History SouthPark / TropesRToV

* SaveTheVillain: Played straight with Stan, Kyle, and Kenny towards Cartman on more than one occasion.

*** This became even more hilariously ironic when "You're Getting Old" became a magnet for the sort of deep fan interpretations that "Scrotie [=McBoogerBalls=]" chewed the public out for just a season before. Fans were clamoring over the episode as a sign of Trey [[CreatorBreakdown growing tired of the show and deciding to cancel it]] before he and Matt and Creator/ComedyCentral {{Jossed}} all these theories.

** "All About Mormons" started off mocking the origins of the Mormon faith only to [[StealthParody completely 180 on it's target]] during the ending with a TakeThat at people who mock or try to poke holes in others' religious and spiritual beliefs.

* StudentTeacherRomance: Between Miss Stevenson and Ike. [[CrossesTheLineTwice Ike is three years old.]]

** Randy (a geologist) is mentioned as the only scientist in town, but later Token's mother is said to be a chemist, and Clyde's father a geologist.

* RealityEnsues:
** While the participants in the Special Olympics in "Up the Down Steroid" are disabled, they are still athletes who spend weeks in intensive training before the start of the competition. Cartman, on the other hand, is so fat and out of shape that even without having a handicap he is hopelessly outclassed by them and finishes last in every event.
** Whilst recreating a (fictitious) battle during UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar during "The Red Badge of Gayness", Stan and Kyle place a bet with Cartman that the loser of the battle[[note]]in this case, the North won[[/note]] becomes the winners' slave. After Cartman, dressed as General Robert E Lee, manipulates the South into winning the battle, they slowly go from state to state before they descend on Washington, D.C. In a final attempt to avoid becoming Cartman's slaves, Stan and Kyle dress up as Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln to recreate the end of the Civil War, thus meaning that Cartman becomes their slave. Their joy is short-lived as they are reminded that one of the outcomes of the Civil War was the banning of slavery, thus making the bet invalid.
** "Good Times with Weapons": After an [[ArtShift anime-styled]] battle between the boys and [[BigBadWannabe Professor Chaos]], Kenny finally gains the upper hand after landing a hit on Chaos with his ninja star. Cut to {{Butt|Monkey}}ers with a [[EyeScream shuriken sticking out of his eye]].

* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: Believe it or not, no matter how dark the show gets, it stays firmly on the idealistic side. The creators have spoken numerous times that the show is not cynical and they ultimately believe in people. Indeed there’s heart, empowering messages, and touching emotion, not to mention how the majority of episodes end happily.

** The [[Memes/SouthPark "pal/buddy/friend" exchange]] in "Canada on Strike".

** On the episode "[[Recap/SouthParkS8E9SomethingWallMartThisWayComesSomething Wall-Mart This Way Comes]]", Cartman bets Kyle that people shit themselves after they died. Cartman wins each bet every time someone dies and shits on themselves.

%%* SideBet: Administrivia/ZeroContextExample

* SirSwearsALot: The foul language the main quartet of kids constantly spout would make '''sailors''' blush.

* SoundEffectBleep: Very prevalent due to how much swearing is present in this show. Played with in "It Hits the Fan", where Mr. Garrison is allowed to say "fag" uncensored because he's come out as gay. While [[DiscussedTrope discussing it]] with some guys at the bar, Mr. Garrison points out that they're all [[BreakingTheFourthWall getting beeped for saying it]]. Then Jimbo complains about it and [[WordOfGay doesn't get beeped.]] Mr. Garrison sarcastically asks him if he wants to make out.

** It has the cutesy cartoony art style, and most of its plots are fantasy-based, so [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids it must be for kids, right...?]]

* TooDumbToLive: In "Faith Hilling", the kids are forced to watch a PSA showing the dangers of memeing. It shows 3 clips, all with kids ending up getting run over by trains. While the third one was forgivable, due to the fact that the train had no business being there, the first two have no excuse, considering they spent the 30 seconds they had to run away, screaming.

* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: One of the most cynical cartoons ever put on television, however there are times where it establishes some heart, empowering messages, or touching emotion. Despite how cynical this show can get and how low brow the humor can be, the creators do surprisingly establish some of their issues with a balanced mindset.

* {{Trope 2000}}: The first four episodes of Season 4 have "2000" in the title.

** Mr. Garrison's habit of teaching the class nonsense "history" that is actually based on a summary of a popular novel, movie, or musical. For example, talking about the history of Westeros in ''Series/GameOfThrones'' [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments as if it were real history.]]

** When not Garrison, Sheila Broflovski and Randy Marsh tend to spearhead most of the town's riots. Cartman is also known to start lower key ones with kids (perhaps most glaringly getting ginger kids to beat up a Broadway star of ''Theatre/{{Annie}}'' who wore a wig). Special mention goes to at least one instance where Randy manages to raise a rabble simply by yelling the word "rabble" a few times.

** At first, Stan and Kyle had pretty similar personalities, but later on, as the series progressed, they began to diverge. Stan developed as deadpan, impassive, more introvert and sensible, while Kyle developed as impulsive, outward-looking, sociable and rash, especially when he wanted to stop Cartman. Cartman is the stoic red.

** "Quest for Ratings" features the guys running a news show on the elementary school closed circuit television system and they act as though they've always done this and it's never mentioned again.

** Kyle convincing Cartman to go to Somalia to be a pirate was this (he even happily told Stan that he was sure Cartman would die). Too bad Cartman had to get Ike to come along for the ride.
* RevengeIsADishBestServed: In "Scott Tenorman Must Die", Cartman is out to get revenge on a teenage boy named Scott Tenorman who tricked Cartman into buying his pubes. Cartman decides to get revenge on Scott by tricking him into publicly eating chili containing pubes. [[spoiler:But it turns out Cartman's plan was far more sinister, as he tricked Scott into eating chili containing pubes and ''his parents' ground-up corpses''.]]

%%* {{Robosexual}}: Parodied a few times. (Needs example to explain who it's done so)

** In season 19, PC Principal screaming at a female student named Leslie to stop talking to her friend and be quiet during assemblies. Once when she was actually already quiet.

* SarcasmMode: Pretty much every adult in "Sarcastaballs". Particularly Randy. It actually becomes a plot point where in Sarcastaballs makes SarcasmMode a person's default mode.

* {{Satan}}: Portrayed as half of a homosexual pairing with Saddam Hussein. The ''submissive'' half.

* SelectiveEnforcement: With all the terrible things Cartman has done, the one thing that got the other kids to give him the silent treatment in "The Death of Eric Cartman" was his eating the skin off the KFC. (Technically, this was more of a "Straw that broke the camel's back" situation.)

** ''Terrence and Phillip,'' which is considered offensive in-universe much like ''South Park'' itself.

* SphereEyes: The entire cast, of course, excluding the Canadians and Saddam Hussein.

** In "The Death Camp of Tolerance", Mr. Garrison hears of a teacher who was fired for being gay and sued the school for millions, so he ramps up the DepravedHomosexual act while on the job in an attempt to get himself fired and do the same thing. When the kids try to tell their parents what they have been exposed to, they are chastised for being homophobic and sent to the titular Tolerance Camp, which resembles a Nazi concentration camp. Garrison, however, is praised for his "courageous" behaviour and presented with an award for overcoming adversity. He is appalled by how everyone is treating him and snaps during the awards ceremony, screaming at the audience about how "tolerance" is not the same thing as "acceptance", and that ''anyone'' would deserve to get fired for doing what he has done, regardless of their sexuality. However, this causes Principal Victoria to declare that he is too intolerant of his own behaviour and sends him to the Tolerance Camp as well.

