The Death of Eric Cartman

Infobox Television episode
Title = The Death of Eric Cartman
Series = South Park


Caption = Butters hides from Cartman.
Season = 9
Episode = 131
Airdate = April 13, 2005
Production = 906
Writer = Trey Parker
Director =
Guests =
Episode list = List of "South Park" episodes
Season list = Infobox South Park season 9 episode list
Prev =
Next ="The Death of Eric Cartman" is episode number 906 of the Comedy Central series South Park. It originally aired April 13, 2005.

Plot

The boys wait in Stan's kitchen for his mom to come home with KFC. The boys are incredibly excited and are impatiently awaiting her arrival. When she shows up, she tells the boys before they can eat they must help her bring in the groceries. Instead of whining, Cartman suggests they all work together to bring in the groceries so that they can get to eat dinner faster. The other three boys agree and quickly head to the garage. Cartman doubles-back and begins to eat the skin of every piece of chicken in the bucket. When the boys return to eat they discover Cartman's betrayal. The boys are very angry but Cartman proclaims he didn't eat it all, he left them the meat -- however, "everyone knows that the skin is the best part!" Cartman leaves, telling the others that he's going home to sit on the toilet and read comic books. Stan, Kyle and Kenny stare at the remains of the chicken in shock. Kenny is so hurt he starts crying.

The next morning at the bus stop, Stan, Kyle and Kenny are incredibly angry at Cartman for ruining their treat. Realizing that he thrives on the fact that they rip on him, they decide that the best way to deal with him is to completely ignore him. Cartman, however, discovering that nobody seems to see or hear him, believes that he has died and become a ghost. This seems confirmed when he goes home and sees a casket-like box coming out of his house, which the men carrying it mentioning that it was filled with chicken skins, when in reality, it is the toilet that Cartman destroyed with his last use of it. He also hears his mother crying because she thinks that he is dead. In reality, she's actually moaning while having sex with the plumber.

While most of the kids in South Park soon join in Stan, Kyle and Kenny's resolution to ignore Cartman, Butters is unaware of the movement, and so greets Cartman as he passes by. Both believe that Butters is somehow psychically able to see him, and set off to try to allow Cartman to go to Heaven (Cartman claims he can't go to hell because he is not 'black'). First, Cartman has Butters apologize to everyone on his behalf; when that fails to allow Cartman to pass over, Butters makes a list of all of Cartman's sins, and they try making amends to various people Cartman has wronged via gift baskets. When this too fails, Cartman goes berserk, destroys Butters' room with a baseball bat, and ends up getting Butters thrown in an insane asylum, where Butters is anally probed by a machine for over 14 hours.

After breaking Butters out from the asylum, the two consult a psychic, who suggests that God has kept Cartman on Earth to help with some kind of crisis. When they hear of a hostage situation at a Red Cross center, the two set off and Cartman manages to stop the criminals by moving things around. The robbers are merely befuddled at the child's behavior, which provides enough of a distraction for the police to end the hostage situation. Cartman and Butters are credited with saving the day, "armed only with the weapon of confusion", as a news reporter put it. After this, Cartman's classmates arrive and tell him they're willing to be his friend again, thinking he has truly changed. When they leave, Cartman (mortified and furious that he had apologized to everybody "for nothing") again goes berserk and inexplicably blames Butters. At the end of the episode, after Cartman has sworn revenge, Butters's parents arrive with the doctor, making Butters realize he's going back to the asylum again.

Production

The idea of having Cartman eat the skin off of an entire tub of fried chicken came from a similar script meeting one evening when Trey Parker, Matt Stone and the remaining writing staff were sitting around a table having a bucket of KFC chicken for dinner while they discussed ideas and someone mentioned how terrible it would be if someone stole all the skins when everyone else was out of the room. [South Park: Season 9 DVD Boxset Episode Commentary]

References