Three Things About ‘South Park’ Trey Parker and Matt Stone Might Not Even Know
In all of South Park history, there have been 325 total episodes of the TV show, 8 specials, 10 video games and one theatrically released feature film — and zero birthday parties for Kenny McCormick.
Trey Parker and Matt Stone are not the kinds of showrunners who obsess over continuity and canon. Up until very recently, South Park episodes were purposefully structured so that the world of the show would “reset” after each storyline, allowing for the show’s writers to once again tear apart the town the following week. As such, countless little details and small corners of the canon have been lost to time and wave after wave of new South Park content — but not to the South Park wiki.
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Unlike other animated comedy creators, Parker and Stone’s minds probably aren’t steel-traps filled to the brim with obscure South Park facts and canonic loose ends to which they return every time they want to include a callback in a new episode or special. So that’s why us fans have to keep track of esoteric and ultimately irrelevant trivia such as…
Kenny Is the Only Member of the Core Four Who Doesn’t Have A Birthday Episode
This one comes with the caveat that, in the climactic final episode of the Cthulhu arc “Coon vs. Coon & Friends,” we find out that Kenny’s repeated undeath is only possible because, every time he dies, his mother Carol gives birth to a new Kenny in the middle of the night, likely drawn from the power of the Necronomicon. So, technically, “Coon vs. Coon & Friends” is sort of a birthday episode if you count every day Kenny dies and returns to life as his birthday, which we do not — unless Carol and Stuart start taking Kenny to Casa Bonita following each fatality.
Kyle Is the Only Main Character Whose Name Isn’t in A Single Episode Title
Compared to his constant torment at the hands of Eric Cartman, Kyle Broflovski’s omission from all 325 episode titles seems like one of the most minor ways he could have possibly been shafted in the series, but it’s still worth mentioning. Even his adopted little brother Ike got an episode title in Season Two’s “Ike’s Wee Wee,” but Kyle’s name still hasn’t made it to top billing. There’s still plenty of time, however. Season 27 is just around the corner, maybe one of Cartman’s schemes will get “Kyall” onto the marquee.
Geddy Lee Is the Only Canadian With A Protruding Nose
Again, this one has exceptions, but only because Parker, Stone and their animators wisely decided that their audiences would have a hard time recognizing South Park’s imitation of famous Canadians like Justin Bieber and James Cameron if they had the signature circular Pac-Man heads and tiny black eye holes that our neighbors from the north bear in the South Park universe. When the members of the iconic Canadian prog-rock band Rush appeared in the Season 15 episode “Royal Pudding,” they had the signature Canadian physiognomy with one massive addition — South Park gave Geddy Lee a schnozz that extends past the dividing line that is the Canadian mouth.