South Park: Kyle's Best Episodes Of All Time

Mel Gibson raised more than a few eyebrows with the release of his film "The Passion of the Christ," a retelling of the final hours of Jesus Christ's life. The film was slammed by the Anti-Defamation League for depicting Jews as a "blood-thirsty" mob, warning that it could "fan the flames of hatred" against Jewish people. The "South Park" episode "The Passion of the Jew" serves as Matt Stone (who is an atheist of Jewish descent) and Trey Parker's characteristically unsubtle reaction to Gibson's film, as told through Kyle's perspective.

After viewing "The Passion of the Christ," Stan and Kenny are appalled and set out to get their money back. They are informed that the only way they can get a refund is to ask Gibson directly, so they head to Malibu to seek him out. Meanwhile, the Jewish Kyle finds himself guilt-ridden by the film and seeks advice from the local rabbi, who tells him that "everybody knows this is just a movie" and that they "live in a rational community."

This, of course, isn't true. A backlash against Jewish people is in full swing when Gibson himself turns up in South Park, having chased Stan and Kenny all the way from Malibu. He crashes into the movie theater and then smears excrement on the building. This, along with a speech from Stan, convinces everyone that Gibson's film is not to be taken seriously.

The Season 15 episode "HumancentiPad" plays on the idea that people rarely read the small print when they sign up for a new streaming service or software subscription. Inspired by the body horror film "The Human Centipede (First Sequence)," the episode deals with Kyle's revelation that the small print he agreed to on his iPad came with a very disturbing clause — one that involves Kyle forcibly donating his body to Apple's next iteration of the iPad. Like the source material it references, this episode is one of the show's more unabashedly depraved, and although Kyle is its central character, he doesn't have many lines.

The episode's development was chronicled in the Comedy Central documentary "6 Days to Air," which documents how the writers and animators feverishly develop and pull together each episode in a matter of days. As revealed in the short film, Trey Parker's first inspiration for "HumancentiPad" grew out of his own frustration with constant iTunes updates, which caused him to wonder if he was actually agreeing to something terrible. Like many of the best "South Park" episodes, "HumancentiPad" features plenty of shocking humor and deals with Cartman's constant attacks on Kyle. But somewhere in all of that dark humor, the episode still manages to make a valid point, in this case about our relationship with technology.

One of a handful of episodes that deal with Kyle's relationship with his Jewish faith, "Jewbilee" finds Kyle and Ike heading off to a Jewish scout camp called Jewbilee (with Kenny in tow, despite Kyle's parents warning him that he might not fit in). The event coincides with a meteor shower and lines up with the other two episodes in the "Meteor Shower Trilogy," titled "Cat Orgy" and "Two Guys Naked in a Hot Tub."

At Jewbilee, camp elders separate the big kids from the younger scouts (called "Squirts"). They end up in the woods pursuing a bear as the rest of the scouts work on creating popcorn necklaces and macaroni pictures to appease Moses, who appears in the form of a hovering dreidel inspired by the Master Control Program from "Tron." When the prophet banishes Kenny as a Gentile, an anti-Semitic camp elder named Garth traps Moses in a conch shell, intending to summon Old Testament bad guy Haman and enslave all the Jews.

Fortunately, Kenny comes back just in time to save the day with the help of the Squirts. It's one of the few episodes where Kenny has a chance to shine, even if his heroics lead to his (predictable) demise. In their DVD commentary for the episode, Trey Parker and Matt Stone cite "Jewbilee" as one of their favorite episodes ever, despite it arising from extreme sleep deprivation.

"The List" finds Kyle hitting rock bottom after the boys stumble onto the class girls' list ranking every boy in their school from cutest to ugliest. After an elaborate plot to get their hands on the list, the guys discover Clyde scored the top spot and Kyle came in last, ranked even below the obnoxious, misogynistic, and sexist Cartman. As the revelation transforms Clyde into his most outgoing self, Kyle is relegated to a life among the "ugly kids," where he soon begins spiraling into toxicity, even planning to burn down the school.

