The 10 Best South Park Episodes, Ranked – SlashFilm

As of September 2024, “South Park” has aired 328 episodes over 26 seasons. Not all of these episodes are winners, but there’ve been enough classics to make it seem wild for anyone to think they could narrow it down to just a top 10. Nevertheless, I’m going to try, and all I ask is that you show me some grace when I inevitably exclude some of your favorites.

For full disclosure, I should confess that I am a big fan of Butters, Tweek, and pre-Tegridy Farms Randy, so don’t be surprised if they seem a little over-represented. I also still hold a grudge against Cartman for eating all the skin off those KFC wings, so I’m not gonna include many episodes where Cartman gets a win. I prefer the episodes where Cartman suffers or is punished for his lifetime of horrendous behavior. In other words, “With Apologies to Jesse Jackson” is getting snubbed here, seeing as it features a subplot where Cartman successfully bullies a little person to the point of mental deterioration.

I’m also generally not a fan of the gross-out humor, so episodes like “Human CentiPad” won’t be making the list, despite having some of the funniest individual moments in the show. As much as I appreciate the absurdity of Apple’s terms and conditions allowing them to throw Kyle into the middle of a human centipede situation, the fact that I can’t eat a snack while watching this knocks that episode out of the top 10 for me.

Spoilers below…

One common complaint about “South Park” is that it’s a little too focused on contemporary problems. Its fast production time means the writers can address the issues of the week in a way that “The Simpsons” or “Family Guy” never could, which means a lot of older episodes have either aged poorly or just feel irrelevant to a modern audience. “Margaritaville,” meanwhile, displays the upside of this approach. The episode now serves as a fun little history lesson of what life was like during the worst of the Great Recession. Things were chaotic and terrifying, and nobody quite knew how America was gonna dig its way out of it. Did the feds really decapitate a chicken to figure out what to do next? Probably not, but in the mess of the time, it was as good a solution as any.

The show’s take on the recession gives us some of the funniest moments in “South Park” history, from the birth of the “Aanndd it’s gone” meme to Randy’s rant about how everyone else (not him, of course) caused this mess through their irresponsible financial choices. The first act in particular is a masterclass of comedic pacing, giving us killer joke after killer joke without any slowing down. By making zero attempts to be timeless, by zeroing in so tightly on capturing one specific historical moment, “Margaritaville” ended up being one of the best-aged episodes of the entire show.

This episode’s inclusion surprised me a bit, given how much I hate it when Cartman wins — that and because I don’t like gross-out humor. “Scott Tenorman Must Die,” which concludes with Cartman feeding a kid his own parents who’ve been ground into chili, does both. Yet, the episode is so fun and sharply written that it wins me over anyway.

The story is an apparent battle of wits between Scott and Cartman, which pulls the rug out and reveals that Scott was playing checkers and Cartman was playing chess. Never underestimate Cartman was Kyle and Stan’s takeaway from the episode, and it’s a lesson fans have never forgotten. The fun cameo from Radiohead doesn’t hurt either.

This episode deserves props not just for its boldness, upping the shock factor in a series that had seemingly already violated every taboo, but also in the way it changed Cartman for the better. In the early seasons, Cartman was more of the victim of Kyle and Stan’s antics; he was an annoying grouchy brat, sure, but he wasn’t the scheming, love-to-hate manipulator we know today. This was the moment the writers realized Cartman was more interesting in the role of an active villain, not some loser everyone else picks on.

This episode took on Tourette’s Syndrome, and it did so with an unexpected sensitivity. The Tourette Association of America noted afterward, “The episode was surprisingly well-researched. The highly exaggerated emphasis on coprolalia notwithstanding, for the attentive viewer, there was a surprising amount of accurate information conveyed.”

Sure enough, it is impressive just how much accurate information “South Park” squeezes into the episode’s premise, which involves Cartman pretending to have Tourette’s so he can use curse words and slurs with no consequences. It’s fun to watch how Kyle instantly understands what he’s doing, even if all the adults around him are oblivious to the ruse. 