** A straight example happens when it is discovered that the City Wok owner [[spoiler:is the psychotic, murderous ''Caucasian'' Dr. Janus]]. Since he's the only Asian restaurant owner left in town [[spoiler:after the Japanese sushi chef whom he harassed killed himself after this reveal]], the police let him get away.

* StuckOnBandAidBrand: The Sega Dreamcast and Nintendo Wii have both appeared on episodes. Each console was mentioned repeatedly with its manufacturer's name, where a normal person would just say "Dreamcast" or "Wii"[[note]]even Nintendo officially brands it "Wii" without the "Nintendo"[[/note]].

** ''Raisins'' = Hooters for eight-year-olds.

** Loogie/Luigi

* SuicideIsPainless: Averted. In "Night of the Living Homeless", a scientist tries several times to kill himself before the homeless get to him, but each shot just leaves him bloodier and more in pain until he finally, mercifully, dies.

* SupportingTheMonsterLovedOne: In one episode, Butters' parents believed their son died, and underwent a ritual to bring him back. When Butters returned home, they thought him an abomination, and tried to feed him a solicitor they killed.

** TheMovie was basically a big TakeThat at MoralGuardians and scrapegoating. The last lines to the song "Blame Canada" pretty much spell it out.

** "Smug Alert" is a large and obvious ridicule of the fact that many hybrid car owners are arrogant and more focused on making themselves look superior to drivers of more pollutive vehicles ([=SUV=]s in particular), and also one of George Clooney's acceptance speeches about Hollywood, how San Francisco think they're more progressive than the rest of the country, and last but not least, some smug LA film writers who owned hybrid cars who were also major hypocrites because they use private jets. (Which are much worse than any car for pollution)
** "All About Mormons" started off mocking the origins of the Mormon faith only to [[StealthParody completely 180 on it's target]] during the ending with a TakeThat at people who mock others' religious and spiritual beliefs.

** "You're Getting Old" rips into people that do nothing but complain about how everyone and everything is shit while refusing to find anything wholesome or good to be happy about. The doctor who diagnoses Stan's extreme cynicism explicitly calls him a cynical ass hole.

** "Informative Murder Porn" is a big FU to cable companies for forcing customers to take channels they don't want and for making them wait to get any kind of service between an unspecified time period.

* ThereIsAGod: When Cartman lost his dream of owning his own amusement park, it restored Kyle's faith in God. Long story short: When Cartman gets a million dollars he buys an amusement park, which causes Kyle to lose his belief in God, which in turn causes him to be at death's door due to a hemorrhoid. At the end of the episode, Cartman gets his comeuppance.

* ThinkNothingOfIt: In "Raising the Bar", Creator/JamesCameron doesn't take credit for the eponymous act. "James Cameron doesn't do what James Cameron does for James Cameron. James Cameron does what James Cameron does because James Cameron is James Cameron."

* ThisIsADrill: and Cartman will not hesitate to use it against hippies.

** The boys like to watch [[ShowWithinAShow ''Terrence and Philip'']], a series comprised almost entirely of fart jokes.
** In some episodes, the plot is built around toilet humor: as a couple of examples, in "Spontaneous Combustion," people are urged to stop holding in their farts so they don't combust and "More Crap" revolves around Randy Marsh trying to break the world record for taking the largest dump.

** Ike goes from "Don't kick the baby!" in season 1 to being part of a plan to steal the Hope Diamond by [[spoiler:Barack Obama and John [=McCain=]]]. This is before he runs off to be a pirate having grown bored with middle class life.

*** "[[Recap/SouthParkS7E9ChristianRockHard Christian Rock Hard]]": After Cartman's plan to scam the Contemporary Christian community falls flat on his face, breaking up his band and humiliating him in front of a deeply offended audience, Butters (a devoted Christian himself) [[spoiler:''farts in Cartman's face'', then flips him off and says "Fuck you, Eric."]]