The truth behind the list is revealed when Stan convinces Wendy to investigate. It turns out the list is rigged in Clyde's favor because his father owns a shoe shop, a shoe shop Bebe wants access to. Superficially, the story is full of the type of silly hijinks and gags that make "South Park" so much fun to watch. But, taken with many of the show's other Kyle-centric episodes, it paints a wider picture of Kyle's need to fit in and his troubled sense of self. In terms of broader "South Park" lore, it adds to the sense that Kyle maintains his troubled friendship with Cartman because looking down on him helps Kyle feel better about himself.

The two-part episode "Cartoon Wars" is among the "South Park" episodes banned by parent streamer Max due to discussion and/or depiction of the Muslim prophet Muhammad. Once again, Kyle and Cartman's rivalry takes center stage. The trouble begins when it's revealed that "Family Guy" intends to show an image of Muhammad in an upcoming episode. Most Muslims believe that "Muhammad, or any of the other prophets of Islam, should not be pictured in any way," per the BBC. Buying into Cartman's apparent concern that "Family Guy" will needlessly offend Muslims, Kyle accompanies his frenemy to Hollywood, but soon realizes that Cartman only cares because he hates "Family Guy" and wants to get it canceled.

Speaking to IGN, Trey Parker and Matt Stone noted that they clashed with Comedy Central higher-ups over "Cartoon Wars" showing Muhammad. "We fought and we fought and we fought, and the network was just like, 'We're not going to show Muhammad,'" Parker said. "And that was really hard to figure out how do we do this in a way that the audience knows we meant to show Muhammad and the network isn't showing Muhammad."

Despite Comedy Central's ultimate decision to censor the scene featuring Muhammad, the episode would become one of the most acclaimed in the series, with many viewers praising the creators' commitment to upholding free speech. As often is the case, it's Kyle who sums up those values when he tells the president of Fox, "Yes, people can get hurt. That's how terrorism works. But if you give into that, Doug, you're allowing terrorism to work."

Kyle gets the chance to invite three friends to Casa Bonita for his birthday in this Season 7 episode, and Cartman isn't among them. But, after Cartman musters a halfway decent apology for his past behavior toward Kyle, Kyle tells him that if Butters can't go for any reason, Cartman can take his place. Because Cartman is Cartman, he immediately convinces Butters the planet is about to be struck by a meteor and lures him into a bomb shelter, where he's supposed to remain for the duration of the party.

The plan almost works, but when Kyle learns Butters is missing, he postpones his birthday party to wait for his friend's return, forcing Cartman to improvise a more elaborate post-apocalyptic ruse. Just as he eventually ends up at Casa Bonita, the truth about Cartman's misdeeds comes out, causing everyone to turn on him. The episode as a whole is one of the series' best, with A.V. Club noting its role in drawing patrons to the real cult-favorite restaurant — a restaurant Trey Parker and Matt Stone have since purchased. It's also nice to see Kyle establishing boundaries for himself, even if those boundaries are immediately trampled on by Cartman.

Taking aim at New Jersey-themed reality shows like "The Real Housewives of New Jersey" and "Jersey Shore," "It's a Jersey Thing" sees the town of South Park rapidly taken over by New Jersey Syndrome after a New Jersey family moves in next door to the Marshes. Soon, "everything east of the Rockies" is New Jersey and South Park's residents are scrambling to stop the spread. Kyle's mother reveals her Jersey roots and the revelation has a profound impact on him: He soon finds himself gelling up his red hair and ripping off his sleeves.

Kyle's full Jersey transformation yields some of his funniest scenes in the series, culminating in a vulgarity-laden showdown at the Sizzler. While the episode doesn't contain a lot of meaningful social commentary, it has a rollicking good time making a mockery of Jersey reality TV personalities, many of whom apparently took the whole thing in their stride. Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi, who is depicted as a gremlin in the episode, tweeted that she'd "officially made it," while co-star Vinny Guadagnino said, "My face was on South Park, I'm good now."