Five One-Time ‘South Park’ Characters Who Completely Stole the Show

1 Scuzzlebutt

Before South Park started to include more political and topical humor, the show relied on inspired silliness to generate laughs. The second episode, in which Stan’s Uncle Jimbo takes the boys hunting and camping, is a perfect example of this. While sitting around a campfire, Cartman tells the others a scary story about a terrifying creature with a goofy name. “Scuzzlebutt is a creature that lives up on this very mountain and kills anybody who dares climb to the top,” Cartman begins. “It loves the taste of blood, and likes to add pieces to its deformed body. On his left arm, instead of a hand he has a piece of celery. And he walks with a limp, because one of his legs is missing. And where his leg should be, there’s nothing but Patrick Duffy. He lives alone on this mountain, and weaves baskets, and other assorted crafts.”

Later in the episode, we meet the incredibly bizarre Scuzzlebutt, who lives up to his name. While many of Cartman’s details are shockingly correct — including the bit about Patrick Duffy — Scuzzlebutt proves to be friendly and even uses his basket-weaving skills to save the children from an erupting volcano. 

Unfortunately, Stan shoots Scuzzlebutt in the head immediately afterward, making future appearances impossible. He can occasionally be seen on the shirts of South Park residents, and in the video game South Park: The Stick of Truth, we see that Scuzzlebutt’s stuffed body resides in Jimbo’s gun shop.

2 Damien

Whereas Scuzzlebutt was likely best-served by one perfect episode, Damien, the son of the devil, deserved more screentime. He arrives at the end of the show’s first season and wreaks havoc in the school with his devilish superpowers. Meanwhile, most of the kids just pick on Damien, causing him to bond with Pip, the biggest loser in school — a pairing South Park fans loved.

His antics all lead up to a showdown between Satan and Jesus, whose call-in cable access show was still a big thing in South Park at the time. The fight ends with Jesus winning the bout and Satan walking away with a fortune because he was the only one who bet on the scrawny son of God, thus conning the South Park residents out of their money. 

Curiously, despite many episodes dealing with heaven, hell and religion in general, Damien never says another word. He can be spotted in the background of many scenes, but he’s never again had any impact on the plot, including in the episodes with his father. Of course, Pip was killed by Mecha-Streisand 15 years ago, but it’s still not too late for Damien to return.

3 The Family Guy Writers

Thanks to the appearance of the Prophet Muhammad, Season 10’s two-parter “Cartoon Wars” is now on the list of banned South Park episodes. Despite this, the episode is still beloved for its epic takedown of Family Guy, a show Matt Stone and Trey Parker are happy to it they hate for its lazy gag-based writing. 

In the episode, Cartman visits the Family Guy writers’ room only to find five manatees in a giant water tank containing balls with words written on them. A Family Guy staff member then explains to Cartman how a Family Guy joke is crafted: “You see, the right side of the tank is filled with idea balls. Each ball has a verb, noun or pop-culture reference written on it. There’s millions of them. The manatees choose an idea ball and swim it over to the joke to combine on the other side of the tank. The idea balls drop into the joke to combine and form part of the new script.”

The joke was profoundly funny, and the Family Guy-writing manatees will forever live in infamy, even if we can’t actually view the episode anymore.

4 Peetie the Sexual Harassment Panda

What does a panda have to do with sexual harassment? Nothing, and that’s the central joke around Peetie the Sexual Harassment Panda, who comes to South Park to educate children about sexual harassment. Whereas some of the characters on this list, like the manatees and Scuzzlebutt, have a memorable part of an episode, Peetie takes over the whole show; he even arrives with his own theme song and experiences an entire character arc that takes him from a mascot about sexual harassment to one about frivolous lawsuits.

It’s surprising we haven’t seen him in a non-background role since 1999, but perhaps Stone and Parker realized they squeezed everything they could out of the character in his one highly memorable appearance.

5 Evil Cartman

In Season Two’s “Spookyfish,” a portal is opened to another dimension in which everything is opposite. Cute, seemingly harmless creatures like goldfish are vicious killers, Stan and Kyle are evil and Cartman is unbelievably nice. We see many different versions of Cartman over the years, but nothing is quite as memorable as the sweet, goatee-wearing overweight kid who sings this diddy:

You guys are my best friends
Through thick and thin, we’ve always been together
We’re four of a kind, havin’ fun all day
Pallin’ around and laughin’ away
Just best friends, best friends are we