South Park: Kenny’s 10 Best Episodes

South Park is known for its eclectic line of quirky, small town characters, but the focus of the series is obviously the boys. With Stan often acting as the straight man, Kyle as the trying heart, and Cartman as the constant, cultural foil, it’s the boys who have made this series special. However, if there was ever a member among them who is the least stated and spoken (for obvious reasons), it’s none other than Kenny McCormick.

The orange, hooded member of the group, Kenny reached notoriety for his recurring, dying gag and would later become the series’ main jumping off point for topics on poverty and puberty. Though he’s died quite a few times in the series, he’s lived quite a life and hosted a variety of incredible episodes.

10 Rainforest Shmainforest

In “Rainforest Shmainforest,” the boys reluctantly join Mr. Mackey’s choir group meant to perform at a charity function to protect the rainforest. As all television field trips do, things go awry and the boys find themselves lost in the middle of the rainforest, much to the dismay of their tour guide. Fortunately for Kenny, he meets a girl, Kelly, that falls in love with him.

Unfortunately for him, she constantly fights her feelings for him given that they live far away from one another. In a surprising twist, Kelly shows her true feelings when she does what no other character in the story tried to do before: actually try to save Kenny when he’s about to die.

9 Going Native

While this episode is explicitly directed towards Butters, Kenny does play a surprising supporting role given that he was the only one that Butters didn’t target in his initial, blind rage. Here, Butters uncharacteristically begins lashing out at everybody. His parents believe it’s because he needs to return to his home island of Hawaii to enact a rite of passage.

Kenny isn’t initially accepted by the locals and must perform pool party tricks to impress them. He initially fails and loses himself on the island, only to meet the ghost of one of Hawaii’s greatest icons, Elvis Presley. When the “Hawaiians” find themselves under attack, it’s up to Kenny to save the day.

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8 Cock Magic

While the casual onlookers may not appreciate it as much, Magic: The Gathering can be one of the most intense games that a person ever plays in school. This is evident in the episode “Cock Magic” where Kenny dominates the school’s local, Magic: The Gathering community. Hungry for more edge, the boys stumble upon an underground Magic: The Gathering ring that forces chickens to play the game.

Wanting to get in on the action, the boys have Kenny train a chicken of their own, one that he grows to love as his own pet. When the big day comes for his pet chicken to fight, Kenny steps in to take his place and ensues one of the most epic Magic: The Gathering/cockfighting games in history.

7 Poor And Stupid

Due to his family being unable to afford a lot of entertainment, Kenny doesn’t appear to have a lot of hobbies in the series besides chasing girls. It isn’t until “Poor and Stupid” that the fans would learn his avid love for NASCAR races. It’s that same love that would be challenged time and again when it’s revealed that Eric Cartman not only joins his obsession but actively tries to become a driver himself.

Embracing the “poor and stupid” culture that he personally perceives, Cartman becomes a vulgar, redneck stereotype of a racer, something that gets in the way of NASCAR getting taken seriously as a sport and on Kenny’s nerves.

6 Major Boobage

South Park doesn’t do too many heartfelt homages to old movies; but when they do, it’s pretty memorable. This is the case in the episode “Major Boobage” where a new drug craze makes people hallucinate a fantasy world similar to the psychedelic, music film, Heavy Metal.

When kids realize that they could get high off of a chemical found in cat urine, a drug epidemic begins sweeping across South Park, with Kenny grabbing every cat he can to go back to see his Heavy Metal hallucination. This puts him at odds with a recent cat ban in the city and Kyle’s dad who attempts to relive his younger years.

5 The Ring

Kenny has had quite a few girlfriends across the course of the series; but given that he and his friends are just kids, he doesn’t get to live out the sexual experiences that he’s always wanted. He gets close though in “The Ring” when he comes across Disney’s hidden, music conspiracy to sell sex to little girls via The Jonas Brothers.

Upon learning this, he brings his new girlfriend to a Jonas Brothers concert only to have her fall prey to the Jonas Brothers’ amnesty campaign. Seeing the exact opposite of what he wanted, Kenny finds himself in the middle of South Park‘s parody of a soulless marriage.

4 Best Friends Forever

In one of South Park‘s greatest instances of being in line with recent news, the series put Kenny at the center of their discussion on the Terri Schiavo case. After getting a brand new, PSP, Kenny gets injured in a freak accident. Upon his death, Heaven makes him their general in the grand battle against Hell, mostly because of his PSP skills.

However, Kenny is suddenly brought back to Earth when doctors used modern science to keep him alive, albeit in a vegetative state. While Stan and Kyle are happy to see him alive, Cartman is infuriated given that Kenny left him his PSP in his will. This sparks an entire debate of biblical proportions where both the boys and the heavens themselves fight over the ethics of Kenny’s situation.

3 Kenny Dies

Kenny may die a lot, but his deaths didn’t become truly memorable until the creators decided to have one last a while. When Matt Stone and Trey Parker just grew tired of Kenny’s dying gimmick, they decided to kill him off one last time in an oddly sincere episode. Here, Kenny simply just gets sick and only wants his friends at his side.

Stan is unable to see Kenny dying and struggles to visit, while Kenny’s situation inspires Cartman to lead an entire crusade for stem cell research. In a touching, tragic, and hilarious way, the series says goodbye to Kenny for a while and says hello to a new Shakey’s Pizza.

2 The Poor Kid

One of the coolest elements about Kenny is the fact that, every now and then, he brings back his old Mysterion gimmick to delight the fans with some oddly sincere action. In “The Poor Kid,” his parents’ latest arrest has him and his siblings taken in by child services and sent to a foster home. However, they’re not better off there.

Their new foster parents are abusive, religiously sterile agnostics who force the kids to be really, really agnostic while also forcing them to drink Dr. Pepper. To protect his little sister, Kenny dawns the Mysterion costume once again to fight back against his foster parents.

1 The Coon Trilogy

Kenny’s greatest showcase to date has been within The Coon Trilogy. A parody and homage to the sudden rise of superhero films, The Coon Trilogy had the boys start their own superhero group within South Park. While it initially seems like all fun and games, Eric Cartman immediately takes things too far by trying to maintain a stranglehold of the group.

This eventually has him kicked out and, in grand, supervillain fashion, team up with the Lovecraftian lord of darkness, Cthulu. Up against the literal embodiment of evil and Cthulu, it’s up to the boys to stop him. It’s here that the series not only reveals that Kenny is Mysterion but even goes into depth as to why Kenny never seems to stay dead.

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