Top 15 Favorite SP Episodes

Holy smokes!! Long post approaching! If you don't really care about South Park, then you should probably stop reading here. Cause I'm gonna talk about it a bunch here!

This is going to be a list of my favorite 15 episodes from South Park, as you can tell by the title. I will go over what the plot was briefly, and then what I like about those episodes. If you haven't actually SEEN the episodes and you plan on doing so at some point, then I highly suggest you don't read my "Why This Episode" sections of this list. Cause Spoilers be lurking there!

Top 15 Favorite South Park Episodes:

!!WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!!

Honorable Mentions:

[These are episodes I really enjoyed that did not make it into the finished list. Mostly because I ran out of slots. ;u; These are in no particular order.]

-Imaginationland Trilogy-
Season 11; Episodes 10, 11, & 12
Plot:
Cartman makes a bet with Kyle that leprechaun's are real. If Cartman wins the bet Kyle has to suck his balls. They somehow manage to accidentally stumble upon the entire world's imagination while in pursuit of settling their bet. When Butters gets trapped there, the boys must find a way to rescue him (sort of) before the government bombs our imaginations!
Why This Episode:
This set of episodes throws in a hilarious set of over exaggerated fictional characters both good and bad. The US government, Butter's adorable innocence, The notorious return of the Christmas critters, and Cartman's everlasting dream to have Kyle suck his nuts, kept me laughing through out these three episodes.

-The List-
Season 11; Episode 14
Plot:
The boys of South Park Elementary find out that the girls have made a list ranking them on a scale of hottest to ugliest. When the boys finally get their hands on the list, they are shocked to see the results!
Why This Episode:
As a girl I understood this one pretty well. The line, "Girls take their list making very seriously." was not lost on me here. This episode show cases the reactions of the boys perfectly, along with a unique glimpse at the inner workings of the girl's group. The best reactions from Cartman and Kyle in this episode kept me thoroughly entertained.

-Marjorine-
Season 9; Episode 9
Plot:
The boys find out that the girls have been keeping a secret from them! A special device that can tell the future. One of the boys will go undercover into the girl's lair to retreive the item so that the boys may learn it's power!
Why This Episode:
Oh my god, Butters in this episode is great. I dare say he makes a better girl than he does a boy. Which is kind of sad, if you think about it. It's episodes like this that remind us that even though the South Park kids are vulgar, racists, and horribly disturbed, they are still children and will definitely think like children do. It's a cute romp that reminds me of childhood, though the side story about Butter's parents is... disturbing to say the least. XD

-You Have 0 Friends-
Season 14; Episode 4
Plot:
Facebook has become huge, and everyone and their grandmother's are getting into it. When Stan refuses to take part in it his friends make him his own Facebook page. Things get out of hand when others constantly try to pull Stan deeper into Facebook. Kyle also manages to lose all his Facebook friends by friending one unpopular kid. He goes through many trials to reclaim his former Facebook glory.
Why This Episode:
I really empathized with Stan in this episode. I was the LAST in my family to get a Facebook page, and literally only because my mom and sister pressured me into it. I was with Stan every step of the way on his journey through the social media site; from the whining about not accepting friend requests, to constantly being bombarded with game invites to Farmville. I understood his plight.

-You're Getting Old (2 Part)-
Season 15; Episodes 7 & 8
Plot:
It's Stan's 10th birthday and his mother has refused to allow him to listen to his favorite 'teen wave' music. While the other mothers rally behind this idea to stop this 'new age' music, Stan finds that he seems to be changing. The world around him isn't the way he remembered it and things he used to like seem to becoming pretty shitty. Everything begins to fall apart as Stan's can't keep himself together anymore, even his friendship with Kyle and the other boys starts to become a distant memory.
Why This Episode:
For anyone who has already left childhood, old friends, and places behind this is a familiar feeling. These episodes made me reflect a lot on the past and how things used to be. It's also a commentary on popular music and differing preferences through the generations. I desperately wanted Stan to get better and go back to being friends with the other boys through out the first part of these episodes, but when it finally happened I felt very hollow. After hearing Stan's speech about change being a good thing, and moving forward to do new and exciting things, I actually had to sit and ponder for a bit if it was actually better to go back to how things used to be or not. There was a good amount of humor, but it was really the underlying meaning that made these episodes stand out to me.

