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This page covers tropes found in South Park.

Tropes A-D | Tropes E-J | Tropes K-Q | Tropes R-V | Tropes W-Z | YMMV | Shout Outs


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    E 
  • Early-Bird Cameo:
    • Butters' dad appears in the riots for a brief second in "Chickenlover".
    • Wendy appears in the short that was made before the series, The Spirit of Christmas.
    • "Black Friday" and "A Song of Ass and Fire" both serve as one for The Stick of Truth, since it introduces many of the new costumes for the kids, as well as reinforces their serious approach at LARPing and even Kenny's crossdressing.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness:
    • Watching the first three seasons and seeing characters like Butters, Craig, Token, Clyde and Randy as Living Props or in minor roles feels weird when you consider that they're well-established and recognized characters today.
    • In episodes 2 to 6 of the first season, Kyle is the one who says, "Oh my God, they killed Kenny!", rather than Stan. The seventh episode, "Pinkeye" (the first Halloween Episode), has 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 episode "Volcano".
    • In the 1992 short Jesus vs. Frosty, which came out before The Spirit of Christmas, the character that is to become Cartman is called Kenny and is The Speechless, 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.
    • 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.
    • The first season's obsession with television and sitcom stars such as Patrick Duffy and Tina Yuthers. Most of the comedy in those episodes revolves around basic cable television.
    • Kyle's "kick the baby!" shtick was dropped after the first few seasons.
    • In "Cartman's Mom Is a Dirty Slut", during Cartman's tea party with his dolls, "Clyde Frog" calls him a fat piece of crap while all the others praise him. Later episodes have Clyde Frog as Cartman's number-one favorite stuffed animal, to the point where he had an emotional goodbye with him in "Die Hippie Die" and had a funeral for him in "1%".
    • In "Death", Kyle, Cartman and Stan's mothers are called "Carol" instead of Sheila, Liane and Sharon, respectively.
    • Stan and Kyle's relationship would at times be just as antagonistic as their interactions with Cartman. One example was in "Starvin' Marvin" where Kyle called Stan an ass-rammer after the latter told him to shut up. Nowadays, Stan and Kyle are so close, they'd really only argue if it's for the conflict.
    • Stan and Kyle also had a mean streak when it came to Pip and occasionally Butters. As the show progressed, they would scold Cartman whenever he picked on Butters.
    • In "Volcano", there was no implication that Randy was Stan's father, as he expressed no concern over the fact that he was in the mountains as the volcano was ready to erupt. Their relation wouldn't be revealed until "An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig". Also, Randy was a lot more intelligent and mature, which is a stark contrast to the Bumbling Dad he'd become in later seasons.
    • In "Conjoined Fetus Lady", Butters (at that point a background character) was called "Swanson" rather than his actual modern day name. Annie Knitts is also called "Jordan" in the episode.
    • In season 3, when Butters became an Ascended Extra, he used to stutter, and in "Two Guys Naked in a Hot Tub" had a habit of repeating himself.
    • Timmy and Jimmy hated each other in "Cripple Fight". However, in "Krazy Kripples", they're suddenly friends.
    • When Butters was introduced in Season 3's "Two Guys Naked in a Hot Tub", he was portrayed as one of the unpopular kids at school who gets bullied often. Yet his next speaking appearance in four episodes later, "Hooked on Monkey Fonics", portrays him as a bully himself who tormented the new home-schooled boy Mark with Craig's gang. Butters also joined in with the rest of the class on antagonizing Pip in two Season 1 episodes, punching him in "Weight Gain 4000" and laughing after Cartman kicks his groin in "Mecha-Streisand".
    • In "Jakovasaurs", Cartman sings a song about how he "hates" the other three boys and hates Kenny the most. Later seasons would establish that he "hates" Kyle the most, while Kenny became the closest thing he has to a best friend.
    • A few Season 1 episodes had Tolkien Black depicted as white. Much like Butters, he was a background character at the time, so they probably hadn't bothered with consistency. Also, his surname was Williams earlier on.
  • Easter Episode:
    • "Fantastic Easter Special" revolves around Stan trying to find out the true reason Easter Eggs are celebrated for Easter.
    • "Jewpacabra" takes place during both Easter and Passover. While the other kids are prepping for the Easter egg hunt, Cartman tries to get it cancelled, believing that the titular Jewish cryptid is going to kill the other kids.
  • Easy Road to Hell: A definite example Played for Laughs in the movie. Kenny has been killed (again) and his soul drifts up towards Heaven. However, as soon as he touches it, he gets an "Access Denied" message and tumbles straight down to Hell, which has a "Population" sign showing a huge and ever-increasing number, whilst the equivalent sign for Heaven revealed a tiny population. Of course, in this series, Hell isn't all that bad, presumably because the huge concentration of people that end up there means it's basically like Earth except everything is on fire. Originally, the only people who could get into Heaven were Mormons. Everybody else went to hell. Retconned in "Best Friends Forever", where Heaven had to create an army to fight an invasion from Hellā€”which made sense considering the overly excited Mormons were generally pacifists, as well as microscopic in number compared to Hell's population.
  • Easy Sex Change: In "Mr. Garrison's Fancy New Vagina," Mrs. Garrison's transition was rapid and focused entirely on genital reconstruction. We saw no signs of her transition prior, and somehow, Mr/Mrs. Garrison walks out of the clinic on the same day with a full recovery (she wasn't even put under). She also somehow got breasts and hips on the same day, which require years on hormones and/or additional surgeries in Real Life.
  • Eat the Camera: Done in "City on the Edge Forever" when the bus is going down a waterfall, all of the kids scream as Stan's mouth engulfs the camera, which then inverts out of Kyle's mouth. The clip was also used in the season 4-5 intro.
    • "You Got F'd in the A" ends this way when Butters is traumatized after his dance kills the rival team, causing his team to win. The kids carry him towards the camera as he screams a Big "NO!" with his mouth filling the entire screen.
    • "The Mexican Starring Frog of Southern Sri Lanka" also ends this way when Jesus banishes his producer to hell, where the producer meets Satan and Saddam, who decide to go shopping for furniture. The producer screams a Big "NO!" as the camera zooms into her mouth.
  • Eccentric Townsfolk: The town of South Park is small, but its inhabitants often get caught up in zany trends and meaningless arguments.
  • Eek, a Mouse!!: Parodied in "Eek, a Penis!" when Mr. Garrison's penis is grafted to a mouse and all the women comically run away whenever they see it.
  • Egg Sitting: The plot of "Follow That Egg!" has the fourth graders raise an egg together. Stan becomes jealous of Kyle because Kyle and Wendy are babysitting an egg together. However, Ms. Garrison switches the families so Stan and Kyle have to co-parent the egg, and Garrison tries to prove it to prove that gay marriage should be outlawed (as she's angry about Mr. Slave dumping her and marrying Big Gay Al).
  • Eldritch Abomination:
    • Wall-Mart from "Something Wall-Mart This Way Comes". It is simply a formless entity (later revealed as a manifestation of human desire) that materialized as a chain of superstores, slowly corrupts all humans it comes in contact with, and exists so long as there is human desire to give it power.
    • Cartman's "Trapper Keeper".
    • "Coon 2: Hindsight" has Cthulhu himself.
  • Eldritch Location:
  • Election Day Episode: "Douche and Turd" is about an election for a new school mascot after an Animal Wrongs Group "frees" their original cow mascot. The two candidates are a "giant douche" and a "turd sandwich". The episode concludes that in every election, the choice is between a douche and a turd because they're the only ones who are willing to suck up enough to get on the ballot.
  • Embarrassing First Name: Only the In-Universe press refers to Butters Stotch as "Leopold".
  • Embarrassing Slide: Invoked in "Cartman Sucks." Cartman is afraid someone will show the photo of him sucking Butters' dick as a prank and make him look gay, so he puts it into a slideshow presentation himself to be ahead of the game, even praising his own camerawork.
  • Enemy Mine: South Park enlists the terrorists Al-Qaeda to defeat the Jerseyites.
  • Entertainment Above Their Age:
  • Eskimos Aren't Real: In "The Tooth Fairy's Tats 2000", the American Dental Association laugh when Dr. Foley tries to convince them of exactly what's happening to the teeth, favoring their own chicken-squirrel hybrid theory. They further ridicule Foley when he says that he has seen it before in Montreal, derisively asking "And where, pray, is this Montreal?".
  • Establishing Character Moment: Both of Kyle's parents have these. The first thing Sheila Broflovski does in the show? Try to cancel Terrance and Philip by going on strike with all of the other parents. 4 episodes later, Gerald is being too hard on Kyle this Hanukkah for having what was thought to be an imaginary friend. They both mellow out a little as the series progresses, for the most part.
  • Establishing Series Moment: The first thing that happens in the show is someone kicking a baby. And it all goes downhill from there.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Has its own page.
  • Everybody Cries:
    • Played For Laughs in "The China Probrem": Everyone cries when they remember when they watched Indiana Jones getting raped. First its only the kids, but later the lawyer they hired joins in. Then a policeman to who they reported the story cries with them too. In the end, the A Plot gets resolved, when an entire police unit starts crying, which allows Cartman and Butters, who were supposed to be arrested, to just walk away.
    • In "It's Christmas in Canada", Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny all start crying after a guard denies them permission to see the Prime Minister of Canada to retrieve Ike. Immediately, the guard also breaks down and relents.
    • In "Good Times with Weapons", Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny use a sob story, complete with Crocodile Tears, to convince a vendor at the county fair to sell them their ninja weapons. This isn't the first time.
  • Everybody Did It: In the end of "Lice Capades", every single student in the class had lice.
  • "Everybody Helps Out" Denouement: One episode ends with the town working on gardens and picking up litter to ensure a better future before deciding their previous solution, having gay sex in a big pile, was less gay, and they go back to that.
  • "Everybody Laughs" Ending:
    • In the "Imaginationland" trilogy, there is a hilarious subplot where Kyle loses a bet against Cartman and is ordered (by Cartman and by the Supreme Court) to suck his balls. The first time, he is sent off by the FBI right at the front door of Cartman's house. The second time, Cartman wastes WAY too much time preparing and runs out of time. The THIRD time, the court order is cancelled by law. FINALLY, at the end of the episode, Cartman uses the power of Imaginationland to create a scene of Kyle sucking Cartman's balls in front of a large crowd.
    • Also happens at the end of "Chickenpox" where everyone laughs over the kids giving their parents herpes to get back at them for giving them chickenpox. Kenny dies in the middle of the laughing, but the others keep at it.
  • Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Played with by Butters. He refers to all of his teachers as "Teacher" instead of "Mr./Miss/Ms./Mrs. [last name]", and does the same ("Preacher") with pastors in his church.
  • Everyone Has Standards: In an episode dealing with the pedophile Catholic Priests, a meeting shows them trying to pay superficial regret while still trying to keep doing what they were doing. The response from Father Maxi was that they are tolerant of a lot of lifestyles and behaviors, but emphatically draw the line at raping kids, there is no grey area here.
  • Everyone Is Bi: Every guy's masturbated with another guy before. But not in a hot tub at a party.
  • Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory: "The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs" deals with this In-Universe. After being excited to read The Catcher in the Rye because it was previously banned, the boys are disappointed that it turns out to be nothing but a "whiny teen talking about how lame he is" with a few curse words here and there. They then decide to deliberately create a book that deserves to be banned (Title Drop). Despite it being so disgusting that nobody can read a single sentence or even recall a single event from the book without vomiting violently, it is nonetheless hailed as the greatest piece of literature ever written due to everyone seeing symbolism that isn't really there.
  • Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: In "Toilet Paper", Cartman simply cannot wrap his mind around why Stan and Kyle feel bad that Butters is going to be punished for something they did.
    "Is it because you think you'll get in trouble later?"
  • Evil Sounds Raspy:
    • Parodied with one of Satan's minions relaying instructions to a corrupt politician. As the demon tells the politician what to say, he has to remind him not to repeat his raspy wheezes.