What makes the whole episode work is new character Thomas, a kid with Tourette’s who’s not only written in a complex, sympathetic way, but who catches on to what Cartman’s doing too and helps Kyle take him down. Tragically, Cartman doesn’t quite get his comeuppance here; although he starts developing Tourette symptoms for real,  blurting out his embarrassing secrets, Kyle and Thomas accidentally save him from doing a televised interview with Chris Hansen. Still, it’s fun to watch Cartman squirm as his scheme backfires, even if he escapes the situation with his dignity still intact.

For the first 18 seasons, Craig and Tweek barely had any interactions with each other, give or take one bizarre season 3 outing (“Tweek vs Craig”) where the main gang tricked them into a big schoolyard fight. Despite this, some “South Park” fans still somehow started shipping the two characters, making Yaoi art of the two for years on end. It’s the sort of thing that you’d never expect the showrunners to even know about, much less address on the show itself.

That’s what makes it so fun to watch as this episode not only incorporates real Yaoi fan art into the series, but does so in a way that’s surprisingly neither dismissive nor mean-spirited towards that section of the fanbase. Trey Parker and Matt Stone made those Creek shippers’ dreams come true, all while delivering one of the funniest episodes in a strong season 19. My favorite sequence is the “Say Something” montage right after Tweek and Craig’s break-up, in which the entire town has such a serious, emotional response to the news. The imagery of the mayor crying over her husband’s grave, for instance, is genuinely heart-wrenching, but then you remember the context behind it (she’s crying because two fourth grade boys faked a break up) and you laugh again.

“Tweek x Craig” is both a heartfelt coming out storyline (sort of) and a deeply sarcastic skewering of shipping culture gone too far; it’s one of the most fascinating entries in an already ambitious season of the show. It’s also one of many examples of the series’ surprising willingness to evolve with the times, which has helped a ton with avoiding so many of the pitfalls of modern-day “Simpsons” or “Family Guy.”

This might not be the outright funniest episode in the show, but it is the most cathartic. After 12 seasons of growing malevolence from Cartman, the long-suffering Wendy Testaburger has finally had enough. She challenges Cartman to a fight in front of the whole school, Cartman realizes she’s serious, and he spends the next 20 minutes trying and failing to weasel his way out of it.

The episode’s great in part because of how it captures that elementary school excitement of hearing a fight’s going down, and also because of how well it reminds us that Cartman’s a cowardly, manipulative jerk before punishing him for it. Like most of Cartman’s misfortunes, his suffering here is entirely of his own making; all he has to do is give a genuine apology to Wendy. Hell, even without a decent apology, his tattletale strategy could’ve worked too if he hadn’t continued to mock Wendy after pulling it off.

Making the climactic finale even better is the knowledge that the fight could’ve gone differently. It’s easy to picture the writers finding the humor in subverting expectations and having Cartman win the fight somehow, but Parker and Stone knew that this wasn’t what fans wanted. They knew it was time to knock the teeth out of this nine-year-old child, and they didn’t hesitate to let it happen.

Some of the best “South Park” stories are the ones that embrace the kids’ childlike innocence, and that’s what makes “Lil’ Crime Stoppers” so delightful. They’re having fun using their imagination, hanging out and solving small neighborhood crimes in their own special way. Of course, this is still “South Park,” where the adults are much more clownish than the kids and anything could happen, so it’s fitting when the story somehow escalates into explosive, life-or-death shootout sequences.

This isn’t the flashiest episode of the show, and it’s not one I see that often in top 10 lists, but it definitely deserves more love. As nice and familiar as it is to see Kyle and Cartman butting heads, it’s even better to see the gang working together as a group, just hanging out and enjoying life. This season 7 gem is one of the best examples of this style of episode. (Although “Quest for Ratings,” “A Ladder to Heaven,” and “Child Abduction is Not Funny” also deserve some love for capturing the same vibe.)