Top 15 list:

15. Le petit Tourette
Season 11; Episode 8
Plot:
Cartman learns that he can get away with saying anything he wants by claiming he has Tourette Syndrome. Thus begins his new life of unfiltered joy. Kyle, knowing Cartman is lying about having Tourettes, attempts to rat him out but gets labeled as intolerant and is sent away to better learn and understand the 'illness' that plagues his friend.
Why This Episode:
Cartman's reaction to Tourettes alone was enough to warrant it being on this list. The hilarious back and forth between him and kyle about the disease, along with the reactions of the people who actually have Tourettes is brilliant. This is one of those episodes that I was surprised hadn't been thought of sooner.

14. Ungroundable
Season 12; Episode 14
Plot:
Due to the recent Twilight craze, more and more kids have become 'Vamp Kids'. The goth kids become enraged after many people begin seeing them as the same thing, and swear to put a stop to the vampire posers once and for all. In the mean while, Butters gets fed up with being punished and yelled at by his parents and decides to join the Vamp kids so that he might never get grounded again!
Why This Episode:
The Goth kids are at their absolute BEST in this episode. Every scene with them in it side achingly funny. The vamp kids are portrayed perfectly and Butters does some absolutely hilarious things through out the episode, especially one scene involving him attempting to drink Cartman's blood. Just all around good laughs.

13. Pandemic (2 Part)
Season 12; Episodes 10 & 11
Plot:
Peruvian Pan flute bands have begun popping up all over the world. The four main boys manage to drag Craig into a plan to pose as a pan flute band to get people to buy their music. Things are going fine until all the pan flute bands, the 5 boys included, get rounded up by the government and are informed they will be shipped to Guantanamo bay in the morning. Things go from bad to furry when giant creatures begin wrecking havoc on the US while the boys are gone. Stan's dad Randy manages, much to everyone's dismay, to video tape the tragic events unfolding before them as people die and cities burn.
Why This Episode:
This is the first time we get a good hard look at Craig as a character, and he is HILARIOUS. His blunt, dry humor meshes perfectly with the other boys and makes for some great, almost fourth wall breaking, moments. Randy's constant wobbling and fumbling of his video camera harkens back to Cloverfield and others of the monster movie genre. The absolute silliness of the situation makes it all the more funny to watch as all the characters seem to over react to the strange occurrences in these episodes.

12. Cartoon Wars (2 Part)
Season 10; Episodes 3 & 4
Plot:
Riots begin as the ever popular adult cartoon 'Family Guy' is scheduled to air an episode featuring the Muslim prophet Mohamed. Cartman raises a banner to get the episode canceled under the pretense of a possible retaliation from the Muslims, and the possibility of a lot of people dying. Eventually Kyle, skeptical but hopeful of Cartman's new found humanity, joins the fight to get the episode pulled from the air before it's too late.
Why This Episode:
These episodes are a hilarious, playful jab by South Park at their own show as well as several other adult comedy cartoons such as Family Guy and King of the Hill. The context for some of the lines is great, Such as Cartman saying, "I'm just a little boy, That's a cartoon! Millions of people watch it. How would you feel if there was a cartoon on TV that made fun of Jews all the time, HUH?" Kyle's startled reaction and pointing to the screen after this statement breaks the fourth wall in the most delightful way possible. The fight at the end between Cartman and Kyle was great and really showed that they are still just little kids despite everything that happens to them.