    • The anti-smoking lobbyists who work for Rob Reiner.
  • Evil Stole My Faith:
    • "Cartmanland" sees Cartman inheriting $1 million and buying his own private theme park. Kyle is dumbfounded at the idea that God would reward such a rotten person, and ends up getting a hemorrhoid. As things get better for Cartman, Kyle's condition worsens and he renounces his faith. At the point where Kyle is on the verge of death (yes, from a hemorrhoid), Stan brings him to the theme park in time to see Cartman's dream destroyed by his own greed, at which point Kyle makes a miraculous recovery.
    Kyle (looking up, smiling): You are up there!
    • The episode also has Kyle lampshade the story of Job by asking how the God who would punish a decent man just to prove a point to Satan could possibly be considered benevolent. It doesn't help that his parents forgot the last part of the story where God rewards Job, and gives him more than what Job had before he lost everything.
  • Evil Twin: Played with in "Spookyfish".
  • Evil Versus Evil: Cartman vs. Saddam Hussein. Cartman vs. Scott Tenorman. Cartman vs. Osama bin Laden. The Coon vs. Professor Chaos. Celebrities vs. ginger kids in "200/201" (and they eventually team up).
  • Evolving Credits:
    • The first four seasons used the same opening, but with more characters, objects, and events added each season.
    • Later openings consist of clips from various episodes, but the group shot at the end is still updated every season.
    • The "clips" openings were dropped in Season 17 and were replaced with a school bus ride through South Park, similar to the intro from the first three seasons.
    • And every few seasons until Season 10, Kenny's muffled line in the song changes.
  • Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Some of the news reporters are people like a "Hispanic Man with Some Gravy Stains on his Lapel", or a "Midget Wearing Bikini".
    • There was also a reporter who was introduced by the anchor as "a normal-looking guy with a funny name" (his name is shown as "Creamy Goodness").
    • "Kenny Dies".
    • In "Bass to Mouth", when Mackey says that they'll have to throw Cartman under the bus, and another teacher asks how they'll do that, Mackey says "we get a bus... and we throw Eric Cartman under it." And then they proceed to do just that.
  • Exact Words:
    • Again in "Bass to Mouth", Cartman is recruited by the South Park Elementary faculty to prevent Pete Melman, a fellow student, from being mocked after crapping his pants. His response is slip another student's laxatives to make her crap herself even worse than Pete did. As Cartman says, they told him to prevent Pete from being mocked.
    • This is pretty much the plot of "Free Hat". The boys want to fill seats at a rally so they offer a 'free hat', the people who show up think it's a rally to free a man named "Hat" from prison.
  • Excuse Question: The town once held a quiz show filled with these for the benefit of Jakovasaurs in an attempt to get rid of them. Unfortunately, they didn't get the correct answers, and Officer Barbrady forgot that he was supposed to be throwing the competition.
  • Exiled to the Couch: It's rather heavily implied in "Major Boobage" that Sheila did this to Gerald following The Reveal that he's just as addicted to cat piss as Kenny is. She's... angry, to say the least.
    Gerald: I would like to address a personal matter. I have let myself down, and I would first like to apologize to my lovely wife...
  • Expy: All of the children at the handicapped summer camp in "Crippled Summer", save for Jimmy and Timmy, are expies of classic Looney Tunes and Tex Avery characters.
    • Funnybot is a large Dalek, with elements of other sci-fi robots thrown in.
  • Exposed to the Elements: Inverted in the early seasons where the kids are wearing winter outfits even in such places like Sub-Sahara Africa, the Tropical Rainforest, and Afghanistan. It was even lampshaded upon when one member of the Make-A-Wish foundation asked Kenny if it was hot under his parka.
  • Extreme Doormat:
    • Liane Cartman, although thanks to Characterization Marches On, she becomes more of a capable parent.
    • Butters in his pre-breakout days. Though he sometimes still qualifies when he's not playing the Woobie or Badass Adorable.
    • Also Chris in the "Do the Handicapped Go to Hell? + Probably" two-parter episode.
  • The Extremist Was Right: Cartman in "Die Hippie, Die".
  • Eye Scream:

    F 
  • The Faceless:
    • Kenny, though his face has been seen at least six times: In The Movie, "Super Best Friends", "Good Times with Weapons". "The Jeffersons", "The Losing Edge", and "Major Boobage". This, of course, is combined with You All Look Familiar: If you know he has blonde hair, there's no mystery.
    • Subverted in "Rise of Mysterion", when Mysterion is unmasked. Of course every kid in town with the exception of Cartman and Token look exactly the same without a distinguishing item such as a poofball hat or visible hair, so you don't know it is Kenny until a later episode. The police purposely are vague, with comments such as "take the kid to jail".
  • Faceplanting into Food: The deathly version in "The List". Bebe and Wendy get into a physical brawl, resulting in Bebe's gun being set off. The bullet flies into the window of the McCormick household and shoots Kenny in the back of the head, causing him to faceplant into his cereal bowl.
  • Failed a Spot Check: Played for laughs. Among Chef's parents' misadventures dealing with the Loch Ness monster, we get this gem:
    Chef's Father: Well it was about that time that I noticed this Girl Scout was about eight stories tall and was a crustacean from the Paleozoic era.
  • Failed Future Forecast: As seen above in "Aborted Arc" the Season 20 "Member Berries" plot hinged entirely on Hillary Clinton winning the Electoral College in the 2016 election. She did not. With the election being won by Trump, the Member Berries plot is wrapped up in the most minimal way possible and dropped right afterwards.
  • Failure Gambit: In "Damien", Satan fights Jesus, and intentionally takes a dive after the people of the town have all bet on his victory due to his overwhelming physical advantage. He then reveals that he made a fortune by being the one and only person to bet on Jesus winning, all according to plan.
  • Faint in Shock:
    • Stan, in the episode "The Cissy" when his father Randy tells him that he is Lorde and proves to him that he's not making it up.
    • In "It's a Jersey Thing", Ike screams and passes out when he sees Kyle donning the Jersey look.
  • Faked Food Contaminant: Discussed in "A Ladder to Heaven" when Cartman mocks Kyle by claiming the Jewish idea of heaven is "getting five dollars off your matzo ball soup at Barney's Beanery by lying about a hair in it."
  • Fake-Out Opening: The opening scene in "Spookyfish" appears to set up an Alien Invasion story... only for the alien in question to get run over by the school bus. The rest of the episode revolves around Evil Twins and a Mirror Universe.
  • Fake Period Excuse:
    • In "Summer Sucks", the Mayor's aides tell a media crowd that she can't address them in person because she's sick. The journalists don't buy it, so an aide blurts out that she's having her period. The press immediately falls silent.
    • In "Are You There God? It's Me, Jesus", Cartman and Kenny have their first "periods" (an infection causing anal bleeding) and form their own club. Kyle doesn't want to be left out so he pretends he's had his too.
  • False Prophet: In the "Probably" episode, it turns out Cartman only started the church to con the other kids out of their money and make ten million dollars.
  • Fan Disservice: Among others, Ms. Choksondik's enormous, sagging breasts and the sex scene between her and Mr. Mackey, as well as Ms. Garrison's "boob job".
  • Fan of the Underdog: Pip, Butters and Dougie are all "Melvins" prone to bullying at school, and so often act as their only friends. Stan and Kyle occasionally Throw the Dog a Bone as well (so long as no one else is around).
  • Fantasy Character Classes: The five basic classes in the South Park RPG are Fighter, Mage, Thief, Cleric... and Jew.
  • Fantastic Racism: When Stan complains about the time traveling immigrant "Goobacks" taking away all the present day people's jobs, his parents accuse him of being "an ignorant timecist".
  • Farts on Fire:
  • Fat Camp: Cartman is sent to one in "Fat Camp". He appears to have actually come back having lost weight, but it was really another kid he paid to show up.
  • Feedback Rule:
  • The Fellowship Has Ended: The Vaccination Special implies that Stan, Kyle, and Cartman aren't friends anymore.
  • Felony Misdemeanor: The boys get this a lot from their parents.
  • Female Groin Invincibility: In the "The List" episode, Butters kicks Nelly in the crotch twice, but she doesn't react to the kicks other than angrily saying "Ow!" and calling him an asshole.
  • Fictional Constellations: In "Roger Ebert Should Lay Off the Fatty Foods", the constellations in Dr. Adams' planetarium include "The Big Dipper", "Taurus, the Bull", "Roger Ebert", and "The Crusades", each composed of less stars than the last, but with more and more complex drawings superimposed over them. "The Crusades" is only two stars.
  • Field Trip to the Past: Parodied in "I'm a Little Bit Country" where Cartman's refusal to study for a history exam like Stan, Kyle and Kenny leads him to intentionally attempt this based on his knowledge of it by harming himself in various ways to render himself unconscious and induce a flashback. His final plan involves electrocuting himself in a tub with a TiVo that he recorded to capacity with History Channel programs. And it actually works.
  • Fighting from the Inside: Randy does this between sarcastic statements in "Sarcastaball" when attempting to break through his sarcasm addiction's hold on him:
    "(teary-eyed) Help me, Sharon."
  • Find the Cure!: "Tonsil Trouble" has Cartman and Kyle find the cure for AIDS and, with help from Magic Johnson, they discover ground up dollar bills injected in the bloodstream can cure AIDS completely.
  • Fire and Brimstone Hell: Played straight sometimes, but more often subverted. Sure, there's plenty of flame, but as often as not it seems to be a pleasant and fun place, and just about everyone winds up there regardless of their goodness or badness (heaven exists, but the entry requirements are so high that there are far fewer souls around).
  • First Period Panic: Mocked. There's an intestinal ailment going around that makes people bleed out of their ass. But the boys don't know about it and think that when Cartman (and later Kenny) are bleeding that means that they have their periods. It doesn't help that an adult they ask about it says that when it happens you bleed - "You know, down there." Kenny ends up dead from Toxic Shock Syndrome, having shoved a tampon up his ass.
  • First World Problems: Later seasons have gotten absolutely merciless with spoofing various First World Problems by treating them all as Serious Business within the story, such as everyone going into a depression without at least one computer or iPad with Wifi, movies not living up to expectations, and "safe space" management on social media getting outsourced to children in developing countries.
  • Flat-Earth Atheist: In the world of South Park, All Myths Are True. [note] except Scientology [/note] Jesus Christ hosts a public access show, Satan has risen to the surface multiple times, and God himself shows up for a verified, documented press conference. Despite all of this, atheists and agnostics still deny or doubt they exist. On the flip side, Christians still think their religion is the only true one, despite the existence of the Super Best Friends.
  • Flatline: Present in some episodes where characters happen to be in hospital for various reasons.
  • Flat "What":
    • Cartman gives one in "T.M.I." when he finds out that the school actually didn't post the boys' penis sizes.
    • Cartman also does it in "Crack Baby Athletic Association" when Kyle proposes using 30% of the company's profits to build an orphanage for the crack babies.
    • Stan is quite prone to these when something immensely strange, stupid or unexpected happens. Sometimes he upgrades it to a deadpan "Dude, what the fuck?".
  • Flat "Yes": After Cartman explains to his mother that Butters, confused about his sexual identy, gave him a hickey and threw up before leaping out the window earns this:
    Liane: Oh, dear...
    Cartman: Yes.
  • Flaw Exploitation: Cartman's revenge plot against Scott Tenorman relies heavily on this. If Stan and Kyle didn't rat him out to Scott, or Scott himself had reacted differently, the whole plan could have fallen apart.
  • Flexibility Equals Sex Ability: In "Quintuplets 2000," Marvin Marsh shares a room with the titular quintuplets' grandma. When she tells him that she used to be a contortionist, Marvin asks if she remembers any of her moves. He then has sex with her where she lifts her leg above her head, then wraps her limbs all around his body.
  • Fluffy Cloud Heaven: Limited only to Mormons. It's extremely dull as a result.