This one hits home for me because, as a huge fan of “Guitar Hero” growing up, this episode was exactly how it felt. Okay, so I didn’t get addicted to a heroin-based video game, but you get what I mean. The episode captures what it feels like to have your whole friend group obsessed with a specific video game, to enjoy the spectacle of just one or two people playing it while everyone else watches and roots them on. A good video game when you’re a kid can feel like the most important thing in the world, and that’s exactly how it feels to Stan as he gets roped into the hedonistic rock and roll party scene.

I also appreciate “Guitar Queer-O” for capturing that specific type of bafflement adults had back during the height of “Guitar Hero,” where they were wondering why the kids were dedicating so much time to learning a fake guitar when learning to play a real guitar would be so much more rewarding. “That’s gay, Mr. Marsh,” Cartman tells Randy when he plays a song for the kids on an actual guitar. For nine-year-olds in the 2000s, this really was the prevailing wisdom, and it’s impressive how well “South Park” captured that.

In addition to being a fun episode for the lovely Jimmy, “Fishsticks” is a well-observed deep dive into Cartman’s specific brand of narcissism. He’s a guy who will always believe he’s in the right; not only will he lie to people to make this case, but he will straight-up misremember events to paint himself in the best light possible. No wonder he never changes — he’s mentally incapable of acknowledging any of his mistakes.

Famously, “Fishsticks” is the episode that pissed off Kanye West by presenting him as a guy so humorless and insecure that he reacts to a fourth grader’s joke by going on a murder rampage, then jumping into the ocean to embrace his new life as a gay fish. What makes the situation even funnier is the real West’s interview years later, in which he made it clear that he still doesn’t understand the joke. (No, seriously: he somehow doesn’t get it.) “Fishsticks” isn’t just funny on its own; it’s downright prophetic. Years before West fully lost his way, “South Park” had him pegged.

I love Butters and I hate Cartman; of course “Awesome-O” is making the list. After Cartman pretends to be a robot to pull another mean prank on Butters, Butters obliviously reveals that he’s got an embarrassing video of Cartman he’s ready to leak to the whole town the next time Cartman crosses him. The recording may be a devious plan from Butters, but for the most part this episode’s Butters is as innocent and wholesome as ever. He thinks he’s found a cool robot friend, unaware that he’s putting Cartman through unimaginable mental and physical anguish. Good for him.

What’s cool about “Awesome-O” is how naturally the humor flows from this simple premise. Things keep escalating out of Cartman’s control and he keeps barely managing to hold it all together. The story squeezes in some mockery of 2000s Hollywood’s love of Adam Sandler, as well as a parody of the sci-fi movie trope where the salt-of-the-earth army guy trashes on the nerdy scientist, leaving just enough time for Cartman to be exposed in the final minutes. “Awesome-O” ends with Cartman’s embarrassing video being played for everyone’s enjoyment; I almost feel bad for him, but then I remember how he tried to start a second Holocaust, and the feeling passes.

“South Park” is often praised for its truth-telling, and nowhere is that more deserved than in “The Losing Edge,” where the showrunners come right out and say it: baseball is horrible. Even worse is Little League, where the games are boring and the parents in the crowd are often so obnoxious that they can ruin the vibes for everyone. If you’ve ever watched a parent scream and curse at the 13-year-old umpire for a call they made against their 11-year-old child, you can probably relate to this episode. 

“The Losing Edge” is “South Park” at its most sarcastic, skewering classic sports movie tropes through the apathetic child cast (who want to lose a game so the season can finally end) and the over-passionate adult cast (who never notice how miserable their kids are). Randy is at his best here, needlessly fighting with another dad in the crowd every single game, screaming “I thought this America!” each time as the cops pull him away. 

It all leads to one of the most triumphant Randy moments in the show, where he says “I didn’t hear no bell” and jumps back into his fistfight with Batdad, guaranteeing a forfeit for the South Park team. It’s a hilarious example of Randy’s drunken delusion being used for good, and of the episode’s two main storylines suddenly colliding in an exciting, satisfying way. Stan’s right: Randy really is the greatest, even if poor Sharon doesn’t think so.