South Park is famous for its humorous dialogue, and the HBO series features loads of weird lines.
Renowned for its short production time, which allows for lightning-fast reactions to current events, South Park is full to the brim with cutting and thought-provoking dialogue. Most of South Park’s humor ranges from crude to offensive, even while offering semi-serious commentary on real-world issues. Fans have long appreciated South Park’s willingness to criticize anyone and everyone, regardless of their ideological position.
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Some South Park lines, however, are more bizarre than others. South Park often uses weirdness to showcase the perceived silliness of logical fallacies and cultural touchstones. In earlier seasons, South Park additionally showcased the strangeness of complex issues by looking through the lens of curious, ignorant children.
Season four’s Chef Goes Nanners follows the boys as they try to understand why South Park’s flag is controversial. While the adults make familiar real-world arguments concerning racism and respect for history, the boys remain ignorant of these ideas.
Kyle gives a speech revealing that the boys did not understand race was an issue for the town flag. Believing the controversy surrounded capital punishment, Kyle argues the flag should remain. Humbled by the boys’ ignorance of race, the town adds people of different races to the mob on the town flag.
Season twenty’s The Damned focused primarily on a hyperbolic storyline about the tragedy of South Park Elementary students quitting Twitter. The Damned also spends a lot of time focusing on a parody of the 2016 presidential debates.
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As usual, South Park pulls few punches when satirizing politicians. South Park paints a comical picture of everyone involved in the debate, from the candidates to the audience. Mr. Garrison tells the crowd in increasingly desperate ways that he is not fit to be president. Meanwhile, his opponent calmly repeats that the audience should not believe him.
Season nine’s Trapped In The Closet is full of fan-favorite lines, but one particularly stands out. After a test seems to diagnose Stan with depression – which comes as a surprise to him – he feels irritated that no one else seems to take this result seriously.
Randy’s careless response (telling Stan to choose between buying a bicycle or the self-help course which will ostensibly help his depression) resonates with many fans beyond the context of the episode. For many, Trapped In The Closet echoes life’s reality of constantly needing to choose between necessity and pleasure.
Season two’s Ike’s Wee Wee follows the boys trying to make sense of Ike’s upcoming bris. At the same time, some marijuana used as a teaching aid goes missing, and the school staff tries to discover its location.
When the boys see Chef, he tells them to stay away from drugs in general, especially while they are young. This offhanded remark has remained a fan favorite for decades.
Throughout the earliest seasons of South Park, Mr. Garrison’s character usually involved using depraved language or pop culture topics while teaching elementary school classes. Some episodes focus on these traits, but often they simply color his dialogue.
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Mr. Garrison’s casual reference to infertility in season two’s Clubhouses caught many first-time viewers off guard through its sheer absurdity. The line has nothing to do with the surrounding scene, using contrast to enhance its bizarre effect.
Season four’s The Tooth Fairy Tats 2000 examines the existential horror of learning one’s worldview is flawed through Kyle discovering the tooth fairy does not exist. After learning his parents’ stories about the tooth fairy are not true, Kyle sets off on a philosophical quest to determine ultimate reality.
On this journey, Kyle reads many philosophy books. He panics as the topics are too abstract for him to understand, eventually claiming he is uncertain that he, himself, exists.
South Park has shown consistent contempt for trite sayings and viewpoints which, despite being universal in the minds of the American public, are treated as insightful. Much of South Park’s humor revolves around mocking “wisdom” which should be common sense.
Season four’s A Very Crappy Christmas mocks the frequent message of Christmas-themed media that family and togetherness should be the themes of the holiday season. A Very Crappy Christmas seems to point out that viewers should take this for granted and realize that those preaching this message are often trying to sell products.
One word most often used to describe South Park is “irreverent.” Creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have never shied away from any controversial topic, even when directly censored by their network. South Park takes joy in brazenly discussing and satirizing current sensitive events.
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Season six’s Jared Has Aides argues that after a while, people should stop treating serious events with grim solemnity. In particular, tragedies become funny after twenty-two point three years.
Season eight’s Something Wall-Mart This Way Comes examines the coming of a big-box store to South Park, as well as the economic implications of a single store that can compete with every small business in the town. Something Wall-Mart satirizes consumer greed through horror movie tropes, making this a fan-favorite episode.
Randy’s words about “simple economics,” which he does not understand, are echoed throughout the coming seasons. Espousing socio-economic policies he is ignorant of becomes a core part of Randy’s character, mirroring the behavior of similar people in the real world.
Perhaps the single most infamous South Park episode is season five’s Scott Tenorman Must Die. Scott Tenorman Must Die completed Cartman’s gradual transformation from a petty but powerless jerk to a monster who can harm anyone he has reason to target.
Cartman’s infamous line, spoken after tricking a bully into eating chili made from his parents, is considered by many fans to be South Park’s strangest dialogue.
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Taylor Clogston is a writer and editor of fiction and an amateur literary critic. He invokes his passion of classic and modern anime and manga as he writes for Comic Book Resources. When he’s not immersed in weird stories, Taylor loves cooking dinner, torturing D&D players, and photographing woodland critters. He is on twitter as @taylor_clogston.