  • Food as Bribe: The kids lure people to La RĆ©sistance with punch and pie.
  • Food Porn: Taken to disturbingly literal territory with Randy's short-lived obsession with Food Network in "CrĆØme Fraiche".
  • Fooled by the Sound:
  • Foreshadowing: In South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, when Kenny wants to go see the Terrance and Philip movie instead of going to church, his mom says, "Well, fine, you go ahead and miss church. And then, when you die and go to hell, you can answer to Satan!"
  • For Inconvenience, Press "1": "Pinkeye" has this in the middle of a Zombie Apocalypse.
  • Forgettable Character: In "The Last of the Meheecans", the boys roleplay being Border Control, and eventually the Mexican side claim victory. It takes a long while until Cartman realizes they forgot about Butters (and even then only because he can now still win as the Texan side). As the others wonder how this happened, Craig Lampshades that Butters is a rather easy to forget person.
  • Formally-Named Pet: Cartman's cat, Mr. Kitty.
  • Formerly Fit: There's an episode in which Terrance and Phillip briefly end their collaboration after the former accuses the latter of doing none of the work. It seems to have hit Terrance really hard, as he continues to do a one-man act after becoming morbidly obese.
  • Formula-Breaking Episode: Many, many times, including:
    • "Not Without My Anus", which was a complete Terrance and Phillip half-hour TV special. It might have been more popular if it hadn't been an April Fools joke airing on the night when viewers were expecting to see the second part of a Cliffhanger.
    • "Butters' Very Own Episode", devoted to side character Leopold "Butters" Stotch.
    • Several musical episodes.
    • "It Hits the Fan", which set out to break the world record for the number of inclusions of the word "shit" (162 in total).
    • "Good Times with Weapons", an Affectionate Parody of Shōnen fighting anime that spent half its running time as anime.
    • "Pip", which was devoted entirely to spoofing the Charles Dickens story Great Expectations.
    • "Make Love, Not Warcraft", half of which was portrayed in World of Warcraft.
    • The third act of "I Should Have Never Gone Ziplining" which is done completely in live action with adult actors etc.
    • One of the most notable is probably The Movie, which is both deliberately cruder than the TV series (it has an anti-censorship theme, as well as an "R" rating), and a full-fledged musical.
  • Formula for the Unformulable: In "Cash for Gold", Cartman writes an equation on a whiteboard. It looks roughly like the following (all numbers appear as subscripts; so does the last lowercase p):
    gcfs2 - puc2j2 + cb(sn)/d1Op = GOLD
    Mathematical genius: it's the Formula for Gold. "Guys with 'Cash for Gold' signs gets you people's unwanted crappy jewelry, which, when added to a cable-based shopping network, divided by demented old people, equals gold."
  • For the Evulz: Apparently the Mongolians' only motivation for repeatedly destroying sections of the Great City Wall of South Park in "Child Abduction Is Not Funny."
  • Four-Philosophy Ensemble: Originally with Stan as the Realist, Kyle as the Conflicted, Cartman as the Cynic, and Kenny as the Apathetic. (Butters also can be seen as the optimist when he's with the main group). The only exception is during the "You're Getting Old" two-parter, as Stan becomes more cynical (Cartman takes an extremely subtle Took a Level in Kindness, although this is temporary and gets completely averted at the end of "Ass Burgers"). Stan on the other hand, seems permanently more nihilistic as a result.
    • The original South Park elementary: Mr. Mackey (optimist), Chef (realist), Mr. Garrison (cynic), Principal Victoria (apathetic), and Ms. Choksondik (conflicted).
  • Four-Temperament Ensemble: The four main characters:
  • The members of Craig's Gang have this as well:
  • Fratbro: Musical theatre creators Stephen Sondheim, Stephen Schwartz, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Elton John are all portrayed as being beer-swilling bros in secret.
  • The Freelance Shame Squad:
    • When Stan shows up to the class Halloween party dressed up as Raggedy Andy (and Wendy doesn't go through with dressing as Raggedy Ann), Mr. Garrison actually says "Let's all laugh and point at Stan, everyone", and they do.
    • When Randy gets a DUI in "Bloody Mary", Mr. Garrison gives a lecture on drunk driving, in which he brings Randy into the classroom to give a half-hearted apology speech. Mr. Garrison then berates him quite thoroughly while he addresses the class as Stan hides his face in agonized embarrassment.
  • The Freakshow: In one episode, the city attempts to ban "Freak Shows", prompting the performers to protest about the town preventing them from making a living.
  • Free-Range Children: Very possibly the most overt use of this trope in the history of Western media.
  • Freeze-Frame Bonus: In "The End of Serialization As We Know It", Sheila attempts to use Troll Trace to look at Gerald's internet history. Before her connection gets cut off you can see blurry text fly by very fast. Some of this is readable if you pause and includes mean comments he's made while trolling as well as his search history for things like breast cancer and fat ugly MILF porn.
  • Friendship Song: "Spookyfish" has the song "You Guys Are My Best Friends". Sung by "Evil" Cartman from a Mirror World. The song is about how they've always been friends through thick and thin. It has some Irony to it since the real Cartman would never say that.
  • The Friends Who Never Hang:
    • Kyle's relationships with Cartman or Stan are given a lot of focus, but his relationship with Kenny is hardly developed at all. Honestly, though, Kenny doesn't have too many plots tying him too closely with any of the other boys in the group.
    • Played With: Cartman and Kenny generally don't interact much, but in one surprisingly poignant episode, Cartman admits that since Stan and Kyle were best friends, he always considered Kenny his best friend. Another episode reveals that they had declared themselves "Best Friends Forever" years before, although Kenny claims that he did this out of pity because Cartman alienates everyone else.
    • Cartman and Stan don't have much of a dynamic, despite their different personalities. They have a storyline in "Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow", where Cartman enjoys hanging out with just Stan without "stupid Kyle" around, but they don't seem to do it much.
    • While there have at least been a few exceptions between the four boys, Kenny and Butters barely interacted at all for many years. This amusingly came into play in the episode "Going Native", where it is revealed Kenny is actually Butters' favorite friend and the two finally share an entire plot together.
  • Friendship Denial:
    • This dialogue in "Canada on Strike"
      Stephen Abootman: "Look, guy. We have to stay strong. If you don't stand with your fellow Canadians, then you are a rat!"
      Terrance: Don't call me a rat, buddy.
      Stephen Abootman: I'm not your buddy, friend.
      Phillip: He's not your friend, guy.
      Stephen Abootman: I'm not your guy, buddy.
      Terrance: He's not your buddy, friend.
      Stephen Abootman: I'm not your friend, guy.
    • This also happens in "The Death of Eric Cartman" where the other boys deny Cartman as their friend and that they will start ignoring him from this point on:
      Token: Ignoring him? How come?
      Kyle: Because he's a fat, racist, self-centered, intolerant, manipulating sociopath.
      Beat
      Token: Oh yeah.
  • From Bad to Worse: BP first drills into the ocean and creates another Oil spill. Then they dig again and release monsters from another dimension. They dig into the moon now, can't get worse right? They release Cthulhu.
  • From the Mouths of Babes: Pretty much the entire series. The kids are usually a lot more worldly than one would expect from their age, but other times they are quite innocent.
  • Fully Automatic Clip Show: In "Casa Bonita", when Cartman is not invited to Kyle's birthday party, the latter mentions the times Cartman teased him for being Jewish.
  • Full-Circle Revolution: A major theme of South Park's commentary on capitalism, despite their critique in favor of them, is those small businesses aren't that different from MegaCorp as they are willing to make unethical decisions and subjugate competition, more so once they become a dominant market. This can be seen with Randy's Tegridy Farm in Season 22 and 23 where he established a massive marijuana plantation after liquidating neighboring marijuana farms.
  • Funny Background Event: In the new (at the time of this post) opening theme, if one looks closely at the very opening, one will see a gravestone with Kenny's name on it.
  • Funny Robot: Invoked with "Funnybot", a robot designed by the Germans to prove that they are funny. Of course, much of its humor comes from the fact that everyone finds its middling to poor jokes (punctuated by the punchline of "Awkward!") to be the funniest thing in the world. It ends up trying to destroy the world as it believes that it would be the ultimate joke.
  • Fur and Loathing: An example of the sheer extent the show takes this trope is near the end of "Douche and Turd" when PETA throws blood on PDiddy's jacket, causing him to murder everyone in the organization.

    G 
  • Gambit Pileup: In 'Cat Orgy', Shelly is babysitting Cartman and invites her boyfriend over. This leads to Cartman taking a picture of them making out with the intent to show it to his mother and bust them, and eventually this leads to aā€”likely on the flyā€”pileup between the two.
    [Cartman lets Shelly into his locked room]
    Shelly: Haha! That was a turd trick! Your mom isn't really dead!
    Cartman: Aha! I knew it was a turd trick, and I opened the door because Mr. Kitty is on his way right now to my mom's party with the picture!
    Shelly: Aha! I knew you sent the cat, and that's why I went outside and got him [holds up the picture]
    Cartman: Aha! I saw you get the picture back from Mr. Kitty and that's why I wrote a letter to the press, to be opened in case of my demise. Should anything happen to me that letter will go out, and you will never find it
    Shelly: [picks up the letter] You mean this one?
    Cartman: ... Okay, let's see now... Aha! Umm... god damn it!
  • The Game Plays You: The Oculus Rift.
  • Game Show Appearance: "With Apologies to Jesse Jackson" opens with Stan's dad as a Wheel of Fortune contestant. It doesn't end well.
  • Gangland Drive-By: When Jimmy and Timmy want to join the Crips, they accidentally cause the death of a group of Bloods when a tanker truck crashes into their building. The Bloods retaliate by performing a hit and run on Jimmy's house. The front porch and living room are sprayed with bullets, but no casualties as his parents had just gone out.
  • Garage Band:
    • The Lords of the Underworld. They only become popular when they become Timmy and the Lords of the Underworld.
    • The boys' band Moop in "Christian Rock Hard". Randy's reaction sums their sound up pretty well.
      Randy: Stan, are you okay?
      Stan: Yeah, dad. We're just rehearsing our band.
      Randy: Oh, I thought a group of Vietnamese people were having their intestines pulled out through their mouths.
  • Gayngst: Big Gay Al usually inverts this (in fact, one of his catchphrases is "I'm super; thanks for asking!"), but played straightnote  in "Cripple Fight" when he suffers through a mild period of depression after being fired from his job as a Boy Scout leader for being a homosexual.
  • The Generation Gap: The ability of the adults to be unearthly retarded and allow the children to be Wise Beyond Their Years is due to that gap, which breaks the possibility of the two parties to share the same wave-length; the show puts this one into an extreme as it exhibits the children's point of view; essentially: Because the show is about the children, and the children cannot comprehend how adults behave; they perceive them to be retarded.
    • Actual example from the show would be "You're Getting Old"; The parents perceive the children's music to literally be shit, while the children (and Randy) hear literal bowel movements during the adult's music.
  • "Gender-Normative Parent" Plot: Inverted with Bridon in "Elementary School Musical". He wants to play basketball, but his father forces him to sing.
  • Genius Ditz:
    • Randy Marsh is a brilliant scientist, but otherwise a complete idiot.
    • Cartman can come up with crazy villainous schemes and speak Spanish and German fluently, yet is otherwise dimwitted and clueless.
  • Genre Shift:
    • South Park initially started out as a simple surrealist comedy, but the creators later shifted it to a commentary of the real world, from everything such as politics to celebrities. The creators intentionally wrote Mr. Hat out of the show as a symbol of the transition.
    • In-Universe: in "Sexual Healing", the video game franchise Tiger Woods PGA Tour turned into a pastiche of fighting games based on Woods' marital infidelity. Cartman, Stan, and Kenny loved the game. Once Woods got over his sexual addiction at the end of the episode, the next PGA Tour game went back to the status quo, upsetting Cartman and Stan (Kenny, meanwhile, had died. Again).
