Butters Stotch has easily become one of the most popular characters in South Park
history. While a favorite among many fans, Butters has garnered a mixed reaction from
his fellow townsfolk with some treating him like garbage and others being much
friendlier to him. So we knew we had to give Butters his very own video!
I'm Kyle with WickedBinge and this is Butters' Relationships: Healthy to Toxic.
The Gold Medal is going to Butters' relationship with Kenny. This isn't one of the most prominent
friendships in South Park but from what little we see, it definitely ranks as one of the
healthiest. Butters and Kenny are considered to be the two most moral kids in South Park
but for two very different reasons. Butters is extremely sweet but too naive for his own good
while Kenny has a very dirty mouth but has demonstrated massive amounts of heroism on
many occasions. Despite their differences, the overwhelming good qualities of these characters
really comes out when they're paired together. Many characters pick on Butters and Kenny, the
former for being "lame" and the latter for being poor, but Butters and Kenny never mock each other
despite the social pressure from other children. Butters' ultimate appreciation for his friend is
shown in the episode Going Native where he claims Kenny is the most mature and likeable kid in his
class and he's not wrong. Butters is also shown to comfort Kenny on numerous occasions, particularly
when Kenny is addicted to cat pee. Kenny returns these gestures by accompanying Butters to Hawaii,
knowing the journey would be a lot easier for him if he was with someone who he really trusts.
Butters doesn't even show any anger toward Kenny when the poor kid accidentally hits him in the
eye with a ninja star. If that's not a sign of a very forgiving friendship, we don't know what is.
Speaking of forgiveness, let's take a trip to church to award the Silver Medal to Butters'
relationship with Father Maxi. In a day and age where Catholic priests are ridiculed on
a regular basis, Butters is able to relate to Father Maxi having been made fun of repeatedly
by his own classmates. From here, Butters develops a genuine friendship with his priest and invites
him out with his friends. This goes poorly as the other kids are annoyed by Maxi's preaching
and any adult sees Maxi hanging around with children as high comedy. Father Maxi then
leaves Butters but realizes his mistake and saves the day when Butters, Stan and Clyde captured by
the Catholic Cleanup Crew. This friendship is a really great representation of Butters
and Father Maxi bringing out the best in each other even if no one else takes them seriously.
Now for something a little less holy. The Bronze Medal is awarded to Butters' relationship with
Sally Darson, you know what I'm saying? Sally appears in the titular role of the episode
Butters' Bottom B** where Butters pays her to give him his first kiss. When this inspires
Butters to start his own kissing company, he assigns Sally the role of his bottom b***,
giving her seniority over the other kissers. While Butters and Sally are far too young to comprehend
the full implications of this, they do admittedly work well together creating a company that's very
successful, you know what I'm saying? Sally is very supportive of Butters throughout this
journey, earning his loyalty and deserving it. Even though Butters' business got out of hand,
one thing we can say for sure is that he sure knows how to treat his bottom b*** well.
From right hand prostitute to right hand super villain, Butters' relationship with Dougie is
up next. Butters and Dougie debuted together in the episode Two Naked Guys in a Hot Tub
where they are seen playing in the basement with Pip and Stan. Butters slowly worked his way into
the main cast after this until Stan, Kyle and Cartman fired him for being "lame." This caused
Butters to create his evil persona of Professor Chaos with Dougie being his right hand man,
General Disarray. Together, Professor Chaos and General Disarray plot to take over the
world which ultimately fails time and time again. Despite their "evil" intentions,
Dougie and Butters are able to relate to each other due to getting picked on repeatedly by
their classmates, leading them to form a very genuine bond. Since Professor Chaos
and General Disarray are never successful at any of their world domination attempts,
we can't see too many downsides that would make this friendship come off as toxic.
As stated earlier, Butters and Dougie in their debut episode were both seen getting along with
Pip. There, Butters and Pip were very close as Pip teaches him and Dougie British games which they
really enjoy. Butters, Pip and Dougie go as far as to dress like women and play Charlie's Angels
together, leading Stan to manipulate them into finding a way out of the basement. We're putting
this relationship here as the introduction of Butters inadvertently led to Pip's demise.