11. Chinpokomon
Season 3; Episode 10
Plot:
A new craze has swept South Park and the rest of the world. It's called Chinpokomon, and you have to collect them all! A company from Japan has created the ultimate marketing campaign towards kids. With Chinpokomon rising quickly in popularity, what will the parents do when their children start acting very strangely because of this new cartoon?
Why This Episode:
I grew up in the thick of Pokemon's popularity. As a child during that time I can completely relate to the kid's growing obsession with the strange fighting monsters. As an adult now, I can also see where the parents, concerned about the actual message and context of the show, are coming from. This episode is a cute little romp into the confusion and insanity that occurred at the height of Pokemon's popularity in the US, and I love every second of it.

10. Professor Chaos
Season 6; Episode 6
Plot:
The three main boys decide that it's time to fire Butters as their replacement Kenny. Butters, shocked and rejected, takes up the mantle of evil and dedicates his time to making society suffer for out-casting him. He is now the super villain, Professor Chaos!! In the mean while, the boys hold a competition to see who their new fourth friend will be. Who will win the final spot? Only time can tell.
Why This Episode:
Butters is just plain great in this episode, his little bouts of 'evil' in an attempt to get revenge, then his disappointment when no one notices is pretty darn adorable. The scenes where the boys are picking a new friend is pretty funny to. It's played off as one of those dating reality shows. Damien returns in the background, and poor Dog Poo finally gets some speaking lines. Though best of all is who they actually pick as their fourth friend, which I won't spoil here. You'll just have to go see for yourself if you haven't already.

9. Woodland Critters Christmas
Season 8; Episode 14
Plot:
It's Christmas in South Park, and Stan is greeted in the forest by a bunch of adorable furry woodland animals. They make friends with him and end up calling upon him to help save Christmas for them. With twist after twist, this holiday special is sure to be one you will not forget any time soon, no matter how much to try.
Why This Episode:
This will live on in my mind as the most disturbing Christmas Special of all time. If the shock value weren't enough, the plot twists that happen continuously through the episode will keep you locked to your seat. I honestly can't say much more without ruining the whole episode for those who haven't seen it. If you don't have a weak stomach, aren't easily offended, and want to watch something hilarious then I highly suggest you watch this episode!!

8. Good Times with Weapons
Season 8; Episode 1
Plot:
The boys manage buy authentic eastern weapons from a shop during a fair. They decide to play ninja and, after a little accident, end up with one Chaos sized problem!
Why This Episode:
As someone who enjoys anime and watched a lot of it growing up, it was fun to watch South Park once again take a Japanese related fad and expand on it. The back and forth between South Park and Anime style animation was hilarious. It really lends to the fact that they were playing pretend. The short lived return of Professor Chaos in this episode was fun along with the shenanigans that follow due to Kenny's perfect aim. Also, dat song. I will never get it out of my head.... EVER.

7. Scott Tenorman Must Die
Season 5; Episode 1
Plot:
Cartman is tricked into buying the pubic hair of a teenager named Scott Tenorman for $16. Cartman is out for revenge but the teen is always one step ahead of him. What follows is quite possibly the most memorable, shocking, and disturbing set of events in South Park history.
Why This Episode:
We all knew Eric Cartman was a fucked up little kid, but this episode cemented in my mind the true extend of his disturbed psyche. In a way only Cartman could, he gets the most horrific revenge on the bully, Scott. I certainly did not see it coming and if I have learned anything from this episode it is quite simply; Do not fuck with Eric Cartman.

6. The Coon
Season 13; Episode 2
Plot:
Cartman dresses up as his 'superhero' alter ego The Coon in order to 'rid the city of crime'. He is severely pissed however, when he stumbles upon another kid doing his job, only better! Cartman is now set on discovering the masked Hero, Mysterion's identity. The race is on to figure out which of the South Park boys is behind the mask, and all the town is curious to know, Just who IS Mysterion?
Why This Episode:
I actually watched this episode out of order. Since I had already seen the Coon Friends saga at this point I already knew who Mysterion was. So more than anything it was just a fun little romp with one of my favorite characters pretending to be a cool super hero and pissing of Cartman while doing so. I often watched Batman the Animated series and the X-Men animated series growing up, so the super hero genre references in this episode made me laugh every time.

