Early Installment Weirdness / South Park

• The 1992 short "Jesus vs. Frosty", which came out before "The Spirit of Christmas", is quite drastic; the animation was simpler, the character that is to become Cartman is called Kenny and is The Voiceless, Future Kenny has no name and speaks coherently, and they both die. The characters are also missing their Garfield-style Sphere Eyes, having only unfilled circles and dots in their place.
• The show is essentially known as one of the modern era's leading voices in satire, but the first several seasons were much better known for being full of Vulgar Humor (not that it doesn't have it now; it's just that it used to be in excess, leading to a lot of complaints from censors and media watchdog groups), swearing, and plots driven on Rule of Funny. The shows overall tone was a Seen It All humor where aliens would steal cows and a Mad Scientist creates a mutant, giving it sometimes a self-aware edge but lacked any moral or commentary. Later seasons are far filthier and feature unbleeped swearing. The show itself lampoons all this when recreating the series' first scene with twice as much swearing and blockbuster computer effects in the Season 7 opener "Cancelled".
• The initial pilots were actually made with construction paper cutouts, before switching to software that mimics the style. It creates a notable change, especially since the former method creates shadows if the paper isn't perfectly flat.
• The lower budgets and actual-construction-paper animation also present a significant visual difference. The show maintained the same Stylistic Suck through about season five, when they started demonstrating more complex character designs, more complex character animation, more detailed environments, perspectives that are more front and side, and pushing the capabilities of what their animation software can actually accomplish.
• Cartman was also different in the show's early years, his personality depicted as the result of his mother's poor parenting and rarely exceeded a spoiled obnoxious bully (actually, his growth into more of a psychopath is one of the show's more realistic aspects). In addition, the other boys often dished out as much as they took and acted more as childish Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonists with not much more clarity than the world around them. "Scott Tenorman Must Die" is the episode where everyone admits Cartman went from an ineffectual brat to demonstrating monstrous behaviors.
• The town of South Park way smaller in the beginning, as part of the premise was being a backwater town where weird stuff would happen. Barbrady was the only police officer in town for the first six seasons (an actual plot point in "Chickenlover", where he retires and the town quickly falls in chaos) before Yates and other policemen were added in the seventh season. Barbrady then became the police chief and was gradually Demoted to Extra, before Season 19 had him fired from the force altogether. The town went from having a generic main street to being large enough to feature different neighborhoods, districts and shopping centers that would also benefit some of the show's satire. This can be attributed to Real Life Writes the Plot, as Colorado has seen a large population increase in the years since the show premiered (from 3.9 million in 1997 to about 5.9 million in 2023). Many real life towns in the area the series takes place have undergone similar changes.
• In Terrance and Phillip's introductory episode "Death", their show is a cartoon in-universe and their cruder appearance than the other characters is because they're meant to be even worse-animated cartoons. This was later retconned to them being live-action comedians and all Canadians looking like that. A commentary even revealed that Trey Parker and Matt Stone had initially considered them to be British as well, before it was decided to make them Canadian (this is evident in their accents, which sound more English than Canadian). The Canadian retcon also led to Kyle's brother Ike being revealed as adopted, due to the split-head similarity (originally, all babies were to have that design. An Ethiopian baby similar to Ike can be seen in "Starvin' Marvin"). Also, in their first appearance, Terrance was voiced by Trey Parker and Phillip by Matt Stone. All subsequent appearances reverse this. However, the characters based on real-life Canadian celebrities flip-flop on this: Rush, Céline Dion and Bryan Adams, for example, are given the Canadian design, while Alanis Morissette, Sarah McLachlan, Edge and Justin Bieber are not.
• In episodes 2 to 6 in the first season, Kyle was the one who says, "Oh my God, they killed Kenny!", rather than Stan. The seventh episode, the first Halloween Episode, had the line said by Stan as normal at the beginning, but the ending features a variant said by Kyle. Subsequent episodes have Stan as the primary deliverer of the line. On another note, "You bastards!" wasn't said in the Volcano episode.
• In "Weight Gain 4000", Cartman wins an essay contest by cheating. In later seasons Kyle would be the one trying to move heaven and earth to prove it while no one believed him, but in this episode it's Stan among the four main boys who gets pissed. Later, he'd be the least likely to give half a shit. Granted, the reasoning for this was that his girlfriend Wendy was upset about losing to him, which is more in character. When Cartman is exposed (and no one cares), Wendy is still indignant he gets no punishment, while Stan just shrugs it off.
• The characters' voices were also different earlier on, even if some of them had the same voice actors (and keeping in mind that most of the child characters' voices were digitally tweaked). Cartman had a higher, raspier voice, while Stan and Kyle were somewhat higher-pitched. Cartman's voice lost its rasp by Season 4, while the pitch-shifting used for Stan and Kyle was relaxed somewhat.
• The unaired version of "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe", the series pilot, has some drastic differences to the rest of the show. The most notable one is that Cartman is shown to have a father and a sister in his family, instead of living with only his single mother. This goes against the first season finale, which the mystery of who is Cartman's father was the main plot.
• Prior to his development as a main character, Butters wasn't that much different from the other kids. In two Season 1 episodes, he joins in with the rest of the class on antagonizing Pip, beating him up in one and laughing at him after Cartman kicks his groin in the other. His meek personality set in during Season 3 where he and Pip have become friends. Yet his next speaking appearance four episodes later in "Hooked on Monkey Fonics", portrays him as a bully himself who tormented the new homeschooled boy Mark with Craig's gang.
  • Matt and Trey themselves are shocked at how underutilized Butters was in the early years, particularly in South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut. They said that Butters would have had a more prominent role if the movie had been made later on.
• Who the show focused on for secondary characters was much different in the first three seasons. Jimbo and Ned were two of the most reoccurring, along with Dr. Mephesto and Kevin. Kyle’s family received the most attention out of the four boys. Randy had sparse appearances whereas Shelly got more focus than him. The other kids at school had not gotten developed yet, with Clyde and sometimes Bebe typically being the only ones to ever have any lines. Seasons four and five started getting the break out characters that we know today, with most of the older ones being phased out.
• The names of some minor characters would change after their first few appearances. Butters was called "Swanson" in an early episode and his father Stephen used to be called "Chris". Tolkien's last name was originally "Williams" before it was changed to "Black". Jimmy's last name also used to be "Swanson" before it was changed to "Valmer".
• Speaking of Tolkien, some Season 1 episodes depict him as a Caucasian. This was before he became a more realized character, starting around Season 3-4.
• Kenny's deaths were originally a Once per Episode thing, but this was changed after Season 5. First, Matt and Trey tried killing him off permanently. When this proved to not be working out, he was brought back, but killed far less often than before. These days, it's not uncommon for him to go entire seasons without being killed.
• During the first three seasons or so, Chef was an unofficial fifth member of "the Boys" (despite being an adult). Later on, Butters took over this role, while Chef's screentime increasingly diminished as the seasons went on, until he was killed off in the Season 10 premiere.

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