After Trey Parker and Matt Stone realized Butters was a better character that filled
a similar role as Pip, they slowly retired Pip as a character before killing him in the episode 201.
With Butters' healthy relationships out of the way, let's delve into the Gray
Area. These are characters who Butters can get along with or not depending on the situation.
We're starting off the Gray Area with Butters' very own international girlfriend, Charlotte. An
exchange student from Canada, Charlotte and her family move to South Park along with a slew of
other Canadians when the President of Canada makes the country a worse place to live. Butters goes
on a date with Charlotte after losing a bet with the other kids. Despite his initial reluctance,
Charlotte and Butters form a genuine bond over time and come around to really liking each other.
Charlotte and her family do move back to Canada but she and Butters continue Skype calling each
other, maintaining a long distance relationship. This eventually ends when Charlotte joins the rest
of the girls in breaking up with their boyfriends due to the actions of Skankhunt42. Even though
they began and ended on rocky terms, the middle part of Butters and Charlotte's relationship
was quite sweet while it lasted, which is why it ranks closer to the healthy section.
Butters maintained a healthy relationship with Charlotte for a while but certain
friendships he's had flip back and forth from being healthy or toxic. Such is the
case in Butters' relationship with Stan and Kyle. From the moment they met,
Stan and Kyle had took a disliking to Butters with Stan referring to him,
Pip and Dougie as Melvins. Stan and Kyle continue berating Butters for being a dork which only
intensifies when he becomes Kenny's replacement in season 6. Once Kenny re-joins the main cast,
Stan and Kyle ease up on Butters a bit, showing a lot of moments where they genuinely care about
him. They usually stick up for Butters when other kids are picking on him which does show
their friendship has come along way. Stan and Kyle still manipulate Butters on occasion, such as when
they dress him up like a squirrel to meet Britney Spears, so we can't say this relationship is 100%
healthy as of yet. It is in a lot better state than it was when it started though.
All of Butters' relationships in the Gray Area seem to start off on bad terms
and his relationship with Biggie Smalls is no exception. In the episode Hell on Earth 2006,
Butters summons Biggie Smalls by saying his name his name in a mirror three times. Annoyed
that he's missing Satan's Halloween party, Biggie threatens Butters at gunpoint to take
him to Los Angeles to attend the celebration. Butters does so but Biggie Smalls is summoned
back to South Park when the other kids and Randy try the same trick Butters did. This
infuriates Biggie even more but Butters keeps his promise but summoning the deceased rapper
through a mirror once he reaches Satan's party. Biggie then invites Butters to the
party to show his appreciation. Biggie and Butters do get along by the end but we can't
overlook the rapper holding him at gunpoint and forcing him to travel to Los Angeles.
That wraps up the Gray Area so let's get into what makes Butters go to sleep
to the sound of his own screams. These relationships are the Toxic!
We're starting off this section by talking about Butters' relationship with Lisa Berger.
This shy student had a crush on Butters and asked him out, only for Butters to "politely"
reject her for being unattractive. Butters later reveals to Wendy that this is due to
preferring celebrities like Kim Kardashian who use photoshop to present themselves as skinny.
Lisa then uses photoshop to do the same, causing Butters to regain interest. Alas,
it was too late as Lisa began dating Clyde who also previously mocked her for being fat.
This is one case where Butters is portrayed as extremely insensitive and shallow but to be fair,
so was everyone else in the school aside from Wendy. Regardless, we can't say anything healthy
came out of Butters and Lisa's interactions which is why it starts of our Toxic category.
