South Park S 1 E 6 Death / YMMV

Anvilicious: Parents shouldn't blame television for corrupting their kids and instead should spend more time with their children. At one point the boys have a discussion about it that blatantly has them look at the camera while each say their take on the subject. Played for Laughs when it's Kenny who has the most heavy-handed opinion of them all.
Common Knowledge: Many fans believe that Kenny's dad is killed in this episode, even though it has since been confirmed that the man who died was a completely unrelated Mr. McCormick. To be fair, considering how many times the show has updated character models, it isn't a stretch to believe that this Mr. McCormick was a bearded, hatless prototype of Stuart, since they have matching attires and similar hair color.
Ensemble Dark Horse:
- Death itself, for being Not So Above It All while still posing a threat to the boys.
- The defiant head of Cartoon Central John Warsog, for his brutal jabs at the protestors.
Fridge Brilliance:
- The reason the network backed down by replacing Terrance & Phillip with She's The Sheriff? It was a ploy to get them to stop their protests by making Terrance & Phillip look better by comparison.
- Stan saying that he can't shoot anybody when he clearly could several episodes ago initially seems like a Series Continuity Error, but it makes more sense when City On The Edge Of Forever showcased that the boys have Self-Serving Memories regarding episodes like that one, in which both him and Kyle falsely remember Scuzzlebutt showing up and making them ice cream.
Fridge Horror: With the revelation that the Marsh family has a tendency to be Driven to Suicide after reaching their old age, does that mean that Randy, Sharon, Shelley and even Stan might fall down the same path, especially since they seem to be a Dysfunctional Family as it is? The movie South Park: Post Covid shows both Stan and Randy being equally miserable at their 50s and 80s respectively (with Sharon and Shelley having been Killed Offscreen), but its sequel seems to hint at a brighter future for them as they solve their main struggles.
Harsher in Hindsight:
- This line from Cartman to Kyle has a lot of Foreshadowing:
  Cartman: Just because your mom is a bitch doesn't mean the whole world has to suffer.
  - Which is worse since Kyle eventually does become his mom in "Super Hard PCness".
  - In recent years, several people such as Dana Schwartz have gone on the offensive claiming South Park is damaging society and claiming Eric Cartman is a bad role model despite the fact he is clearly not intended to be one unknowingly acting like Sheila Broflovski in the process.
- While he never got as bad as his grandfather, future seasons will have Stan himself fall into a deep depression and complain about the bleakness of existence, almost mirroring Grandpa Marsh's predicament here.
- Cartman telling Grandpa Marsh that he would never kill anyone unless they pissed him off. Come "Scott Tenorman Must Die", we find out that Cartman will in fact kill people if properly enraged.
Heartwarming in Hindsight: Despite the tendency for characters in this show to fall victim to Aesop Amnesia, it seems like Grandpa Marsh's lesson here stuck, even as he succumbed to all other types of Amnesia, and future episodes will show him actually having fun in life for once.
Hilarious in Hindsight: The protestors try to take down Cartoon Central by flinging themselves against the building with a large slingshot. For added coincidence, there's a large man in red who is flung last, almost resembling the bird Terrance.
Jerkass Woobie:
- Grandpa Marsh is a Grumpy Old Man who constantly hassles Stan, but he's also suicidally depressed and miserable for his own life, and is constantly trying to make Stan Mercy Kill him. The revelation that he killed his own suicidal grandfather when he was Stan's age adds some sympathy points to his predicament.
- Stan himself, who despite being quite aloof and only interested to watch Toilet Humor, is put in the difficult and extremely unfair position of having to Mercy Kill his grandfather or endure being constantly tormented by him.
Memetic Mutation: I'm not touching that with a X-foot pole. ^Explanation.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: While understandable since Kenny is The Quiet One for most of the show, the episode wastes the chance to have him interact with Grandpa Marsh, who is basically in the opposite predicament he is (as showcased in this episode: Death chases Kenny, while Grandpa chases Death), about their life situations, especially since they spend most of the episode in the same house. However, it's Stan, Cartman and Kyle who mostly debate the subject of whether it's okay to perform a Mercy Kill on the old man, while Kenny is relegated to taking constant potty breaks before being killed.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: A previously unknown character called Mr. McCormick is killed in this episode, with Sheila calling him "a martyr to us all". Later episodes will establish Kenny's last name as McCormick, with his canonical (living) father somewhat resembling Mr. McCormick here (only without the beard and wearing a "Scotch" cap). Considering Kenny's predicament in this show, it gave ample room to imply that his "curse" was shared by his already danger-prone family members. Instead, this is never brought up and is outright jossed in "Mysterion Rises", with Matt and Trey outright confirming in the DVD Commentary that the McCormick in this episode was completely unrelated to Kenny's dad.
The Woobie: The large protestor who is accidentally flung and splattered against the Cartoon Central building after Terrance & Phillip had already been cancelled. Nobody even cares to notice his death.

YMMV / South Park S 1 E 6 Death

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