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff: In-Universe, Terrance and Phillip—a Canadian show—is popular with American kids.
  • Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!: Said word-for-word to Butters in "Two Guys Naked in a Hot Tub".
  • Getting Crap Past the Radar
    • In the original airing of the episode "Ike's Wee Wee", Mr. Mackey's "I don't need to take your right-wing authoritative bullshit!" was said unbleeped. It was caught immediately and bleeped on all subsequent reruns and even the Season 2 DVD release, only being restored in the HD remaster.
    • As Matt and Trey confirmed in the commentary, "Something You Can Do With Your Finger" got away with using the word "cunt" uncensored in "Wendy's Cussing Song" despite being one of the few profane words considered too extreme to go unbleeped at the time. It helps that the song is based off subverting Curse Cut Short so it doesn't seem like she said "cunt" on paper. (The other swears she says in the song were already frequently said uncensored.)
    Balzac was a writer.
    He lived with Allen Funt.
    Mrs. Roberts didn't like him,
    but that's 'cause she's a-
    Contaminated water,
    can really make you sick...
  • Getting High on Their Own Supply: "Medicinal Fried Chicken" treats KFC as a G-Rated Drug as fast food became illegal in low-income areas in Colorado at the same time that medicinal marijuana becomes legal. Cartman is hopelessly addicted to KFC and starts working as muscle for a dealer, then ends up taking over and orders more product from the Colonel than he can possibly sell to feed his addiction. Resulting in a shoot-out between his grade school gang, the Colonel's thugs, and the FBI.
  • Gilligan Cut:
    • "Asspen" opens with all the boys' parents having drinks together, and the Stotches saying how glad they are that Butters finally seems to have finally made some close friends. Cut to the kids watching TV, and Cartman urinating on Butters while he's asleep.
    • In "Woodland Critter Christmas", Stan defies this by arguing with the narrator. It happens anyway.
    • In "Butt Out", the boys are forced to sit through a Totally Radical assembly by an anti-smoking motivational group. The group ends their show by saying that if the kids don't smoke, they can grow up to be just like them. The next shot is of the boys smoking behind the school.
    • In "Tsst", after Cartman runs away from home and can't find a house to stay in, he's left out on the streets. He says that he believes that his mother will crack soon and that he can outlast her. Cut to him returning home where Liane is working on art.
    • From "T.M.I.", Principal Victoria tells Cartman that he gets angry about things he doesn't think about and causes bad things to happen, and this time did it to himself.
    Cartman: Oh god, why couldn't I have just taken a minute to think about it?
    Principal Victoria: Because you have an anger problem, Eric!
    Cartman: FUCK YOU! No I don't!
    [cut to Cartman and his mother in the psychiatrist's office]
  • Girliness Upgrade: In the early seasons, Wendy was portrayed as very tomboyish, brave, daring, and intelligent, as well as kind and sweet. However, after her maturing in Season 8, she started to start hanging out with the other girls more, switched her hairstyle to a more feminine one, seemed to leave her previously very tomboyish interests behind, and acted a lot more elegant and refined.
  • A God Am I:
    • In the "Cartoon Wars" episodes, Cartman thinks he's managed to pull Family Guy off the air:
    "I did it! I...am...GOD!"
    • He also proclaims "I am God of the sea people" but is later told that The Simpsons already did it and that was a Shout-Out to The Twilight Zone (1959).
    • In "Cartman's Incredible Gift", the police comes to the serial killer's house, who refers to himself as God. The not-too-bright officers take this to be his real name.
  • The Gods Must Be Lazy: In The Movie, Satan and Saddam Hussein rise up from hell and take over earth. Only the fact that Saddam is such a Jerkass and Satan is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold saved Earth from being plunged into 1,000 years of darkness, and yet God does not seem to be doing anything to stop him. It's especially jarring considering that Jesus and God are both recurring characters, and you can actually briefly see Jesus in the background of one of the shots in the movie (when the soldiers are marching in front of Kyle's house). Also, in "Mysterion Rises", God and Jesus don't seem to care that Cartman and the evil god Cthulhu are taking over the world.
  • Go Mad from the Revelation: Played for laughs. In "Tsst", a group of television nannies try to correct Cartman's bad behavior before realizing what he is and giving up. Supernanny is the last one to attempt it. Within three days she's confined to a psychiatric hospital where she spends most of her time eating her own excrement and sobbing uncontrollably while screaming "From Hell! It's from Hell!".
  • Godzilla Threshold: Randy's answer to the people of New Jersey taking over the country? Summon Al-Qaeda. Osama bin Laden realizes the danger New Jersey poses to the world and immediately rallies his people to action, and even gets a ceremony in his honor.
  • Going Home Again: In "Guitar Queer-O", Stan is unable to handle the wealth and fame he attains through playing Guitar Hero. He stops playing with Kyle on the advice of his manager, and eventually, the stress leads him to an addiction to Heroin Hero, until the end of the episode when he quits his contract, reunites with Kyle, and abandons his fame. Together, they finally manage to get a million points (but are less than thrilled with the reward).
  • Gondor Calls for Aid: In "It's a Jersey Thing", Randy on behalf of America, begs Al-Qaeda to help stop the spread of New Jersey. He argues that if it's not stopped, the Jersey natives will destroy Al-Qaeda eventually, too.
  • Gonk:
  • Good Angel, Bad Angel: Spoofed in "Ike's Wee-Wee" when Mr. Mackey contemplates drinking alcohol.
  • Good Girls Avoid Abortion: During the Stand and Deliver episode, one of the students is pregnant but refuses to have an abortion. Cartman convinces her otherwise (since it's "cheating").
    • In "Cartman's Mom Is Still a Dirty Slut", Liane wants to abort Cartman and slept with many politicians in order to allow abortions in the 40th trimester. It turns out, however, that she confused "abortion" with "adoption".
  • Good Is Not Nice: Kyle. Seeing some of the conflicts between him and Cartman out of context wouldn't make all that clear that Kyle's supposed to be the good guy.
    • In earlier episodes, Stan and Kyle were essentially lower scale Jerkasses that actually joined Cartman in bullying or manipulating others when they weren't the target (usually Butters, Pip or Kenny). It was only around Cartman that they looked moralistic (though admittedly they are far more toned down and sympathetic in later episodes).
  • Good Ol' Boy: Many locals, particularly the "I'm a Little Bit Country" guy.
  • Good Thing You Can Heal: In the "Coon & Friends" trilogy, it's revealed that Kenny coming Back from the Dead isn't just a gag, but an actual superpower. That he's had to use his power hundreds of times by the time he's turned ten is apparently a coincidence.
  • Goofy Print Underwear: In "Chef Goes Nanners", the KKK conclude their meeting by playing "Who's Got the Silliest Thing On Under Their Robe?" One of them is wearing heart-print boxers.
  • Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Usually, Butters. Aversions are notable, such as the end of "Christian Rock Hard, "Imaginationland" and "Breast Cancer Show Ever", as well as the entirety of "Butters' Bottom Bitch". "All About Mormons" contains a more subtle example where Butters refers to Gary, the new kid, as a peckerface, though quiet and in the background. He also tells the rest of the gang to "suck on [his] wiener" in "The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerBalls.
  • Goths Have It Hard:
    • Parodied. While the goth kids complain about the problems and drama that they suffer from, it's shown that they live comfortable lives. For instance, one episode had goth girl Henrietta claim her mother abuses her. However, the audience is shown that her mother is very nice and supportive to her.
    • Stan becomes goth in "Raisins" after he loses his girlfriend. Butters also suffers heartbreak in the same episode, but defies this trope when the goths try to recruit him telling the goths he'd rather appreciate that he was happy enough to be sad in the first place than embrace sadness as his entire identity. This is what convinces Stan to drop the goth identity.
    • When Henrietta becomes emo in "Goth Kids 3: Dawn of the Posers," she claims she's depressed and addicted to cutting herself, though we never actually see this and it's strongly implied she's just putting on a facade of misery just like when she was goth.
  • Got Volunteered: A Running Gag with Butters, usually suggested by Cartman and agreed by Stan and Kyle.
  • Gratuitous English: Spoofed in "Good Times with Weapons," when the anime theme song for the battle scenes has random lyrics in shoddy English like "Protect my balls" and "Let's fighting love!"
  • Gratuitous Japanese: "Over Logging", in which we find out that Randy Marsh has a fetish for Japanese girls puking in each other's mouths (among other perversions), said porn features "dialogue" along the lines of "kawaii deshou" and "watashi wa *barf* daisuki..." This gets even more amusing when you remember Trey Parker speaks fluent Japanese.
  • Gratuitous Rap:
    • From "Cat Orgy":
    Cartman: Well I'm a badass cowboy living in the cowboy days. A wiki wiki scratch yo yo jiggy jiggy. Me and Artemis Clyde Frog from the big metal spider. A wiki wiki what.
  • The Grays: The aliens who put satellites in people's butts in "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe" are this. This later turns out to be a plot point in a later episode they re-appear in. They are also seen in the background in nearly every episode.
    • When the series started, that part of Colorado ranked very high in UFO-related claims. Trey Parker claimed to have been abducted and probed in his first The Tonight Show interview.
  • Greedy Jew: Cartman uses the term "Covetous Jew".
    • Played with heavily. Gerald Broflovski is a lawyer and has invoked this from time to time, most notably in "Sexual Harrassment Panda". It's also implied that Kyle's family is a little better off than much of the town (but nowhere near the Blacks). Kyle himself usually averts this trope despite Cartman's (hands down the most greedy character) constant ripping on Jewish stereotypes.
  • Green Aesop:
    • Sometimes spoofed, but more often subverted in that the Aesops are anti-environmentalist (or, at the very least, anti-Green Aesop). Going as far as to flat-out say that rain forests are evil, and there's no evidence of global warming. This lasted until Season 10, at which point the anti-environmentalist jokes were noticably absent over the next decade before coming to a head in Season 22 with a two-parter conceding that the environmentalists were right to be concerned.
    • One of the creators of the show actually visited Costa Rica. During the commentary for "Rainforest Schmainforest", they said that Cartman's view of the place was about the reaction they'd had to their own personal experience with the place.
    • Played pretty straightā€”albeit in twisted South Park fashionā€”in "Lice Capades".
  • Groin Attack: Jimmy knees Timmy in the crotch in "Cripple Fight!"
  • Gross-Out Show: The series never shies away from showing vomit, piss, feces (including Talking Poo), blood, guts, and even semen. While the paper-cutout style let them get away with it more early on, the laxer censors and increased budget led to even more graphic scenes in later episodes, with characters blowing their brains into bits, covering themselves in jizz, and seeing the world covered in shit.
  • Grotesque Cute: The big-eyed cutout art style is cutesy at first glance, comparable to Peanuts, but then the kids start playing with crap, jerking off their dogs, gluing pubes to ther face, attempting to kill each other, and overall engaging in filthy, horrifying habits.
  • Growing Up Sucks:
    • "You're Getting Old" is a Birthday Episode for Stan, but turning ten has him realize that the things he liked as a kid now literally look and sound like shit. Aging is treated as synonymous with cynicism, and he can only cope with it by drinking.
    • "1%" has Cartman's friends mock his childishness, so he grows up in his own sadistic way by murdering his own stuffed animals, causing himself a ton of mental distress in the process.
  • Guest-Star Party Member: Non video-game example. Pretty much every other boy in class, especially Butters and Tweek, has been part of the main four's group.
  • Guilt-Induced Nightmare: In "Toilet Paper", after TP'ing his teacher's house and getting away with it, Kyle suffers guilt-ridden nightmares about his teacher and her family crying over the vandalism. This makes him want to confess, despite his friends trying to keep quiet about the ordeal.