* TookALevelInKindness: In the early seasons, Stan and Kyle were only slightly less obnoxious and self-centered than Cartman, and often seemed to act as lower-scale school bullies. While they still have occasional {{Jerkass}} moments, they are ''much'' more rational and empathetic individuals ([[OnlySaneMan arguably the most so in the entire town]]), likely to contrast Cartman, who [[TookALevelInJerkass Took SEVERAL Levels in Jerkass]].

* TorturedMonster: Stan falls in with a bunch of extreme environmentalists who marry animals. The "child" of such a pair -- a man and an ostrich -- can only say "kill me." This is also said by one of the failed Towelie clones in "Towelie". Unlike the ostrich baby at least it gets put out of its misery.

** "Good Times with Weapons" has Butters get ridiculed by the boys, get a ninja star stuck in his eye, dressed up as a dog, wanders in a delirium.

* TraumaticSuperpowerAwakening: Parodied in "Cartman's Incredible Gift"; when Cartman wakes up from coma due to a head injury, he fakes psychic powers.

** Due to the show's [[OnlySixFaces artstyle]] in which most children are only distinguished by their hair and trademark clothes, when Mysterion is finally forced to remove his mask at the end of "The Coon", the viewers are still unable to recognize who it is though characters are able to tell right away. In "Coon 2: Hindsight", it's narrowed down to just two people, until the next episode "Mysterion Rises" where Kyle nonchalantly refers to Mysterion by his secret identity.

** The head vampire (and Butters) in "The Ungroundable" ends his sentences with "per se" a lot, which is a parody of this guy who used to appear on a lot of television programs claiming he was a vampire, per se. He did it a lot, too, per se.

* VocalEvolution: In earlier episodes, Trey and Matt's voices for the boys were much more high-pitched and exaggerated, slowly becoming more relaxed and closer to their real voices sans the artificial pitch shifting with each season. Their acting is also noticeably stilted in earlier episodes, considering their mastery of HamAndCheese in later points of the show. To make the comparison, the fourth season finale featured clips of their first animated work with the finalised version of the ''South Park'' cast "The Spirit of Christmas", with a fair bit of SelfDeprecation added in there.

** "Make Love, Not Warcraft", half of which was portrayed in [[Machinima World of Warcraft]].

** Whilst recreating a (fictitious) battle during UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar during "The Red Badge of Gayness", Stan and Kyle place a bet with Cartman that the loser of the battle[[note]]in this case, the North won[[/note]] becomes the winners' slave. After Cartman, dressed as General Robert E Lee, manipulates the South into winning the battle, they slowly go from state to state before they descend on Washington, D.C. In a final attempt to avoid becoming Cartman's slaves, Stan and Kyle dress up as Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln to recreate the end of the Civil War, thus meaning that Cartman becomes their slave. Their joy is shortlived as they are reminded that one of the outcomes of the Civil War was the banning of slavery, thus making the bet invalid.

** At first, Stan and Kyle had pretty similar personalities, but later on, as the series progressed, they were differenced. Stan was deadpan, impassive, more introvert and sensible, while Kyle was impulsive, outward-looking, sociable and rash, especially when he wanted to stop Cartman. Cartmin is the stoic red.

* RashomonStyle: In "Fishsticks", when Cartman and Jimmy make the Fishsticks joke, Jimmy is the one who comes up with the idea of it, but when confronted, Cartman believes he is the one that made it. His flashback even involves people telling him he's not fat.

** Hicks shouting, "They took our jobs!" and degenerating into nonsense with each repetition.

* SharePhrase: Sometimes a character will speak for a group, and other members of said group will express their agreement by simply shouting "Yeah!" The boys, the girls, the men of South Park, and even the kindergarteners have all been shown doing it.

** "Butters' Very Own Episode", devoted to side character Leopold "Butters" Stotch

** In addition to the above, the main target of "Passion of the Jew" was Creator/MelGibson for his borderline anti-Semitic themes and behavior, as well as those who mindlessly allow themselves to be guilt tripped into following a herd mentality just because they sat through what basically amounts to TorturePorn.