I Could Watch This 20-Year-Old ‘South Park’ Episode a Hundred Times and I Would Still Laugh Every Time

On July 9, South Park returns to Comedy Central for Season 27. First premiering in 1997, the animated series by Trey Parker and Matt Stone has grown from a crudely animated one (it was originally done with cardboard cutouts) into a pop culture phenomenon that is the perfect satire for our times. There have been countless iconic episodes centered around Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny, but the one I love the most is not just about the four main boys, but the heart of the series, Butters. South Park is never better than when poor, sweet, innocent Butters finds himself involved in others’ bad plans, and none are more hilarious than “Marjorine”.

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South Park might be a cartoon, but it is certainly not for kids. Parker and Stone have crafted a series that is very adult and very vulgar, but not simply just for the sake of being shocking. There’s often a mirror held up to those wacky moments, but many hardcore fans will tell you that South Park isn’t as good as it used to be. It has always been stellar at cutting through the news due to them being able to put out episodes so quickly, but there have also been so many episodes that make Stan’s dad, Randy Marsh, the focus, as long as a storyline that went on way too long that had Mr. Garrison as Donald Trump. They were funny, sure, but South Park was losing its spark.

That spark was lost because South Park will always be about the kids. We want to see Cartman raging and being selfish, only to get his comeuppance. We want to see the interplay with Kenny, Stan, and Kyle, watching them go on adventures and be kids, then getting into trouble, either because of their own doing or their childish innocence. That’s what the best of South Park is about. Who can forget Cartman hiding Butters in a bomb shelter so he can go to his favorite restaurant in “Casa Bonita”? What about the lengths the kids will go to in “Make Love, Not Warcraft”, or the genius that was the “Imaginationland” trilogy? Still, to me, all of these pale in comparison to “Marjorine”.

“Marjorine” Is a Mixture of Innocence and Over-The-Top Antics

“Marjorine” first aired in 2005, during South Park‘s ninth season. It’s the epitome of childhood innocence mixed with Cartman’s bad ideas, resulting in mayhem. The episode starts with Cartman having called all of his friends to his basement. He has just discovered some shocking news that he needs to share with everyone: the girls have a device that can predict the future. As proof, he plays a video of the girls using a simple paper fortune-teller like we all probably used in elementary school. However, instead of Stan or Kyle telling Cartman that he’s an idiot, they’re all floored. Whoa, the girls can tell the future. They’re clueless kids, so they easily believe in the impossible.

The plot of the episode then becomes about trying to get the device. They could try to steal it by walking up to them and snatching it, but this being Cartman, he has a bigger plan. One of the boys needs to go undercover as a girl and take it. And you know it’s going to be poor Butters who is assigned this task. For whatever reason, the only way to do that is to fake Butters’ death, which involves Cartman hauling a dead pig to a building rooftop, then, with everyone gathered below, having Butter appear before tossing the pig off the ledge. It splatters on the ground below, with guts getting all over Butters’ parents, who scream in horror, thinking they’ve seen their son take his life right in front of them. It’s the best (meaning, the worst) of Cartman, who always takes everything over the limit and never feels bad about it.

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He fed him what?!

Butters then goes undercover as a blond-haired, pig-tailed girl named Marjorine (get it?!). Meanwhile, to contrast the innocence of little boys who think that girls are scary and don’t understand a simple paper game, they’re now able to act like scientists, complete with some highly-detailed equipment, in their attempt to figure out what’s happening. Don’t try to figure out how they suddenly got the money to make this happen. It’s their stupidity, mixed with this outlandishness, that always leaves me in stitches. But let’s not put it off any longer. It’s the best character in South Park that makes this all so great. I’m talking, of course, about Leopold “Butters” Stotch.

Butters Is ‘South Park’s Best Character

Mr. Garrison and Butters dressed up as a girl on the 'South Park' episode "Marjorine" — Image via Comedy Central

South Park, to put it bluntly, is full of assholes. Would you ever want to know a kid like Eric Cartman in real life? Hell no. Even Stan, Kyle, and Kenny are deeply flawed, but Butters is pure innocence. He’s a good kid who only wants to do good, be happy, and have fun. He’s kind and wholesome, but he’s so gullible that he can be easily corrupted. It’s why so many of South Park‘s best episodes have him in the forefront. “Casa Bonita” doesn’t work without Butters being gullible enough to stay down in that bunker, only to come up and think the world has ended. In “The Death of Eric Cartman”, when the other kids are so mad at Eric that they’re pretending he doesn’t exist, Butters is convinced that not only is Cartman a ghost, but he must help him get to the other side. Cartman treats him like shit constantly, and even though Butters will stand up for himself (he is Professor Chaos after all), his kindness and belief that everyone is good, even Eric, gets him in trouble.

Butters has no desire to go undercover as a girl, but he’ll do it because it’s what his friends want. He’s scared, and we love this innocent boy even more when he’s bullied by other girls for being ugly. Even more heartbreaking, Butters cries at a sleepover when he’s made fun of. He’s not even this girl in real life, but it still hurts him. Then, when the girls apologize, he can flip the switch like nothing, happily dancing with them, only to flip again and take the device, all while telling the girls that he had a great time.

After the device is obtained, Butters must go back to his old life, but there’s a major problem: he’s supposed to be dead. His dad has gone so far as to dig up his body, complaining that his son’s corpse smells like bacon, then burying it in an Indian burial ground like this is Pet Sematary. When Butters walks in the door at the end, his parents see an undead monster and not a confused little boy who is very much alive. When they chain him up in the basement and kill a woman to feed to him, he doesn’t fight back. He takes it, because these are the cards he’s been dealt. He really only has one request, and it’s my favorite line in the whole series. With this dead woman in front of him, Butters asks, “Can I just have some SpaghettiOs?” South Park is still filled with clueless kids at the end of the day, but no one can retain their innocence like Butters. Even when he witnesses his parents beat someone to death with a shovel, he just wants his SpaghettiOs.

All episodes of South Park are available to stream on HBO Max in the U.S.