  • Gushing About Guest Stars:
    • It's rare for a celebrity to be play themselves, but when Robert Smith of The Cure appeared in Season 1's "Mecha-Streisand," the main boys (who are all younger than the band's demographic) all gushed about his music, with Kyle remarking that "Disintegration is the best album ever!" Even Jesus Christ himself refers to Smith as "our savior." Smith also turns into a kaiju and defeats the titular Humongous Mecha version of Barbra Streisand after both Leonard Maltin and Sidney Poiter (neither of whom are voiced by the real people) fail to do so.
    • "Wing" features the titular singer Wing, based on New Zealand singer Wing Han Tsang in a rare "proxy" example; Wing's only vocal performances are musical recordings of the real Wing's songs, and everybody in the episode adores her music, with the main boys becoming her talent agents and Sylvester Stallone wanting her to sing at his son's wedding. Parker and Stone really are fans of Wing's singing and listened to it to relieve frustration, so the episode is a love letter to her. Wing approved of the music and her cartoon likeness, and thanked them for the Colbert Bump her music got.

    H 
  • Half-Arc Season:
    • Season 6 had most of the episodes deal with Butters and Tweek as Kenny's replacements, and later Cartman being possessed by Kenny's spirit.
    • While they have different plots, most of the "non-issue" episodes in Season 4 tended to revolve around Cartman's various attempts at getting $10 million. In Season 12, it's the boys' gradual discovery of their unpopularity.
  • Handicapped Badass: Timmy and Jimmy. In "Cripple Fight!", they manage to beat each other up despite being wheelchair and crutch-bound. Jimmy can out-limp street thugs and reach between speeding cars, and Timmy is perfectly capable of... well, doing whatever it's funny for a mentally disabled kid in a motorized wheelchair to do.
  • Hanging Around: At the end of "Safe Space", the town kills Reality by hanging him from the gallows.
  • Hanlon's Razor: In "Mystery of the Urinal Deuce", Stan and Kyle go hunting for information when they find out that the government is responsible for both 9/11 and the fact that there was poop in a urinal. The truth in the end is that the government had neither to do with either one, and in an effort to make themselves look intimidating, they lied and took responsibility for the 9/11 attacks and other conspiracies in order to hide the fact that they're really bad at their jobs.
  • Happily Ever After: Subverted in some episodes:
    • "Pip":
      "And they all lived Happily Ever After, except for Pocket who died of hepatitis B."
    • "Woodland Critter Christmas":
      "And they all lived Happily Ever After, except for Kyle who died of AIDS two weeks later." ("Goddamnit, Cartman!")
  • Hard-Work Montage: The end of "Goobacks" being one example.
  • Harmless Villain: Butters' "Professor Chaos" alter-ego.
  • Hate Crimes Are a Special Kind of Evil: Eric Cartman has been all over this trope. He's been responsible for two attempts at genocide, once against Jews after viewing The Passion of the Christ, and once against "Non-Gingers" when Kyle and Stan, in an effort to teach him a lesson, used makeup to make him think he was "Ginger". When they reveal this to him prior to him attempting to execute them, he fakes a moral epiphany and calls off the genocide. Cartman's hate crimes may be Played for Laughs, but no-one in the audience would believe he is redeemable.
  • Hates Rich People: In the episode "Here Comes the Neighborhood" an influx of rich people suddenly move into the town much to residents' chagrin, which prompts them to begin discriminating against the wealthy in a variety of ways. These include forcing them to sit in the front of the bus where the first-class seats are, prohibiting them service in the working class bars, calling them slurs like "richer" and "cash chucker," and burning big lower-case Ts on their lawns (for "Time to leave"). The fact that all of these behaviors resemble racist practices against black people in the past and all the rich people are coincidentally black never enters anyone's head.
  • Hate Sink:
    • Sergeant Harrison Yates is one of the most unlikable characters of the show. Comedic moments aside, he's a stupid, bigoted, inept, unpleasant Dirty Cop who abuses minorities and seems to have something against children, particularly Kyle. It doesn't help the fact that he is a critique of the police force and has essentially replaced Officer Barbrady as the main cop character. His status as this increases in the Season 22 episode "Time To Get Cereal" when he knowingly arrests the boys for the school shootings, despite glaring evidence that they are innocent (as well as the "school shootings" within said episodes not really being shootings, or even taking place at school).
      • He reaches a new level in "The Pandemic Special". While filling in as teachers for South Park Elementary School, he and the other police officers abuse the children under their care, shoot Token for no reason and then cover it up by claiming he was infected with COVID-19, forcing the rest of the kids into quarantine, and when they break out, Yates and the other cops take advantage of the subsequent chaos to get refunded and use their newly-gained munition to go on a child-killing spree under the pretenses of restoring order.
    • Butters' parents are hated because they always ground him for no good reason, occasionally beat him, tried to sell him to Paris Hilton, and seem to punish him just for existing. The one time Butters goes berserk and punches his father in the groin is a cathartic moment for many fans.
      • If you think Butters' parents are hateful, meet Grandma Stotch from "Butterballs". She has no characterization outside of being a bully of a grandmother who torments Butters (both physically and mentally) for kicks. And unlike Butters' parents (who occasionally seem to care about Butters), she is an outright sadist with no redeeming qualities. Furthermore, the effects of her bullying are played very seriously for Butters, resembling a lot with Real Life bullying, and therefore, making her even more despicable.
    • The Super Adventure Club from The Return of Chef are card-carrying child molesters, but that's actually not played all that seriously; what truly cements them as this trope is their responsibility for the permanent death of a beloved pre-established character, which in turn is based on Reality Subtext regarding Isaac Hayes and Scientology.
    • The Whole Foods cashier from Safe Space. He is a bully who shames people into donating to hungry kids. Despite Randy explaining that he donates to charity a lot and doesn't have the money to donate every time he goes shopping, the cashier puts him though increasingly elaborate refusals options designed to humiliate anyone doing them. When Randy donates, the cashier still goes out of his way to humiliate him, loudly declaring that Randy only donated one dollar. Even when Randy brings Vin Diesel and Steven Seagal with him, the cashier just fat shames them and Randy has to claim that his charity will also be raising money for hamsters to go to collage just to get him to stop.
    • The Whites, particularly Robert. A Take That! to Trump supporters who support President Garrison and Randy despite their countless crimes and lambast everyone for not caring about their opinion, while at the same time ignoring the opinion of anyone who doesnā€™t agree with them and Wangsting about how nobody cares about the Whites. They also emotionally and physically abuse their adopted Mexican son Alejandro, treating him like a dog and not bothering to learn his language to understand him.
    • Strong Woman's ex-boyfriend "Heather Swanson", AKA Blade Jaggart. He's a garishly-dressed, roided-out Jerk Jock who declared himself transgender purely so he could compete in women's sports and get away with beating them up. If anyone tries to point this out, Heather accuses them of being transphobic and has them publicly vilified. Never mind that Heather made no attempt at getting a sex change before competing, which meant he had an unfair advantage over the other women (plus any genuine trans-women who had gone through months of hormone therapy before competing). When he's beaten by some 10-year-old girls at board games, Heather cries about how he was at a disadvantage due to being born a boy, showing that he's selective when it comes to his (fake) identiy.
    • The teenagers in "Help, My Teenager Hates Me!" are presented in a completely negative light in this episode, being obnoxious and childish to the Boys throughout the episode while possessing little to no redeeming qualities. It makes watching the Boys, their fathers, and Jimbo, team up and beat them in airsoft all the more satisfying.
  • Haunted House: Randy buys a Blockbuster Video which has no customers because everyone now watches movies online. It is haunted like the Overlook Hotel in The Shining. After Randy sees a ghost dressed in a 1980s aerobics outfit ask for Turner and Hooch and disappear:
    Randy: Oh I get it! Video stores are so old they have ghosts in them! Okay I get it! (pointing upwards) But you're wrong!
  • Haunted House Historian: A parody of Jud Crandall from Pet Sematary (1989).
  • Have a Gay Old Time: "The F Word" argues and advocates the notion that "fag" is no longer a derogatory term for homosexuals, but for loud, annoying douchebags, like Harley riders.
  • Headdesk:
    • In "Pinkeye", Stan, dressed as Raggedy Andy for Halloween, does this when he discovers Wendy actually dressed up as Chewbacca instead of Raggedy Ann.
    • In "Hooked on Monkey Fonics", Kyle falls in love with the Homeschooled Kid Rebecca, who is unfamiliar with the public school system. When he asks her to come to the dance, she says she might see him there. Kyle explains that he meant going to the dance with him, but Rebecca explains there is no need for that since her father will drive her there. Once she leaves the room, Kyle bangs his head against her chair.
  • Headless Horseman: One of the "evil" characters that resides in "Imaginationland".
  • Hear Me the Money: In "Super Fun Time", robbers stole both money and food from a Burger King. When one of them wants out, he is given his cut. He then flips through the sandwich to make sure that all of the toppings were there.
  • Heart Is an Awesome Power:
    • Parodied with Captain Hindsight, whose only superpower, besides flight, is to tell people what they should've done before an accident happened. This somehow counts as saving the day.
    • Mint-Berry Crunch uses his abilities to defeat Cthulhu.
  • Heavy Voice: When Cartman gains a lot of weight in "Weight Gain 4000", his voice gets deeper (and thicker). The same happens to all the boys in "Make Love, Not Warcraft".
  • Heelā€“Face Revolving Door: Cartman has gone from being one of the team to actually being the villain of the week and back again so many times over the years, he may as well be labeled the poster boy for this trope. Cartman will generally do whatever will benefit him at the moment, as every episode of him doing a seemingly kind favor or action always has some sort of hidden agenda or personal desire.
  • Heelā€“Face Turn: Charles Manson in "Merry Christmas Charlie Manson!" has one of these while learning the True Meaning of Christmas.
  • Hell Invades Heaven: In "Best Friends Forever", the legions of Hell are invading Heaven and Kenny (who died and went there) is called upon to stop them. This is also mentioned in The Movie.
  • Hell of a Heaven: Heaven is full of Mormons. At one point, this is used to punish Saddam Hussein.
  • Henshin Hero: Bradley Biggle plays this trope straight to become Mint-Berry Crunch. Complete with a henshin phrase, a costume influenced by Kamen Rider, and a Transformation Sequence which is heavily influenced by Sailor Moon.
  • Hermaphrodite: Liane Cartman is revealed to be one at the end of the "Cartman's Mom Is Still a Dirty Slut". Though recent events suggest this may have been a fabrication.
  • Heroic Sacrifice:
    • Kenny. [[They Killed Kenny Again A lot.] Justified as he knows he keeps coming back.
    • Polly Prissypants in "1%", who tells Cartman to shoot her so she can no longer feel guilt about "killing" Cartman's stuffed animals, and so Cartman can avoid blame for it. He does.
    • In "A Nightmare on Face Time", when Kyle's iPad is about to die before the final judging in the costume contest, Kyle is desperate for a charger so Stan can see their trophy, but Stan tells them not to worry about it and tells Kenny (in his Iron Man costume) to "stay gold" before the iPad dies.
  • Heterosexual Life-Partners:
    • Stan and Kyle, though both Randy and Cartman have questioned the 'heterosexual' part.
    • To a small degree, Kenny and Butters fit this trope also. Kenny is the nicest person to Butters out of the four boys.
  • He Who Fights Monsters:
    • Although it's never explicitly shown or mentioned, this trope has been very gradually wearing away at Kyle since the beginning of the series, owing to Cartman's constant verbal, emotional, and psychological abuse. As of now, Kyle has only reached Determinator status, but his obsession breaks through rather...darkly on occasion (eg. "Ginger Kids", "Fatbeard").
    • Abiding by some circumstances, Cartman himself. While often depicted as a sociopath and a Jerkass it is made clear the other boys enjoy picking on him whether he provokes it or not, this perhaps becomes most coherent in "Cartman's Silly Hate Crime 2000" where after Cartman's departure, Stan and Kyle label Clyde the new fat kid and pick on him excessively for no reason until he gradually gains the same obnoxious temperament as Cartman. Indeed a lot of Cartman's treatment may come off as rather cruel and sympathetic if not for the rather extreme manners of revenge he commits.
