“South Park” has been a monumental series for a seemingly endless amount of reasons but every decade the show seemed to do something to attract extra attention to itself. Most recently “South Park” released their newest of up to 14 specials that the creators of the series were signed on to write during their extensive deals between Paramount and HBO Max. In the most recent special, amply titled “The Streaming Wars”, the town sees one of the oldest characters to have ever threatened the characters of the show, and their town comes back in an interesting way. The idea of old, evil, characters returning to South Park more than a second time brings on the question: Does “South Park” have villains? Below, we’ve gone into detail on the concept of the classic cartoon villain, and if it applies to South Park in the same sense that it has in the past for franchises such as Disney, Marvel, DC Comics, and similar franchises, and media with a typical hero/villain concept or theme.
South Park
For those somehow unaware, “South Park” was among the shows, following in the steps of the animated king “The Simpsons”, in bringing cartoons to adult audiences, something that used to be strictly considered “child friendly”, but as the millennium has continued to age more and more animated adult comedies are coming to life every day. Among those television shows, South Park has somehow consistently remained the most raunchy, and less considerate when making their jokes but also somehow extremely complex and intelligent all at the same time.
The General Concept of Villains
Villains tend to be overly-returning enemies of popularized heroes that overall result in an endless conflict between the two parties, what separated a villain from a normal reoccurring enemy may ultimately reflect in their power and attitude. or general demeanor and hatred toward a particular hero. While “South Park” has had many reoccurring characters, that sometimes don’t make a second appearance until over a decade after their first appearance. few have truly earned themselves the potential title of “South Park villain”, and so much so that the show has never truly acknowledged any one character as a villain. The only time any sort of villain ideal was thrown around throughout “South Park” was the strange tenure that showcased the kids as unique “South Park” branded heroes, and villains. Overall, that era of “South Park” was part of the earliest attempts are turning the show into the concept heavy, consequential, timeline obedient show it has become known for today.
South Park Potential Villains
As stated above, “South Park” never truly stated any one character or another as a villain, there have been several times. throughout South Park history that evil, bad, or benevolent characters have returned with a sort of vengeance toward another. Generally, any issues showed throughout “South Park” are always either created internally on accident or an external issue tends to “invade” the town in sorts, transforming it and causing the residents of “South Park” to deal with the issue first-hand. When it comes to specific characters from the show, outside of Cartman who has been the hero and villain, showing potential signs of being a villain, few characters truly fit the criteria but below we’ve gone into some detail on characters that could hold a potential villain status.
Professor Chaos
Professor Chaos was a simple character at first, no different from the other character and their superhero alter-egos when they premiered, but Professor Chaos existed long before the boys had their own alter-egos as they pushed Butters out of the friend group and forced the anger and rejection within and turned him into Professor Chaos. While Professor Chaos had an early start on South Park, the character wasn’t anything too major or actually powerful for anyone except Butters himself, who would tend to get in trouble for his actions as Professor Chaos. In Season 6, we were given a two-part episode in which Professor Chaos tried to destroy the rest of the boys but ultimately was stopped, before appearing again in Season 8, and the character of The Coon was introduced in Season 13 before Professor Chaos arrived yet again. In Season 14, the superhero alter-egos took full form for all of the boys in a three-part series of episodes that was them facing off against Professor Chaos yet again. Most recently, before “The Streaming Wars” special, Professor Chaos, and Butters, were simultaneously introduced in “Post COVID: The Return of COVID” as a convicted criminal for NFT cons.
ManBearPig
Finally, in the most recent “South Park” special, “The Streaming Wars”, ManBearPig made a surprise confirmation as to the town’s suspicions of who could have been committing specific crimes. As the nearly an hour special progressed we saw the changes ManBearPig went through to get to where he is from the original appearances of the character, and the first time Al Gore wasn’t brought up at all around the character’s existence. Overall, while we were originally introduced to ManBearPig as a character linked to global warming, the character has evolved into a proper “South Park” villain, from coming up randomly with different motives for his kills to his newest greaser/mobster style shown throughout The Streaming Wars, and the expected follow-up special.
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