5. Black Friday Trilogy
Season 17; Episodes 7, 8, & 9
Plot:
Black Friday is right around the corner and the boys of South Park decide to form an army in order to be the first ones into the Mall to get the next generation gaming system. Tragedy strikes when the boys realize that half of them want Xbox ones and the other half want PS4s. It's an all out console war with fighting, betrayal, and friendships put to the test. In the meanwhile, Stan's father Randy has decided to work as mall security for Black Friday to earn some extra spending money, but he has no idea the danger and horror he's truly about to face.
Why This Episode:
There are a lot of reasons why these episodes are high up on the list. I have a background in Larping (Live Action Role Playing), so the boys dressed up in medieval costume and running around beating each other with sticks reminds me of that a great deal. The console war I am also familiar with, but never picked either side as I am a Nintendo girl at heart. It was interesting though. I felt like I was, once again, watching the actual console war through the eyes of an outsider. Though, unfortunately for Microsoft, the real console war didn't go quite as South Park portrayed it. The next thing, was Black Friday itself. The throngs of people flooding into stores; trampling, climbing over, and kicking people out of the way to get to their decided item. The shear panic and then desolate aftermath of Black Friday is something I've dealt with before. So Seeing all of this blown horribly out of proportion was extremely fun to see. Though, being a long time fan of Sailor Moon, the whole Princess Kenny thing nearly killed me a few times. Not quite in a bad way? More like in an "ERROR CANNOT COMPUTE" kind of way. XD

4. The Poor Kid
Season 15; Episode 14
Plot:
When Kenny's parents are taken to jail, he and his siblings are thrown into the foster care system. Separated from their friends and family, they are forced to realize for themselves how flawed the foster system really is. Meanwhile, after Kenny is shipped off to another city, Cartman comes to realize he is now the poor kid in school. In panic, he concocts a plan to get himself into the foster care system as well.
Why This Episode:
This episode is a perfect example of why Kenny is my favorite South Park character. His relationships and actions towards his little sister Karen in this episode are nothing less than heartwarming and awesome. Mysterion returns as Karen's guardian angel, it is also then established that this is not the first time Kenny has used his identity as Mysterion to protect his sister. Making their relationship even more poignant, since he seems to stand up for her quite often. The dialogue with Cartman and the foster parents in this episode is pretty funny. Unfortunately the one thing in this episode that kept it from being higher on the list, was the social worker. He often ground on my nerves, though I think this was meant to be intentional, I always found myself wanting to get back to what was happening with the McCormick kids rather then listening to his Pen State jokes.

3. Kenny Dies
Season 5; Episode 13
Plot:
Kenny is diagnosed with a terminal disease. Stan, Kyle, and Cartman don't have long before they must say good by to their friend, permanently(Sort of). Cartman, mourning the potential loss of his best friend, looks into stem cells as a possible way to cure Kenny. Meanwhile Stan can't cope with the thought of losing Kenny, and has an emotionally breakdown despite Kyle's best efforts to help.
Why This Episode:
This episode speaks for itself really. It is a tear jerking, heart dropping episode. I never thought I would say that South Park made me cry, but not only did they make me cry in this episode, they made me bawl like a little baby. Despite the numerous times Kenny had died before, this was given real significance. The fact that after this episode, Kenny would be absent from the series for an entire season was shocking enough. When it first aired, people thought that Kenny was gone permanently, which gave it a huge impact. Cartman in this episode was especially interesting. While he is criticized and beaten up at the end for using stem cells for his own gain instead of to actually help Kenny. He seemed genuine in his feelings of loss before he found out about the stem cell research. It was very believable that Cartman's emotions at that time were real, but his capacity to feel that way probably didn't last for long. It's also good to note that watching Kyle beat up Cartman at the end of this episode was great. That actually carries over to our next entry funny enough.

