25 Best South Park Episodes Ranked

After more than 25 years on television, "South Park" still stands as an utterly unique institution even among the small crowd of animated comedies that have endured since the '90s. While the series has produced its fair share of episodes that have not aged well in that run, that can be largely attributed to creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone's penchant for timely social commentary.

"South Park" has served as a more comprehensive record of the cultural zeitgeist than pretty much any other fiction-based TV series over the last quarter century. While this can eventually make some episodes feel dated, they can also provide valuable insight into things pop culture once found important, and now are mostly asterisks and footnotes like the Paris Hilton gags in 2004's "Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset."

After decades of "South Park" mocking everyone from world leaders to pop stars, we're taking a step back to find out which episodes have stood the test of time as the true cream of the crop hundreds of episodes after the show's debut. With help from IMDb, let's take a closer look.

By surviving and thriving for well over 300 episodes to date, the longevity of "South Park" marks a substantial achievement, especially in the genre of animated comedy where lasting more than a season or two is a tall order even for a widely-beloved series. But compared to "The Simpsons" — with more than 750 episodes and 35 seasons to its credit — the longevity of "South Park" is a blip. 

"South Park" articulated its own futility of existing in the face of Springfield's towering dominance in "The Simpsons Already Did It" (Season 6, Episode 7), with a self-referencing plotline that had Professor Chaos realizing all his ideas for world domination and destruction could already be found in reruns of "The Simpsons" — but maybe he shouldn't feel bad about that.

The stakes on "South Park" usually feel light and fluffy, even when the humor goes dark. However, in the second-to-last episode of Season 5, the boys had to contend with an incredible tragedy that not even Cartman could chuckle about and shrug away. 

Kenny McCormick — a regular character and the tentpole of Stan, Kyle, and Cartman's circle of friends — slowly passed away from muscular dystrophy. Cartman took it upon himself to protest federal restrictions on stem cell research, in hopes that medicine and science could save his pal. Meanwhile, Stan and Kyle coped with grief, anger, and unsettling existential ramifications.  

What kind of God would kill a sweet child like Kenny before he could experience the full spectrum of life's joy? That God would have to be like ... well, a dated insult for a boy with unwed parents. 

Here we have the start of the aforementioned arc that also included "A Song of Ass and Fire" and "Titties and Dragon." Combine the trio, and you've got arguably one of the more trenchant pop culture parodies ever produced by "South Park." 

In "Black Friday" (Season 17, Episode 7), unhinged, violent consumerism befell the town as the holidays approached. Multiple characters reminded us that "winter is coming," and it was up to the social castoffs that comprised the mall security staff to keep the onslaught of Black Friday discount shoppers contained. 

"South Park" and "Game of Thrones" don't have a ton in common, but both programs sure do love to kill off characters — especially benevolent male authority figures. The parody trilogy does not disappoint in that regard. 

Since the beginning, lots of current events-inspired takes have fueled "South Park." With "Cartman Sucks" (Season 11, Episode 2), the show presented homophobia as an absurd tragedy, pulling no punches with its criticisms of conversion therapy. 

In the episode, religious organizations abused LGBT youths with "pray the gay away" programs, while a prank on Butters went awry and Cartman spiraled into gay panic. Butters' dad shipped him off to Camp New Grace, in an attempt to "cure" him of apparent bi-curiosity.

To call Mormonism a frequent "target" of Matt Stone and Trey Parker's comedy might be half true, but their attitude toward the Church of Latter-day Saints resonates more like fascination than contempt. Before the kingpins of snark converted their fixation into the Broadway musical "The Book of Mormon," there was "All About Mormons" (Season 7, Episode 12).

When a new family named the Harrisons moved into town, the "South Park" characters were thrown by how nice and perfect they seemed — and became determined to put a stop to it. Much like "Book of Mormon," the episode went out of its way to not just mock, but educate. As characters asked questions about Mormonism, it also pointed out all the things about its founding that make no sense. Of course, all this was also absurdly entertaining, making it essentially the blueprint for "Book of Mormon" some 5 years before that show opened on Broadway.

Somehow, it took "South Park" four seasons before it got around to addressing pedophilia with "Cartman Joins NAMBLA" (Season 4, Episode 5).

Growing weary of Stan, Kyle, and Kenny's company, Cartman logged into a chat room, describing himself as a young boy on the hunt for a mature new social circle. Naturally, he ended up amongst the ranks of the North American Man-Boy Love Association, remaining bafflingly oblivious to its members' intentions. 

