It’s hard to remember now, but there was a time when South Park was just the "poop joke show." In the late nineties, parents were terrified of it, critics thought it was a flash in the pan, and the animation was, well, even cruder than it is today. Then 2001 hit. South Park Season 5 happened. If you go back and watch those fourteen episodes, you aren't just watching a cartoon; you’re watching Matt Stone and Trey Parker realize they could do literally anything they wanted.
They stopped just being shock jocks. They became the smartest guys in the room.
Honestly, the shift is staggering. This is the year we got "Scott Tenorman Must Die." Before that episode, Cartman was a bratty, annoying kid who said "screw you guys." After that episode? He became a legitimate sociopath. A legend. It’s arguably the most important pivot in the history of adult animation.
The Year Cartman Became a Monster
Most shows take years to find their footing. South Park found its soul by leaning into the darkness. In "Scott Tenorman Must Die," the show abandoned the "boys being boys" trope for something much grittier. Cartman feeding a teenager his own parents in a bowl of chili wasn't just a gross-out gag. It was a declaration. It told the audience: don't trust these kids. Radiohead even showed up. They didn't voice themselves as heroes; they were just there to laugh at a crying kid. It was brutal. It was perfect.
Varying the tone was key. One week you’re watching a kid get his heart crushed, and the next, you’re watching "Cripple Fight," which introduced Jimmy Valmer. It's wild to think about how Jimmy was originally meant to be a one-off character. A rival for Timmy. But his "handi-capable" upbeat attitude was so funny that he became a staple. This season basically built the bench of side characters that keep the show alive twenty-five years later.
Pushing the FCC to the Breaking Point
Then there’s "It Hits the Fan." People forget how big of a deal this was in 2001. They said the word "sh*t" 162 times on basic cable. There was a literal counter on the screen.
It sounds juvenile. It was. But it was also a targeted strike at the hypocrisy of television censorship. Why is a word dangerous? Why does a counter make it okay? Parker and Stone were testing the walls of their cage. By the time the episode ended, the cage was gone. They won.
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The episode also features a "knights of the round table" subplot that makes zero sense if you think about it too hard, but that’s the beauty of Season 5. It doesn't care about your logic. It cares about the punchline.
Towelie and the Art of the Bad Character
Let’s talk about the towel. South Park Season 5 gave us Towelie, and he is objectively the worst character ever conceived. That was the point.
The creators were annoyed by the massive merchandising push following the show's early success. Everyone wanted a piece of the South Park pie. So, they created a character specifically designed to be marketed. A talking blue towel that gets high. He’s annoying. He’s repetitive. He has no depth.
"You're a towel!"
"No, you're a towel!"
The fans loved him anyway. It was a meta-commentary on how audiences will consume whatever garbage you feed them if you brand it right. It’s sort of brilliant, in a deeply stupid way. The episode "Towelie" actually focuses more on the kids trying to get their Okama Gamesphere back than the towel itself, showing that the boys were still the grounded center of an increasingly insane world.
Butters Stott and the Rise of the Innocent
If Season 5 was the birth of "Evil Cartman," it was also the coronation of Butters. Before this, he was a background extra. By the end of the season finale, "Butters' Very Own Episode," he was the show's beating heart.
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That episode is dark. Like, really dark.
His mom tries to kill him. His dad is caught in a series of "wrestling" encounters at local theaters. Butters just wanders through it all with that "gee whiz" smile. It’s the perfect foil to the cynicism of the rest of the cast. You need Butters. Without him, the show is just a bunch of people yelling at each other. He provides the empathy. Even if he does end up grounded for things that aren't his fault 99% of the time.
Handling Controversy Before It Was a Sport
Looking back, "Super Best Friends" is a weird time capsule. It’s the episode that features a depiction of the Prophet Muhammad. At the time? Not a huge deal. It aired, people laughed at the "Justice League" parody featuring Buddha, Jesus, and Sea-Man, and everyone moved on.
Flash forward a few years, and that same episode is basically scrubbed from the internet and streaming services due to safety concerns.
It’s a fascinating look at how the world changed while South Park stayed exactly the same. The show didn't get more offensive; the world just got more sensitive to what they were doing. Seeing the "Super Best Friends" fight a giant John Wilkes Booth statue is comedy gold that most modern fans can't even find on Max or Paramount+.
Ben and Jerry, Matt and Trey
There’s a specific energy to this season that feels like the creators finally stopped trying to please everyone. They had just finished South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, and they were tired. You can feel that "I don't care" attitude in episodes like "Osama bin Laden Has Farty Pants."
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Airing just weeks after 9/11, it was the first major comedy to tackle the tragedy. It could have been a disaster. Instead, it was exactly what people needed. It portrayed the Taliban as idiots and bin Laden as a Looney Tunes character. It stripped away the fear by making the villain look pathetic.
That’s the power of this specific era.
The Practical Legacy of Season 5
If you’re a writer, a creator, or just a fan, there are three massive takeaways from this specific stretch of episodes:
- Character subversion is everything. Don't let your characters stay static. Cartman’s shift from "annoying kid" to "villain" saved the show from becoming a parody of itself.
- Lean into the "bad" ideas. Towelie shouldn't work. On paper, it's a terrible concept. But by leaning into the "badness," they created an icon.
- Context is king. The 162-word count in "It Hits the Fan" worked because it was about the absurdity of the rules, not just the word itself.
To really appreciate where the show is now, you have to go back to this pivot point. Watch "Scott Tenorman Must Die" followed immediately by "Butters' Very Own Episode." You'll see the two poles of the series—pure malice and pure innocence—established in the span of a few months.
Go find the physical DVDs if you can. The creator commentaries (the "Mini-Commentaries") for this season are legendary. Matt and Trey talk about how they almost quit, how they hated certain episodes, and why they thought the show was about to be cancelled. It’s the best "film school" you can get for the price of a used disc.
Stop scrolling and actually re-watch "The Entity." The segment about the airline industry is still painfully accurate today. Some things never change, and South Park Season 5 is the reason we still have the show to complain about it.