2. Breast Cancer Show Ever
Season 12; Episode 9
Plot:
Wendy is enraged when Cartman makes fun of breast cancer during her class presentation. After he harasses her more about it she finally snaps and challenges him to a fight. Cartman accepts without thinking it through, only later to realize she is not going to pull any punches and plans to beat the living crap out of him. He is now desperate to avoid the fight at any cost, other than making himself look bad.
Why This Episode:
This episode is amazing on so many levels. We rarely get to see Wendy on center stage, but here she is out in full force and is hilarious and believable. Cartman's pathetic and desperate attempts to get out of the fight are only made more hilarious by how determined Wendy is to beat him up. This episode also deals with the touchy topic of breast cancer, and gets a few great inspirational lines from Principal Victoria to Wendy on the subject. Though, by far the best part of this episode is the fight. Watching Cartman get the ever loving crap beat out of him was LONG overdue. Almost 13 season worth of retaliation comes to a head as Wendy quite literally pounds Cartman's face into the dirt. It was the most beautiful thing I've seen in some time. This is only made better by his delusion that getting beaten up by a girl will make him uncool... though after all is said and done the other kids tell him he was never cool in the first place, and that their opinion of him can literally not get any worse than it already is. Cartman copes with this by taking it completely the wrong way. Thinking that they were trying to cheer him up, then coming to the conclusion that they will think he's cool no matter what he does. His self delusion knows no bounds...

Aaaaaaaand... *Drum roll*

1. The Coon Friends Trilogy
Season 14; Episodes 11, 12, & 13
Plot:
A new organization is formed by the secret super hero double-lives of the boys of South Park, Coon and Friends works to help the world and stop evil where ever it hides. A catastrophe occurs when BP drills on the moon after causing an oil spill and opening a portal to another dimension, thus releasing the dark lord Cthulhu. When the world's most valuable hero, Captain Hindsight, is no where to be found it's up to Coon and Friends to stop the evil god from destroying the entire world! A tale of heroes, villains, secret identities and the origin of the immortal will unfold.
Why This Episode:
The sheer amount of things that make this my favorite episode(s) is kinda amazing. There are so many things in here I either relate to or immediately got the references to. The jokes are great, the timing is perfect, the mood is dark and brooding when needed. Over the top and amazing, to me this is South Park at it's best. It would take far too long for me to go into everything I loved about these episodes, so I'll try to only go over a few. The Oil spill is a main focus for most of the first and second episodes. I actually LIVE on the gulf coast, so I was actually there for the oil spill and saw the ramifications. They did a pretty hilarious job of portraying what was going on down here, and also how much we really needed help. Captain Hindsight was pretty funny, but more often then not I found myself yelling, "Why don't you tell them that BEFORE the bad stuff happens please??" The Totoro references nearly broke me. I grew up with that movie and I almost died laughing at that. I felt bad for Butters, as Professor Chaos, being locked in a dog cage for like a week. Poor dude. The only thing I condoned Cartman doing was killing Justin Beiber... Eric Cartman, you have done the world a huge favor. *ahem* Then there's the big one. Mysterion, AKA: Kenny, was the best part of these episodes for me by far. He was completely bad ass and just great. The suspense over finding out how he got his powers was driving me crazy the whole time. The 'payoff' for that however made me flip my shit. Darn Mint berry Crunch. Way to pull the rug out from underneath us on that one South Park. You had us all going! Though, despite that, we still get a basic idea of why Kenny can't die, and I appreciated that they even bothered explaining that at all.

((So there you have it. A list of my top 15 favorite episodes of South Park. The reason I made this was mostly to compare my list with others I have seen, and give you guys an idea of which episodes might be good to watch if you don't want to watch all of them.
Unfortunately my list is really completely biased. Since Kenny is my favorite character many of the episodes starring and featuring him heavily made it into the top 10. I couldn't help it though, so you'll just have to forgive me. :> ))