    • The plot of "Crack Baby Athletic Association" is heavily based on Kyle fulfilling this trope. In one scene where he attempts to justify Cartman's shady behavior to Stan, Stan repeatedly responds that it "sounds like something Cartman would say" as Kyle continues his monologue. Eventually, Kyle becomes enraged at Stan's comments and snaps back "I do not sound like Cartman, GODDAMNIT!", complete with a raspy voice and grimacing face. He quickly covers his mouth in embarrassment and the episode cuts to a commercial.
    • An interesting pattern is given in both characters' behavior as a result of their abuse, Kyle is tortured by Cartman and thus bullies fat people, Cartman is tortured by Kyle and thus is anti-Semitic.
  • Heroic BSoD: Kyle at the end of the Trauma Conga Line that is "Ginger Cow".
  • Hey, You!: Shelley hasn't called Stan by his given name since Season 1, generally preferring "Turd" or, on special occasions, "Stupid Turd".
  • Hidden Depths:
    • Ike is a conservative, intellectual, jewel thief, pirate, adopted, Canadian/American, Jew in Kindergarten and a knight in Canada. And if his late female teacher/lover is to be believed, a demon in the sack.
    • Another great example would undoubtedly have to be Cartman himself. In the early seasons, he is just a self-destructive idiot. However, in "Scott Tenorman Must Die", he turns out to be intelligent, ruthless, and determined enough to outwit everyone else and succeed in his crazy endeavors on occasion. From then on he seems to be pure evil, most obviously in the "Imaginationland" trilogy, where his entire reason for existence is to sexually humiliate Kyle. At first glance, he appears to be the same idiot comic relief that he has always been. However, on closer inspection, he proves to be worse than meets the eye in the sense of more being Machiavellian, treacherous, and sadistic than he lets on.
    • Support for the above can be found in "Chef Goes Nanners", where Wendy (ordinarily Stan's girlfriend) kisses Cartman for the express purpose of eliminating perceived underlying romantic feelings she might have had for him. After doing so, Wendy states that her feelings for Cartman have disappeared, glad that all of it is over with and resolved. Cartman sheepishly concurs, half-heartedly laughing. Wendy rejoins Stan, leaving Cartman alone. After a Beat or two, Cartman sadly sighs and walks away dejectedly, a strong hint of unrequited attraction to Wendy.
  • High-Dive Escape: Of the many attractions Cartman talks about in "Casa Bonita", the cliff diver waterfall becomes of particular significance. When he finally makes it to Casa Bonita, Sheila Broflovski reports him to the police after discovering that he had manipulated Kyle into bringing him by hiding Butters inside a bomb shelter. The police chase him throughout Casa Bonita as he hurriedly samples every attraction in his path, finally being cornered at the top of the cliff diver waterfall. You can probably guess what happens next.
  • High on Catnip: Parodied in "Cat Orgy". Kitty brings her tomcat friends in the house, dumps catnip on the floor, and one of the cats snorts it.
  • High-Tech Heaven: Everyone in town is obsessed with a new PSP game, which it turns out was invented by angels in heaven, to find someone capable of leading heaven's army against the forces of hell. Kenny is the first person to beat the top level, and commands the armies of heaven with a golden PSP.
  • Hilariously Abusive Childhood: Considering the fact that all the protagonists suffer from some form of child abuse, this trope follows naturally.
  • Hiss Before Fleeing: Butters in "The Ungroundable".
  • Historical Character's Fictional Relative: Hong Kong singer Wing is portrayed in the show as the wife of City Wok owner Tong Lu Kim.
  • Historical Villain Downgrade: There's an in-universe example in "Pinkeye", arguably a parody of this trope as well. Cartman dresses up in a Hitler costume for Halloween, so the principal shows him a classroom video about how Hitler was a bad person. Because it's made for 8-year-old American children, it only says that "Adolf Hitler was a very, very naughty man!" and merely shows him speaking to a bunch of parading soldiers, which Cartman can't understand because of the language barrier (but he salutes in response to the video). Based on that the children are supposed to learn An Aesop that dressing up as Hitler to school is not acceptable. Things like the Holocaust and other war crimes couldn't be shown of course, because it's directed towards children. Cartman finds Hitler very cool instead, and imagines being in his place.
  • History Repeats: "Pre-School" ends with the same exact events that were shown at the beginning of the episode: The boys from pre-school, with Trent Boyett, cause a fire that burns Ms. Claridge, but was the boys' idea, and Trent gets arrested while the boys face no punishment. At the climax, the boys cause an accident that sets Ms. Claridge on fire again and Trent is once again blamed and arrested.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard:
    • In "Cartman Sucks", Cartman decides to show an incriminating photo to the class before Kyle can to take the wind out of his sails, only to discover that Kyle didn't have it after all and that he simply misplaced it.
    • In "Crippled Summer", all of Nathan and Mimsy's plans to kill Jimmy backfire on them. #1: Mimsy plans to put a Black Mamba snake in Jimmy's canoe, but accidentally puts it in their canoe. #2: They try to redirect Jimmy's team into the land of the vicious Tardicaca Indians, but they end up on that path and Nathan gets struck. #3: They attempt to get Jimmy eaten by summoning a Tardicaca shark, but he blows the whistle on land, and was supposed to while underwater. Then, a shark comes out of the water and humps Nathan. #4 (and final): The boys plant half a pound of C4 into Jimmy's ukulele, which is set to go off during the ukulele solo of his song. He skips the solo because he doesn't remember it, and goes right to the second verse, then Mimsy tries to do it but a furious Nathan takes the ukulele. Then he starts performing the solo, but he ends up doing the B flat and the ukelele blows up on him, and the snake, Indians, and shark inexplicably return. Needless to say, those didn't go over well.
  • Hollywood Atlas: Mocked. The city of South Park is a send-up of the cliches and stereotypes about "flyover country".
  • Hollywood Tourette's: Played straight and deconstructed in "Le Petite Tourette".
  • Homoerotic Subtext:
    • Butters gives Cartman a hickey in "The Ungroundable". He was actually attempting to suck Cartman's blood after becoming a member of the Vamps, but Cartman casually assumes that Butters was just gay and attracted to him.
    • In "Going Native," when Butters rants about how Kenny's the only other student he trusts, Cartman responds with "You guys gonna make out, Kenny?" He later tells him to "go rescue Butters so he can lick your balls some more."
    • Randy Marsh (Stan's dad) and Gerald Broflovski (Kyle's dad) masturbate together in a hot tub in the titular episode "Two Guys Naked in a Hot Tub". Afterwards, Randy is visibly uncomfortable while Gerald is especially clingy and wants to talk about it. Many other men, including Jimbo and Ned, later admit that they did the same thing and Jimbo goes on to say that "everyone is a little gay".
    • No Yay Cartman and "Mr. Jefferson" get uncomfortably close in "The Jeffersons," with "Jefferson" wanting the boys to sleep over (seemingly innocuously, due to him being a Manchild) and Cartman loving "Jefferson" because of his cool stuff. Stan even dreams about them almost making out!
    • Cartman once performed oral sex on Butters (hence the Pun-Based Title "Cartman Sucks") as a prank while he was passed out from cold medicine and took a picture of it. Cartman insists that Butters was the gay one in that situation. The other boys quickly corrected him. Then Cartman attempted to have Butters reciprocate the not-so-blatant blowjob to remedy the situation, getting poor Butters sent to conversion camp. Even the other photos he had taken had sexual undertones, such as rubbing his ass on Butters' face. Cartman's subplot deals with not wanting his photo to go public because it'd make him look gay.
    • "Super Fun Time" involves Butters spending an entire field trip escorting Cartman by hand. As this basically plays out like the two of them are on a date, that appropriately invoked very predictable responses from some people, which Cartman points out at the arcade. They later share an ice cream together, even using straws to sip from it. During this, Butters angrily reprimands someone for staring at them.
    • At the end of "Super Best Friends", Stan and Kyle announce their super best friendship, to which Cartman responds:
    Cartman: Ahhh, that's so sweet, you guys! You wanna get a room so you can make out for a while?
    • "Cartman Finds Love" has Cartman invoke this. Cartman becomes obsessed with the prospect of Token and Nicole- two black students -getting together. When Cartman attempts to set the two up, he finds out that Nicole has a crush on Kyle rather than Token, much to his dismay. His tactic on keeping Nicole with Token? To pretend he is in a gay relationship with Kyle. He later manages to convince Nichole to go back to Token by not only giving a long winded speech, but even serenading Kyle in front of an entire basketball game while a heart forms around them on a Jumbotron, leading Kyle to leave, humiliated.
  • Hope Spot: In Season 20, when they could not find a way to destroy the Member Berries, Mr. Garrison decides to make a final, passionate speech telling the voters to vote against him, and the exit polls indicate that Hillary Clinton will ultimately win the election. However, the Member Berries decide it's Time for Plan B, and let themselves be ingested by Mr. Garrison's running mate, Caitlyn Jenner. By the next episode, Mr. Garrison has been corrupted by Jenner and the Member Berries, and he has won the presidency over Clinton.
  • Horrible Judge of Character:
    • Cartman's mom seems to think he's a "little angel" to the point where she doesn't even question his story about why he has a picture of him with Butter's penis in his mouth in "Cartman Sucks". She also lets him get away with murder and always takes his side, with the exception of more recent episodes ("Tsst!", "Coon 2: Hindsight" and "HUMANCENTiPAD").
    • The members of the Mel Gibson fan club in "The Passion of the Jew", who are unaware that Cartman want to restart the Holocaust and instead think that he just wants to promote Christianity.
    • Played in "Free Hat" for laughs. The episode's titular character, Hat McCollough, is a serial murderer of twenty-three babies, but a protest group wants him freed from jail, claiming he killed the babies in self-defense. Or maybe it really was self-defense...
  • Hospital Visit Hesitation: In "Kenny Dies", Kenny is dying from a muscular disease and Stan is reluctant to head into the hospital to see him, fearful of the state he'll be in. Thanks to Chef, he eventually gets the courage to go in... only to find that he was too late and Kenny had already passed on. To twist the knife further, Kenny's final words were asking where Stan was.
  • Huge Holographic Head: Moses in "Jewbilee" and the Prime Minister in "Christmas in Canada".
  • Hugh Mann: "Bill Cosby" in "Trapper Keeper".
  • Humanoid Abomination: Wall-Mart in "Something Wall-Mart This Way Comes". Wall-Mart is portrayed as a complete Eldritch Abomination, being an abstract entity from beyond that exists as long as there is consumerism and poisons every town in which it manifests itself. Near the end of the episode however, it temporarily takes on human form so it can talk to Stan and Kyle.
  • Human Popsicle:
    • Larry in "Prehistoric Ice Man" has been frozen for 32 months before being thawed out.
    • The two-part story "Go God Go" and "Go God Go XII" is about Cartman having himself cryogenically frozen in the mountain snow to wait until the Nintendo Wii is released in a few weeks. Instead he ends up frozen until the year 2546, where he ends up in a "Buck Rogers" parody.
  • Humans Are Morons: This trope is very common. This is best emphasized by "Cancelled", which reveals that due to the sheer bulk of humanity being moronic that Earth serves as a giant Reality TV show shown for the rest of The Universe's silly amusement.
  • Humble Goal: Many episodes involve the kids wanting something relatively mundaneā€”say, getting the latest gaming system, or returning a rented video on timeā€”but continually getting waylaid by assorted weirdness. Lampshaded by Craig in "Pandemic".
  • Humiliation Conga:
    • The entirety of "AWESOM-O" is this to Cartman. Especially the ending.
    • Nathan suffers a particularly epic one in "Crippled Summer".
  • Hype Aversion: invoked Unlike the rest of the town, Kyle doesn't care about Cop Drama having a Precision S-Strike.
