartman's Incredible Gift," Season 8 - After sustaining a serious head injury due to a steep fall, Cartman appears to have psychic powers and takes on other famous psychics.

It is fortunate that Kenny is always tucked into the hood of his orange parka because he smells bad. Poor people do. Yes, the outfit makes it difficult to understand what he's saying, but who cares? He's poor. His family is poor, and they live on the poor side of town. Poor, poor, poor. That's why Kenny dies each week. He deserves it for being poor.

Or, at least that's what Cartman would say. Lately, Kenny's back from the dead and doing well in South Park. He doesn't die every week... yet.

Kenny's been killed by just about everyone on the show. Some of his more memorable deaths were at the hands of Santa Claus, Mr. Hat, the Mir Space Station and just about all of his friends, by accident, of course.

• "Ladder to Heaven," Season 6 - The boys build a giant stairway to retrieve Kenny from heaven, thus ending his weekly deaths.
• "Pinkeye," Season 1 - A pink eye epidemic breaks out just as the boys are trying to win the Halloween costume contest.
• "Clubhouses," Season 2 - Each boy builds his own clubhouse, though Stan wants Wendy to join his club.
• "Jewbilee," Season 3 - Kyle and Ike go on a camping trip for Jewish boys and Moses appears out of the flames.
• "Fat Camp," Season 4 Kenny gets his own TV show called "Krazy Kenny."
• "How to Eat With Your Butt," Season 5 - Kenny's face (a picture of his butt inside his hood) ends up on a milk carton.
• "Major Boobage," Season 12 - Kenny stars on this homage to Heavy Metal, getting hooked on the latest drug craze.

Along with being Stan's best friend and one of the only Jews in South Park, Kyle is the smartest of the four boys. This often makes him the lone voice of reason against Cartman's many schemes.

It hasn't, however, prevented him from joining the suicide cult of magician David Blaine, or questioning the existence of God while being the only fourth grader suffering from acute hemorrhoids, or playing with poo that turns out to be Mr. Hankey. But Kyle usually succeeds in learning from his mistakes.

• "Mr. Hankey the Christmas Poo," Season 1 - Kyle meets a new Christmas legend, Mr. Hankey the Christmas Poo, though no one believes him.
• "Clubhouses," Season 2 - Like the other boys, Kyle builds his own clubhouse.
• "Trapper Keeper," Season 4 - When Cartman's precious Trapper Keeper becomes an organism set to destroy the world, Kyle is the only one who can enter the belly of the beast and save everyone.
• "Passion of the Jew," Season 8 - Kyle questions his Jewish faith after he watches The Passion of the Christ.
• "Cartoon Wars Part I, Part II," Season 10 - Kyle loves Family Guy, but Cartman hates it. The two begin a race to Hollywood: Cartman to destroy the cartoon and Kyle to save it.

Stan is your average, happy-go-lucky kid. Of the four boys we know from South Park he's the most normal.

Though he's dealing with an alcoholic father and a crazy sister, his home life is still fairly normal. He has an on-again-off-again romance with Wendy.

Whether it's something as noble as leading his friends on a mission to return a goat to Afghanistan, or as simple as breaking into a secret military base to recover his Okama Gamesphere, Stan almost always tries to do the right thing.

• "Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boatride," Season 1 - Stan befriends Big Gay Al when he realizes his own dog may be homosexual.
• "Proper Condom Use," Season 5 - South Park Elementary heats up when the boys must endure sex education, though the lessons make them afraid of girls.
• "Red Hot Catholic Love," Season 6 - Stan tries to get to the bottom of the scandal involving Catholic priests.
• "Woodland Critter Christmas," Season 8 - Stan helps the little animals in the woods prepare for their Savior, only to discover the Lord they serve isn't the one he thought.
• "Bloody Mary," Season 9 - Stan is terribly embarrassed when his drunken father visits a statue of the Virgin Mary that is supposed to bleed, thinking it will cure him of his alcoholism.

Mr. Garrison is the boys' teacher. But that doesn't even come close to covering the many facets of his personality.

Mr. Garrison started his life on South Park being a teacher, who was possibly gay, who had a friend named Mr. Hat, a puppet that may or may not have been alive. Then Mr. Garrison became the openly gay teacher. And now, he's a she thanks to an operation he had recently.

Mr. Garrison also made friends with Mr. Slave, who left him after the operation. Mr. Slave is now living with Big Gay Al.

• "Tom's Rhinoplasty," Season 1 - Mr. Garrison takes time off for a nose job, but his substitute, Ms. Ellen, catches Wendy's attention.
• "Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics," Season 3 - Mr. Garrison gets his own solo song during this blasphemous Christmas special.
• "It Hits the Fan," Season 5 - After Cartman lets a dirty word slip, Mr. Garrison sings a lovely song to the kindergarteners.
• "The Entity," Season 5 - After Mr. Garrison gets fed up with long lines at the airport, he invents his own form of unusual transportation.
• "The Death Camp of Tolerance," Season 6 - Friends of Mr. Garrison, Mr. Slave and Lemmiwinks, a brave, little gerbil, are introduced in this episode.

