Funny Episodes From South Park: Season 1
In the article South Park: the Early Years I talked about how the show South Park has changed compared to its humble beginnings as a pair of shorts that told the story of four boys experiencing Christmas in horrible and bloody ways, but managed to eventually acquire a syndicated pilot episode. In the article South Park: the Stick of Truth I talked about how South Park: the Stick of Truth was a game that took all of what made South Park awesome, and condensed it all into a video game. But South Park: the Stick of Truth would not have been the game it was if South Park did not have a huge plethora of episodes to chose from. And some of these episodes were honestly ridiculously funny for their own reasons. Particularly in the first season. Telling the story of the misadventures of Stan, Kyle, Eric, and Kenny, South Park was a show that dealt with unique problems like a volcano, an attempt to make an elephant have sexual intercourse with a pig, and finding out the identity of Cartman's father. These episodes also introduced familiar aspects of certain characters. Volcano introduced Stan's uncle Jimbo and his tendency to shoot anything and everything with a gun and the idiocy of some of South Park's inhabitants. An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig introduced pets that belonged to two of the main characters being forced to make love to each other and the dangers o cloning. Cartman's Mom Is a Dirty Slut introduced Mrs. Cartman's sexual promiscuity. All of these episodes were surreal, all of these episodes had Kenny dying graphically violent deaths, and all of these episodes had some very hilarious moments when establishing individual traits for its characters.
Volcano
As the third episode in South Park's first season, Volcano fleshed-out some of the characters of South Park. For Stan, it was the introduction of his uncle Jimbo and his war buddy Ned. In this episode the boys, Jimbo, and Ned went out into the forest for a hunting trip. During the hunting trip,one of the recurring traits about Jimbo was his enjoyment of having a gun. As a parody of major conservative values, Jimbo believed that not only should everybody have a gun, but he also believed one should be free to shoot a gun at certain animals when hunting, regardless of its status as an endangered species. One good example came when the group encountered a rare Rock Mountain Black Bear. After shooting it to death, Jimbo explained that due to democrats passing laws that prohibited hunting certain creatures, Jimbo had to basically pretend that a creature was about to attack him, which provided a loophole with which Jimbo could justify killing various animals. This technicality in shooting laws provided some of the comedic moments of this episode. Another comedic moment provided in this episode came from the introduction of Stan's father, Randy. Here the viewer found out that Randy worked as a geologist. After informing the mayor of an impending eruption, the mayor helped the locals of South Park prepare for the eruption in two ways. First was watch a video about how to avoid getting burned. Which involved a duck-and-cover maneuver. Another method was to dig a trench to divert the lava away from South Park. This was also a hilarious moment from this episode because no matter what happened, people got burned to death. This episode mostly introduced the more idiotic aspects about the populace inhabiting South Park.
An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig
South Park, for all its faults, always made sure that it was honest in what will happen in an episode. An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig was such an episode because the creators actually introduced a subplot where the boys had to make Kyle's pet elephant make love to Cartman's pet pig, Fluffy. For context, the main protagonists on South Park were challenged by some other students in a Science Fair to try to defeat their attempt at cloning a person, whereas the main boys settled with trying to get the elephant and pig to have sex, which would hopefully result in hybrid offspring. What made this episode funny was that one of the adults, Chef, actually encouraged the boys in trying to make elephant/pig hybrids and even tried to get the two creatures into the mood to have sex. Which succeeded via the use of high amounts of alcohol and the musical aid of Elton John. And it apparently looked just as awkward as seeing two animals having sexual intercourse in the real world would have been. The offspring at the very least won the boys the Science Fair. Other than the events that the episode named, another subplot involved the introduction of the characters Dr. Alphonse Mephisto and Kevin. Basically a pair of mad scientists, Dr. Mephisto and Kevin had the gimmick of making animals with literally four butts. And in this episode, a clone of Stan. The resulting clone then started a relatively hilarious rampage across South Park, but despite looking absolutely nothing like the original Stan, everybody mistook this clone for the actual Stan.
Cartman's Mom Is a Dirty Slut
One of the earlier mysteries in the early episodes of South Park was the identity of Cartman's father. Cartman's Mom Is a Dirty Slut was an episode that was part of the two-parter that tried to reveal the identity of Cartman's father. When Cartman asked his mother about the identity of his father or how he was conceived, Mrs. Cartman said that it happened during an event referred to as the Drunken Barn Dance. Here, Mrs. Cartman met the man that would supposedly help her make Cartman. The hilarious thing about Cartman's Mom Is a Dirty Slut was that the man who could have been Cartman's father changed until it got to the point where almost every male in the South Park area became a likely candidate. First it was Chief Running Water the Native American, then it was Chef the African-American, then it was Mr. Garrison and Mr. Hat, then certain named characters and religious figures were implied to have been sexual partners with Mrs. Cartman in the past, and by the end of the episode the list grew even more with the inclusion of the 1989 Denver Broncos. The fact that Mrs. Cartman became this overtly sexually promiscuous character was somewhat hilarious and ironic to the viewer if the episode Cartman Gets An Anal Probe was watched first. Mrs. Cartman was initially portrayed as a somewhat responsible single parent. Sure she gave Cartman huge portions of food that may have been seen as unhealthy, but she did not do anything morally questionable as a parent. But when the first season of South Park went on, the viewer got to see evidence that Mrs. Cartman was not such a wholesome parent. Which provided a fascinating source of comedy for South Park.
Classic Hilarity
South Park during its first season introduced many hilarious moments that helped earn the series more seasons. These moments were also helpful in establishing certain aspects about the show. Like how most of the adults were idiots, the gimmicks of some of the more eccentric characters, and even how the parents of the protagonists acted. Fortunately, viewers of this first season also saw these moments as hilarious for different reasons.