  • Hybrids Are a Crapshoot: The episode "Douche and Turd" has a PETA member conceiving a child with an ostrich. Said child is hideously malformed and begging for someone to kill it.
  • Hypocrite: Everyone at some point in this show. The adults are the biggest offenders, mostly in the earlier seasons.
  • Hypocritical Heartwarming: The only time Shelley shows any affection towards Stan is when it looks like someone else might have the privilege of beating him up.
  • Hypocritical Humor:
    • In the unaired pilot, the boys tell Pip to shut up after he shows sympathy for Cartman when he's sick, but then the school nurse confronts them that it's not appropriate to say "shut up" in school. After the boys leave the nurse's office, Pip states that he hopes Cartman is okay, and then the school nurse tells him to shut up.
    • Yet Pip himself shows hypocrisy in "Conjoined Fetus Lady", after Cartman mockingly refers to him as French:
      Pip: You shouldnā€™t make fun of foreigners. And besides, I hate French people!
    • In the Spanish dub of The Movie, since there isn't a word for "bitch" in Spanish, Cartman sings "la mama de Kyle is una puta" (Kyle's mom is a whore). And we all know about Cartman's mom...
    • From "My Future Self 'n Me":
      Sharon: Stan, what did I tell you about watching The Osbournes?
      Stan: Aw, come on, Mom.
      Sharon: It's going to make you retarded!
      Stan: It's just a show! It doesn't have any fucking effect on me, for fuck's sake!
    • In "Free Hat", the boys attempt to get George Lucas and Steven Spielberg to stop releasing updated and altered versions of their movies. Midway through the episode, there is an advertisement for a fictional updated re-release of "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe" that includes things such as CGI, Star Wars characters and other things Parker and Stone didn't have the budget for when they initially created the series.
    • In "I'm a Little Bit Country", Sheila is holding a picket sign reading "War Is Not My Voice" at the anti-war protest. Strange considering the fact that she once ''started one''. Maybe she's learned her lesson since then.
    • In "201", Jesus says that people get upset when Muhammad is made fun of because he's a religious figure, immediately followed by Buddha doing crack in front of kids.
    • In "It Hits the Fan", the kids in school are taught about the proper use of the word "shit". Kyle gets angry over everyone's obsession of the word and gets reprimanded by the teacher when he lets out a Precision F-Strike.
      Ms. Choksondik: Boys! Watch your language! Shit!
      *** The same episode at the end has the boys telling everyone that there's no need to be cursing all the time, despite the fact that they and everyone else swears all the time.
    • "Eat, Pray, Queef" has the men complain about the women queefing, yet when the women point out how a man farting is not that different, the men make a bunch of excuses.
    • In the episodes where the boys role-play as high fantasy characters ("The Return of the Fellowship of the King to the Two Towers", the "Black Friday" trilogy), they will come across a group of kids role-playing as characters from a different franchise (Harry Potter, Star Trek) that Cartman makes fun of.
      Harry Potter kid: We're playing Harry Potter!
      Cartman: [Beat] Ha! Fags!

    I 
  • I Am Big Boned: Cartman's response when people call him fat.
  • I Am Not My Father:
    • Stan in particular is pretty ashamed of his father most of the time and tries to avoid being like him, not that he always succeeds.
    • To a lesser extent, Kyle is like this, but usually with his mother. "It's a Jersey Thing."
  • I Ate WHAT?!:
    • Scott is shocked and appalled to find he ate his parents.
    • The "chocolate milk mix" Cartman drank. He is disgusted to find out it Kenny's cremated body.
    • The baby (technically, since it doesn't say anything) in the fake Mr. Hankey commercial.
    • Butters' "creamy goo" in "Sarcastaball". Randy doesn't realize what it is until after he eats it.
      Randy Marsh: This is cum.
  • I Banged Your Mom: Cartman's mom is known for this. By everyone in town. Including the women. Including Jesus. Including the time traveling robot.
  • Icarus Allusion: In "Cartman's Incredible Gift", Cartman tries to fly from his roof with cardboard wings and ends up in the hospital recovering from head trauma. The cops believe that he now has psychic abilities because they have heard of similar cases; they take his advice and dismiss Kyle's. Kyle concludes he has to be as stupid as Cartman to be acknowledged. Before he does so, Butters tells him not to fly too close to the sun.
    Stan: God damn it, Butters.
  • Idealized Sex: Subverted spectacularly when Mr. Mackey and Ms. Choksondik fall for each other, and when the same happens for Richard Dawkins and Ms. Garrison.
  • Idiot Ball: The adults always get tossed this.
    • Passed back and forth between Stan and Kyle in select episodes.
    • In "Red Man's Greed", the townspeople beat the Native Americans at their own game, and have enough money to resolve the plot of the episode. However, the rush of winning gets to the adults and bid their winnings for 12Ā¼ million dollars. Needless to say, they wind up back at square one, prolonging the episode.
  • I Don't Like the Sound of That Place: The Bleeding Eyes of Jesus Roman Catholic Church and Hell's Pass Hospital.
  • Ignorant About Fire: Twice in "Pre-School":
    • It is revealed that Kyle, Stan, Kenny and Cartman liked to pretend to be firemen when they were little. They convinced Trent Boyett to start a fire so they could put it out themselves by peeing on it. Unfortunately, none of them had anticipated what would happen if they stopped urinating and they did not know how to extinguish a fire. When Miss Claridge started burning, they tried to solve the problem by peeing on her, too.
    • During the flashback of when Trent Boyett starts the fire, Miss Claridge tries to put the fire out by using a blanket and not a fire extinguisher. It results in the blanket and her getting set alight, and she doesn't try to roll around to extinguish herself, she just runs around in circles screaming.
  • Ignored Aesop: Sometimes the Aesop summation devolves into this, not that the straight Aesops make much sense to begin with.
  • Ignored Epiphany: In "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe", Cartman tells his mom to inform anyone at the door that he isn't home. After that, his mom answers the door when Stan, Kyle and Wendy knock and she convinces Cartman to hangout with them.
  • I Have This Friend: Randy attempts this in "Two Guys Naked in a Hot Tub", when trying to discuss whether or not watching another guy masturbate would make you gay. This merely drives the other men in wanting to kick this "friend"'s ass, until Randy mentions he lives in Florida.
  • I'm a Humanitarian: People resort to cannibalism in the B-plot of the episode "Cartman's Mom Is Still A Dirty Slut".
  • I'm Mr. [Future Pop Culture Reference]: Parodied with VSM471, a cyborg from the year 2034 coming to our time and adopting the name "Bill Cosby".
  • Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Happens often with automatic weapons. Particular examples include:
    • "Wing," where multiple Chinese thugs fire at the boys and miss completely from mere feet away.
    • "Medicinal Fried Chicken," when a bunch of heavily-armed gangsters are taken down slowly and one by one, in a close-range gunfight with South Park's incompetent police force, who are wielding only pistols.
    • Exaggerated in "Lil' Crime Stoppers", where the boys' presence incites nearby gangs to accidentally shoot each other to death.
  • Impersonating an Officer: Cartman's brief impersonation of a police officer in "Chickenlover". He dressed like a cop (complete with aviator sunglasses) and pulled people over in his big wheel. When they inevitably figured out that he wasn't a real cop, he'd start beating them with a baton.
    "RESPECT MY AUTHORIT-AH!"
  • Implausible Deniability: The show is full of them:
    • Cartman's constant use of I Am Big Boned whenever someone calls him fat. It doesn't help that his mother told him he was big boned all the time too until "Fat Camp" had her tell him the truth.
    • Randy Marsh in "You're Getting Old" tries to defy fate by pretending the new album his son and the rest of the kids like is cool, even though it sounds like shit to him. No matter how much his wife tries to force him to admit the album is crap, Randy insists that it sounds cool and that he is not like the rest of the adults that are old and think new music is shit.
  • Improbable Infant Survival: One of the recurring gags of the show is the death of Kenny, who keeps coming back at the next episode. Eventually is revealed that Kenny is indeed immortal. Played straight with Cartman, Stan and Kyle, that despite being put constantly on situations that normally would kill somebody (for example, being in the middle of a full-blown war) they manage to survive.
  • Inadequate Inheritor: When Cartman inherited $1 million, it was mentioned his benefactress left her money to him because she feared her other relatives would spend it on crack.
  • Incredibly Lame Fun: In "Here Comes the Neighborhood", while the rich kids play polo, the "normal" kids amuse themselves by running around and kicking each other in the balls.
  • Incurable Cough of Death: "Kenny Dies" first shows Kenny coughing a bit, and it being commented that he's had the cough for a while. The titular death is the result of "a muscular disease".
  • Indian Burial Ground: They have a couple episodes with them, featuring full-on homages to Pet Sematary.
  • Informed Attractiveness:
    • In "Pre-School", the Fifth Graders say Stan's mom has the hottest "bewbs" in South Park.
    • Played with in "The List", as all boys rated on the titular list based on their looks is subject to Only Six Faces. For instance, Clyde is rated the cutest and Kyle the ugliest, despite looking virtually the same.
  • Informed Deformity:
    • Played for Laughs with Ugly Bob from "Not Without My Anus".
    • Kyle in "The List" until it's revealed the list was a forgery and he is not the ugliest boy.
  • Informed Obscenity: In "It Hits the Fan", The Knights of Standards and Practices each represent a different bad word. One of these: "Mee Krob", the name of a really nasty Thai dish.
  • Innocent Awkward Question:
    • In "Spontaneous Combustion", Kyle overhears his parents complaining about their troubles in bed, and he asks various people what a "nerection" is.
    • At the beginning of "It's a Jersey Thing", Kyle talks to his parents about Stan's new neighbors from New Jersey, and he asks them what "muff cabbage" means.
  • Innocently Insensitive: When Kyle's cousin Kyle comes to visit, Sheila appears to favor her nephew over her son, as she starts referring to Kyle as "Kyle Two".
  • Insane Troll Logic: How else can you get from buttsex (which wasn't even mentioned) to binary code?
    • Pretty much all adults (and often the children too though less frequently) use Insane Troll Logic most of the time. And that's all of them, in the world.
    • Cartman is the most fond of this, as can be seen in "Mystery of the Urinal Deuce" (using irreverent mathematics to pin 9/11 on Kyle) and "Dances with Smurfs" (as a parody of political pundit Glenn Beck).
  • Insistent Terminology: "Bucky Bailey's Bully Buckers, trademark"
  • Inspirationally Disadvantaged: Cheerfully subverted with Timmy and Jimmy, who in addition to having plenty of achievements that have nothing to do with their disabilities also have dynamic personalities, with character strengths and flaws.
  • Inspiring Sermon: "Red Hot Catholic Love", Fr. Maxi, appalled at the rampant stories about Pedophile Priests, tries to get the Vatican to allow priests to get married. They tell him that to do so, they need to change the Holy Document of Catholic Law, complete with protests from the Gelgameks and a denial from the Spider-Queen note , Father Maxi destroys the Vatican by decrying "To Hell with the Holy Document of Catholic Law". He then gives a speech about drawing lessons from the Bible about how to treat people, rather than use it to build a heirarchy, that gets televised around the world.
  • Instant Awesome: Just Add Mecha!: Mecha-Streisand.
  • Intelligible Unintelligible: Kenny is a downplayed example — it's usually possible to make out his dialogue, it's just heavily muffled. Early on, this was generally for Getting Crap Past the Radar purposes.
  • Intentional Engrish for Funny: "Let's Fighting Love". Trey Parker majored in Japanese. Translated, there are some jokes in there. Some of the lines translate to things such as "I have a fantastic penis", "This English is screwed up". If you ever wanted to know the Japanese word for a man's jewels, it's in there as well.
  • Intentional Mess Making:
    • In "Breast Cancer Show Ever", Cartman defecates on Mr. Garrison's desk to get detention so he can avoid getting into a fight with Wendy.