Butters is in class with Stan, Cartman, and Kenny. When Kenny died for good in season five, Butters became their new best friend. Unfortunately, when Butters didn't meet the boys' standards, Butters was fired as the new best friend.

Butters has very strict parents who ground him for just about everything he does.

Poor Butters has endured a lot of strife thanks to Cartman and friends. He is punished when he believes he is the only one who can see a dead Eric Cartman. He dresses as a girl for a slumber party, makes friends with the girls, and then must abandon them when their plan to learn the girls' secret comes to fruition. He befriends and then loses AWESOM-O, a robot who is really Cartman. He has suffered a lot of heartache in the name of friendship.

• "Casa Bonita," Season 7 - Cartman traps Butters in an underground bunker so that he, Cartman, may enjoy a party at his favorite restaurant, Casa Bonita.
• "Raisins," Season 7 - Butters becomes attached to one of the pretty servers at the provocative restaurant, Raisins.
• "AWESOM-O," Season 8 - Poor Butters is fooled by Eric dressed as a robot named AWESOM-O who wants to learn all of his secrets.
• "Marjorine," Season 9 - Butters dresses as a girl in order to infiltrate a sleepover the 4th-grade girls are having.
• "The Death of Eric Cartman," Season 9 - Butters thinks Cartman is dead and he's the only one who can communicate with him.
• "The Ungroundable," Season 12 - Butters is sure he sees a vampire at school, but no one believes him.

Timmy is one of the boys' friends in their class. Timmy is in a wheelchair.

The only things Timmy can say is his name, and his turkey's name, Gobbles. But with just one word, he has counseled his friend Jimmy not to use steroids and he fronted his own rock band.

• "Up the Down Steroid," Season 8 - Timmy figures out that Jimmy is taking steroids. Timmy is able to convince Jimmy to quit.
• "Krazy Kripples," Season 7 - After Christopher Reeves comes to town, Jimmy and Timmy join together to form a gang called the "Crips," only to discover one already exists.
• "Cripple Fight," Season 5 - As Cartman announces to the church and the grocery store, Timmy and Jimmy engage in a violent fight in the parking lot.
• "Timmy 2000," Season 4 - Rather than realizing the obvious, the school's staff diagnoses Timmy with ADD when he is unable to do his school work.

Jimmy was the new kid in Stan, Cartman, Kenny and Butters Mountain Scout Troop. He ended up outshining our Timmy with his stand-up comic routine. But then Timmy showed him a thing or two about kicking ass and saying "no" to drugs.

• "Up the Down Steroid," Season 8 - Jimmy starts taking steroids for an upcoming competition but gets out of control until Timmy talks him down.
• "Krazy Kripples," Season 7 - Jimmy isn't happy when Christopher Reeves comes to town, stealing all the attention. He and Timmy form a gang called the Crips.
• "Cripple Fight," Season 5 - Jimmy is the new kid in the scout troop, but gets on Timmy's bad side when he starts telling funny jokes.
• "Erection Day," Season 9 - As Jimmy's body is changing, he realizes he can't get in front of an audience to tell jokes unless he's, um, prepared himself.

Chef was the school cafeteria's cook. He taught them lessons in life and helped them out. He sang songs about sex to explain to the kids, well just about everything. He was hot with the ladies and firmly believed in the existence of extraterrestrials (visitors). He coached the school sports teams and led the hardball team to become World Hardball Champions.

Chef was killed after joining the Super Adventure Club in "The Return of Chef," because actor Isaac Hayes quit the show.

• "Cartman's Mom is a Dirty Slut," Season 1 - Chef is nearly apoplectic when Eric begins his search for his real father.
• "Cartman's Mom is Still a Dirty Slut," Season 2 - Chef maintains his rare form of intuitive counseling when Eric continues to search for his biological father.
• "Chef's Chocolate Salty Balls," Season 2 - The classic episode in which Chef sets up a booth to sell his famous chocolate salty balls.
• "The Succubus," Season 3 - Chef falls under the spell of a demon succubus, nearly marrying her until the boys step in.
• "Chef Goes Nanners," Season 4 - Chef grabs the spotlight when he protests that the new South Park flag is racist.
• "Proper Condom Use," Season 5 - Chef gives the boys the lowdown when they get confused about sex education.

Mr. Mackey is South Park Elementary's Counselor. Serving his calling, he's always available to the children, working to figure out what's wrong with all the kids in South Park. He tries to strictly discipline the children, but usually just ends up saying, "Mm-kay?"

He had a brief love affair with Ms. Choksondik before she died.

• "Proper Condom Use," Season 5 - Mr. Mackey and Ms. Choksondik get hot and bothered going over the lesson plans for sex education, learning a little about the subject themselves.
• "Two Guys Naked in a Hot Tub," Season 3 - Mr. Mackey hosts a meteor shower party, complete with a hot tub.
• "Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics," Season 3 - Mr. Mackey is the mild-mannered host of the Christmas special filled with songs that are anything but mild.