As bad as that was, Butters has had even worse romantic interests such as his infatuation with
Lexus Martin. A waitress at Rasins, Lexus is a very flirtatious toward every boy who enters the
restaurant in order to get tips and presents. Butters mistakes this as genuine interest and
believes he's in a relationship with Lexus. After Lexus has manipulated Butters out of tons
of money, he takes his parents to meet her. This causes Lexus to unceremoniously reject Butters,
revealing her true intentions all along. If you asked Lexus, she probably wouldn't even realize
she would be on this list because Butters was that insignificant to her. The way she manipulated
Butters was indeed terrible but it's basically second nature to her due to her occupation. If
there is something positive that came out of this, it was that Butters learns a beautiful lesson
about the importance of sadness in his life so at least there is a silver lining to this story.
As messed up as Butters' romantic life is, his actual friendships are even worse,
hence why his relationship with Eric Cartman is up next. Cartman, much like Stan and Kyle,
initially hated Butters, viewing him as an annoying nuisance. However,
while Butters' friendship with Stan and Kyle has improved over time, his relationship with
Cartman has arguably gotten even worse. Instead of getting irritated with Butters, Cartman now
sees him as someone he can manipulate due to Butters' overly trusting nature. This something
Cartman has done time and time again either for personal gain or his own amusement. Cartman and
Butters are certainly friends on some level as they've been through a lot together but this is
one of the unhealthiest friendships that's ever been portrayed on television. The fact that this
relationship doesn't even make the bottom three tells us how messed up Butters' life really is.
Cartman certainly puts Butters through a lot but abuse is usually much more traumatizing when it
runs in the family. Thus, Butters relationship with Grandma Stotch takes home the Bronze Medal
of Toxic. On the surface, Butters' grandma is very sweet and innocuous but this completely changes
when the two of them are alone. In private, Grandma Stotch physically and mentally tortures
Butters by slapping him in the face, threatening to kill him and and sticking a fork into his leg.
She essentially takes on the role of a typical school bully except being an old woman picking
on such a young boy makes the behavior even more reprehensible. Butters continually looks for ways
to stick up to his grandmother but he eventually comes to the conclusion that she's a bitter old
woman who will die miserable while he goes on to live a happy, healthy life in spite of her abuse.
The way Grandma Stotch treats Butters is really abhorrent and the fact it makes the normally
sweet kid take comfort in the idea of her death is more than enough to land it in the bottom three.
On that note, Budd Stotch is getting the Silver Medal. A pretty obscure character, Budd appears
in the fan favorite episode AWESOM-O when Butters and Cartman travel to California to visit Budd and
his wife Nellie. Through this appearance, Budd seems like a pretty well-adjusted individual,
acting friendly and taking Butters and Cartman on a sightseeing tour around Los Angeles. Especially
by the standards of someone in Butters' family, Budd appears to be quite normal but his darker
side is hinted at in the season 10 episode The Return of Chef. When Chef is outed for
making perverted remarks toward the children, a cop talks to the class to determine if and how
he may have touched them using a doll. None of the kids come forward about Chef but when the
officer begins locking the doll's crotch, Butters recalls that his Uncle Budd did that to him once.
That said, the Gold Medal for Toxic relationship is going to a double ranking of his parents,
Stephen and Linda Stotch. We're willing to bet a lot of you saw this coming but
could you really say otherwise? Linda and Stephen have been frequently portrayed as
two of the worst parents in South Park and we can't think of anyone, not even Cartman,
who has tormented Butters as frequently as they have. Not only do they ground Butters
for practically anything, whether it's his fault or not, Linda and Stephen have gone further to do
some really horrible things including physically assault Butters, sending him to gay conversion
therapy camp and even attempting to drown him in a river. It's heavily implied that
Stephen and Linda are responsible for most of the trauma Butters experiences in his life. In
the Imaginationland trilogy, Butters is tasked with imagining what he thinks is the scariest
thing in the world which turns out to be his own father yelling at him. To be fair, they
do have moments where they are portrayed as more level headed such as when they tell Butters that
Lexus was using him for money and gifts. Still, those brief moments are hardly enough to redeem
the damage they've caused over the years which is why they easily nabs the Gold Medal on this list.