    • The plot of "Mystery of the Urinal Deuce" is about an unidentified person taking a dump in the urinal in the men's room. It is revealed to have been Stan, who didn't want to miss recess when the stalls were full.
    • Happens twice in "My Future Self 'n' Me". First, Cartman and a Hispanic crew get revenge on Butters's parents on Butters's behalf by smearing feces on the walls of their living room. Later, the Stotches and Marshes hire Cartman to to do the same to Motivation Corp.'s walls.
    • In "Titties and Dragons", Cartman defecates on Thomson's yard to get even with him. Stan is blamed for it.
  • Interclass Friendship:
    • Token Black and his family are the only rich people in South Park. Feeling he didn't fit in with his poorer friends, Token tried and succeeded in bringing more rich people and their kids. Unfortunately, he even has less in common with them. After spending some time with a pride of lions, he realize that he did belong with his poorer friends.
    • Lawyer Gerald Broflovski and white trash Stuart McCormick use to be friends when they were teens. Stuart blames their falling out and not getting into college to Gerald being Jewish when in reality it was because he was a lazy alcoholic.
    • Stan, Kyle, Eric and Kenny are also this. Stan and Kyle comes from a working middle class family while Kenny and Eric are the poorest kids in town. Though, calling Eric a friend might be stretching it.
  • Intercourse with You:
    • Pretty much every time Chef sings, intentional or not.
    • Cartman's band Faith +1 inserts the Big Guy into some pretty blatant examples of this in "Christian Rock Hard".
  • Interchangeable Asian Cultures: In "City Sushi", the City Wok guy tries to get revenge of the owner of City Sushi due to this trope.
  • Interesting Background Event: In "Bloody Mary", one of the aliens makes an appearance as a reflection in the car window if viewed at the right time during the scene when Stan tries to dissuade his father from driving drunk once again.
  • Internal Deconstruction: Kenny dying was eventually played painfully straight as a way to show how traumatic it would be, showing him slowly dying in a hospital. This was eventually used as a way to move on to where they don't kill Kenny every episode.
  • Internal Retcon: "200" revealed this to be the case with the early story arc concerning Cartman's father.
  • Internet Safety Aesop: "Safe Space" is about Cartman, Randy, and various celebrities feeling victimised because they are receiving hateful comments online. While initially presented as cyberbullying, it's eventually revealed that Cartman, #ShamelessAmerica, and the celebrities are vain morons who carelessly invite criticism through their online activities (such as Cartman posting a picture of his penis and Demi Lavato posting a picture of her anus). Their shared arrogance and stupid decisions nearly drove Butters to his deathbed because he had the unenviable position of filtering these comments so there would be no negative comments on their accounts. Reality pretty much points out to them that they can't expect people to flood them with compliments on a daily basis and people can be mean if given the opportunity. However, Reality is ignored and they publically execute him for making them feel bad.
  • Intimidating Revenue Service: Cartman inherited $1 million in "Cartmanland" and a good part of it was taken by tax collectors.
  • Invisible Streaker: Subverted in "Good Times with Weapons", wherein Cartman attempts this during the fairgrounds auction at the climax, but he was only imagining thingsā€”he ends up nude on stage and causing bigger controversy than the sight of Butters with a ninja star impaled in his eye.
    Mr. Garrison: You see the damage you've caused, Eric Cartman? What were you thinking?!
    Cartman: I told you it was a Wardrobe Malfunction!
  • Ironic Echo:
    • In "The Jeffersons", Kenny asks if he's too big to be Blanket, to which Kyle replies that Mr. Jefferson doesn't pay enough attention to notice. Sure enough, when Mr. Jefferson sees Kenny disguised as Blanket, he immediately picks him up thinking he's his son.
    • In "Coon 2: Hindsight", when an imprisoned Butters complains about his excrement bucket being full and not having any food, Cartman replies "you got poop, don't you?" At the end of "Coon vs Coon and Friends", when Cartman is locked in the cage too, he complains about the same things, and Stan tells him "you got poop, don't you?"
  • Irony:
    • In "Cartman Joins NAMBLA", Kenny spends the whole episode trying to stop his father from impregnating his mother, then when that doesn't work, he tries to get rid of the unborn baby anyway. In the end, Kenny dies (again) before the baby is born, and the baby becomes him.
    • Cartman's Small Name, Big Ego alter-ego "The Coon", also known as a racial slur for black people.
  • I See Dead People: Ike sees dead celebrities in "Dead Celebrities".
  • Issue Drift: The show was initially little more than an adult animated sitcom with lots of Vulgar Humor and a dash of Surreal Humor. Nowadays, it is one of the leading voices of political satire.
  • It Amused Me: Mysterion's reasoning for why Coon and Friends keeps that name even after the Coon was kicked out: "Because it pisses Cartman off beyond belief, and I find that extremely funny."
  • It's Popular, Now It Sucks!: "Chef's Chocolate Salty Balls" contains an In-Universe Parody: "If you work in the entertainment industry, and you make money, you're a sellout."
  • It Is Always Winter: It is almost always Winter, even during times of the year when it shouldn't be. A rare exception is in "Summer Sucks", where humor comes from how quickly everyone gets bored with the lack of snow, which was probably a response to TV Guide claiming during season one that Trey Parker was too stupid to animate the characters' legs.
    • Cartman makes a joke in one episode about having only two seasons in South Park: winter and July.
    • Semi-justified by the fact that South Park is a mountain town.
  • It Makes Sense in Context:
    • In "200", when they discussed the last time Muhammad appeared in public.
    Sergeant Yates: Muhammad showed up and there was no violence at all?
    Stan: Well, this giant John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln...note 
    • In-universe example from "Cartoon Wars Part 2."
      Cartman: Excuse me, Kyle, but I have some idea balls to remove from a manatee tank.

      (turns and leaves)
      Kyle: What!?
    • "Chef's Chocolate Salty Balls", which are actually balls made of chocolate which taste salty, not Chef's testicles.
    • The ending to "Butterballs". Not that it helps much.
  • It's Always Snowy in South Park
  • It's Been Done: "Simpsons Already Did It".
  • It's the Journey That Counts:
    • Played with in the episode "4th Grade". It's apparently played straight when, as part of Ms. Choksondik's training to teach the fourth graders of South Park, she goes inside The Tree of Insight, only to find nothing there. Though at first disappointed, she realizes that it means she already has what she needs to reach the kids. It's then subverted, as Mr. Garrison goes in after her and does find a physical representation of his "gay side."
    • Subverted again in the episode "Something Wall-Mart This Way Comes". The boys are told that in order to destroy Wall-Mart, they have to find and destroy its heart. Stan and Kyle make their way to the TV section (where the heart is said to reside) and encounter the Anthropomorphic Personification of Wall-Mart itself, who directs them to a small door. They open the door and find a mirror, which Wall-Mart says is "the heart" of Wall-Mart, i.e. the consumers. Stan and Kyle, however, take the instructions to "destroy the heart" literally, and smash the mirror, causing the building to implode.
  • Ivy League for Everyone
  • I Was Just Joking: Randy Marsh invents "Sarcastiball" in an extended one of these
  • I Wished You Were Dead: Stan in "Pinkeye" after Wendy went to the school's costume contest as Chewbacca instead of Raggedy Ann (she and Stan were meant to enter as a pair, but Wendy thought they'd look stupid and assumed Stan would come to the same conclusion), and gave away the two-ton candy prize for charity.

    J 
  • Japanese Ranguage: "Herro, Shitty Wok!"
  • Jerkass: Eric Cartman, whose visage has been displayed on the trope page at least once. Others include Mr(s). Garrison, Sergeant Yates, Mayor McDaniels, the goth kids and numerous secondary characters.
  • Jerkass at Your Discretion: In early seasons, Shelly would beat up Stan when their parents weren't around. In the later seasons, she would just do it whenever regardless of when and if they're watching, so it's more that Randy and Sharon are just oblivious.
  • Jerkass Has a Point: Cartman surprisingly enough had one of these in "Informative Murder Porn" where he states that maybe because one kid's father had killed his mother didn't mean that Murder Porn was necessarily the cause. Maybe for all they knew the kid's parent had been cheating on each other and doing drugs for a long time before Murder Porn (a near direct quote from Cartman himself). However when Wendy tries to agree with him, Cartman promptly boo's her simply for being Wendy
  • Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Cartman is one of television's most infamous examples. Sometimes he does something that seems genuinely generous or selfless, but there's always a selfish reason to it. His friends expect this. In fact, in one episode, he protects a lot of persecuted cats and throughout the episode viewers are waiting for the moment he turns out to have hidden agendas. The twist is that he doesn't. He really doesn't. He did it because he likes cats.
  • Jesus Was Way Cool: Jesus is just a friendly guy living in suburbia and hosting his public access TV show. Until he went and sacrificed himself... to save Santa Claus from kidnappers in Iraq on Christmas Day, thus forever marking Christmas as a day to remember Jesus... for saving Santa Claus in Iraq. He came back near the end of Holy Saturday (which is close to Easter Sunday), to help put down the extensive corruption in the Catholic Church (with the help of its friendly, but somewhat impotent, pope).
    "I'm pretty sure that killing Jesus is not very Christian."
  • Jewish Complaining: Particularly from Kyle's mother, and his cousin.
  • Joins to Fit In:
    • This is Cartman's reason for forming the Ginger Separatist Movement, after being forcibly transformed into a ginger himself.
    • Kyle allows himself to be "made over" by his newly metrosexualized friends in "South Park Is Gay!". It doesn't last very long.
    • In "The Hobbit", Wendy Photoshops a picture of herself in order to be "attractive". Ironically enough, she was the one who accidentally started the whole Photoshop ordeal when she had Photoshopped a picture of a very unattractive girl at the school and everyone believed that the picture was the girl's "real" image despite her looking absolutely nothing like the picture. This eventually leads to every girl in school aside from Wendy getting their pictures Photoshopped and therefore becoming "attractive" because of said pictures. Wendy is eventually peer-pressured into creating a Photoshopped picture in order to stop being bullied by pretty much everyone in school.
  • Journey to the Sky: In Episode 12 of Season 6 ("A Ladder To Heaven"), the boys (Stan, Kyle and Cartman) decide to build a ladder so they can meet Kenny (who died at the end of Season 5 and, for the longest time, hadn't done his usual revival, making everybody believe he died for real). They want to see him so they can retrieve a ticket he won alongside them in a contest, but since the adults are unaware of this intent they think the boys are still sorely missing Kenny and build the ladder to to see him again, which moves them emotionally. This becomes international news, to the point the Japanese plan to build their own ladder while the US military soldiers believe the soul of Saddam Hussein is building a chemical warfare plant in Heaven. At the end of the episode, and upon Cartman discovering that Kenny had placed the ticket in his house before dying (he learned this by reliving Kenny's memories due to having eaten his cremated remnants), they decide to suspend the ladder's building. The adults, still unaware of why they wanted to build the ladder in the first place, interpret this as the boys having accepted Kenny's death and moved on, so the whole international story ends. Unbeknownst for the soldiers, it turns out Saddam's soul is building a chemical warfare plant in Heaven.
  • Jumping Out of a Cake: "Butters' Bottom Bitch" has an undercover cop posing as a hooker in one of these.
  • Jurisdiction Friction: Mocked. In "Lil' Crime Stoppers", the boys are playing city cops, and the kids playing FBI keep showing up to take their cases away. Addressed more seriously in the episode in which the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and several other government agencies debate who should be the ones stopping a potential terrorist attack aimed at Hillary Clinton.
  • Just Eat Gilligan: "Butt Out" (where Cartman idolizes Rob Reiner because of his fascist and manipulative tactics to get people to quit smoking) could've been solved easier had Cartman known Reiner was a Jew, a people Cartman's not a fan of.
  • Just Like Making Love:
    Chef: Children, playing football is like making love to a really beautiful woman. You can't always score, but when you can, it makes all the trying worthwhile.
  • Just the Introduction to the Opposites

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