These shenanigans and others resulted in a pack of naked child molesters, their intended victims, a squad of police, the North American Marlon Brando Look-Alikes, and a French waiter all simultaneously scrambling throughout a hotel hallway. Also, Kenny chased his pregnant mother with a plunger. 

Looking back years later, this might just be one of the darkest "South Park" episodes — which is really saying something. 

Butters first appeared in "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe" in 1997, but he was principally a background character — that is, until "Butter's Very Own Episode" (Season 5, Episode 14). 

After five years, Stan, Kyle, and Cartman had grown too cynical to resonate as fragile, wide-eyed children anymore. As a result, Butters' role was enhanced to reinstall a sense of sincerity into the show via his trusting nature and limited intellectual talents.

Butters' mom and dad encountered some martial problems in the episode, leading to the boy finding himself on an unforgettable road trip. By the end of the episode, Parker and Stone had made some jokes about famous, eventually-exonerated murder suspects that they admitted in 2011 may have been ill-considered.

Season 10's 7th episode is quite a bit like one of the rapid-fire exchanges of dialogue between Lorelai and Rory on "Gilmore Girls" — nobody in the audience is supposed to get 100 percent of the pop culture references, but most people should understand and appreciate at least 20 percent.

If you happen to be a fan of quasi-instructional reality television programs from the mid-'00s, this is the "South Park" episode for you. If you didn't have cable throughout much of that period, but you watch a lot of cult sci-fi/horror movies, then the jokes on "Tsst" will soar several feet over your head ... until a scene that parodies the ending of 1980's "Altered States" makes your face and organs mutate with jubilation.     

Absolute chucklefest though it may be, "Trapped in the Closet" (Season 9, Episode 12) became buzz-worthy for reasons beyond its humor. 

For starters, the merciless sendup of Scientology delivered via "Closet" led to Isaac Hayes (the longtime voice of Chef) departing the show. But "Trapped" also garnered wide praise for giving the L. Ron Hubbard-founded organization the business, so maybe it was worth it, even if it meant having to kill off Chef the next season.

"Trapped In the Closet" also reportedly annoyed noted Scientologist Tom Cruise so much that he threatened to no-show his promotional appearances for "Mission: Impossible III" unless Viacom — parent company of both Comedy Central and the "MI III" studio Paramount Pictures at the time — stopped airing the episode. 

If there was anything to the alleged attempt to censor "South Park," it clearly failed. The episode remains in rotation to this day.

Every time a celebrity, institution, genre of entertainment or anything else from the real world makes its way into the "South Park" universe, it's usually subjected to some degree of parody ... except, that is, for the anime episode. 

"Good Times With Weapons," never really seemed to be making fun of anime. Instead, it was just incorporating the aesthetic of Japanese action/sci-fi animation into "South Park." It was basically the inverse of what happened that one time on "FLCL." 

The Season 8 premiere also provided a cautionary tale against emulating what we see in escapist fantasy media. Ironically, after "Good Times With Weapons," you might never touch a throwing star ever again.

Thanks to factors too numerous to list here, even though its primary characters are all children, "South Park" can let them indulge in levels of depravity that its contemporaries cannot approach. Bart Simpson's a troublemaker; but as far as how much harm he can inflict, "The Simpsons" draws a line at shoplifting. Beavis and Butthead are too dumb to pose much of a threat to anyone but themselves. 

Meanwhile, in "Casa Bonita" (Season 7, Episode 11), Cartman manipulated Butters into allowing the whole town to consider him a potential murder victim. It was all part of an elaborate plan so Cartman could take Butters' place at Kyle's birthday party, which Cartman only cared about attending because it was at a Mexican restaurant he liked. 

Cartman, of course, is a monster — and it seems likely he'd be in prison now if he existed in the real world and/or aged in real time.   

The eighth episode of season 10, kind of like "Good Times with Weapons" before it, melded the totally simplistic and absolutely distinctive animation of "South Park" with a style from an action genre that, to say the least, never could've originated with cardboard cutouts. 

A decent-sized portion of the episode took place in the "Warcraft" MMO universe, depicted with video game-style graphics. In the usual "South Park" reality, the boys utterly let themselves go into a physical downward spiral of snacking, caffeinated drinks, and abysmal personal hygiene while their minds become soaked in what a non-gamer might confuse with digital "Dungeons & Dragons."   

To devote the maximum amount of time and attention to defeating a high-level player who preys on lower-levelers for cheap thrills, Cartman stops leaving his computer to go to the bathroom. This forces his long-suffering mother to provide on-command bucket service — one of the most simultaneously amusing and disgusting moments in all of "South Park."