It should come as a surprise to no one when we say that South Park has one of the most expansive and
entertaining casts out of any cartoon in history. Whether that be iconic main characters, Stan,
Kyle, Kenny and Cartman or one-off gag characters like a taco who poops ice cream or Mel Gibson,
there are very few characters in South Park’s history who we would say we genuinely dislike.
With that said, the multiple decades worth of content which this show has produced allowed
for the conception of a few characters who do genuinely get under the skin of fans. Whether
it be a reoccurring cast member or a one off character we never heard from again,
which residents of this mountain town are the most irritating?
I’m Kyle with WickedBinge and this is The Worst South Park Characters (And Why They Suck).
Let’s start this video off by talking about the first character that comes to mind when talking
about lackluster South Park characters, Philip Pirrip, better known as Pip. If you haven’t
watched the first four seasons of South Park, you probably have no idea who this character is
and for good reason. Pip was a British exchange student who attended South Park Elementary with
the main characters. Long before the show had developed other side characters such as Jimmy,
Craig, Tolkien and Tweak, Pip was the classmate who Stan, Kyle Cartman and Kenny were seen
interacting with the most outside of their own group. Pip as a character is designed
to be annoying, frequently being mocked and picked on by his fellow classmates who often
mislabel him as French. Unfortunately, Pip may have fulfilled his role a little too well as he
is often hated not only by his classmates but South Park’s audience as well. While making
frequent appearances in season one, Pip’s prominence diminished quite quickly after
that with only the occasional line until receiving his very own episode in season 4. Sadly for him,
Pip’s starring role is often considered to be one of the worst episodes in the show’s
history which diminished his prominence even more. A big part of the reason Pip faded into
the background was due to the conception and development of Butters Stotch, a much
more popular character who essentially filled the same role that Pip did in earlier seasons.
Pip did briefly reappear in episode 201 where he was subsequently killed by Mecha-Streisand. Rest
in peace Pip. You may be gone but you are not… uh, who were we talking about again?
Coming up next, Towelie takes us down to funky town. Before you raise your torches
and pitchforks, allow us to explain. We actually love Towelie. Voiced by South Park writer and
Wonder Showzen co-creator Vernon Chatman, Towelie is a character whose main passions in life are
getting high and giving towel related advice to the residents of South Park. Did we forget
to mention he’s also a sentient towel created by the corporation Tynacorp to spy in on the lives
of humans? For as weird as he is, Towelie has become a favorite among South Park fans and he has
appeared much more in recent seasons due to the show’s growing emphasis on the marijuana industry.
If he’s so beloved, why does he make an appearance in this video? The
simple answer to that is that Towelie was designed to be a terrible character from the get go. By the
time the fifth season of South Park had rolled around, its creators were more than aware that
the show had entered the zeitgeist and was being heavily merchandised. As a response,
they intentionally created a character who was lazily designed and only existed to spout catch
phrases and sell merchandise. They even went as far as to create a fake commercial for Towelie
within the episode to hammer this point home. The great irony of this is that Towelie did become one
of the most popular and merchandisable characters in South Park’s history, especially among stoners
and towel fanatics (mostly the former). Much like Pip, Towelie seems to have served his purpose
a little too well. Cartman literally remarks at the end of an episode that Towelie is “the worst
character ever.” Granted, not every Towelie appearance is a home run, especially with him
being the focus of A Million Little Fibers, one of the most hated South Park episodes in existence.
Maybe that’s another reason for him to be on here, as much as we love the high little towel.
While we’re on the topic of A Million Little Fibers, let’s talk about Gary and Mingey. For
those of you who were fortunate enough to miss this episode, let’s give a brief synopsis about
who these two are. Gary and Mingey are Opera Winfrey’s sentient anus and vagina who often
converse with each other unbeknownst to Opera. Due to being neglected by Opera, Gary and Mingey
plot together to get Opera cancelled so that she can give them more attention. After this fails,
Mingey becomes hostile and takes Opera’s audience members hostage, even gunning down a police
officer in the process. Before Mingey and Gary can escape to France though, they both die in a
shootout with the cops. South Park has always been a very bizarre and surreal show but many believed
the inclusion of Gary and Mingey’s story to be a little too much. The strangeness of this plot,
especially when paired up with a story about a towel selling an autobiography,
managed to make for one of the most unique episodes of South Park but not in a good
way. Gary and Mingey’s portion of this episode maybe could have worked if there
was something grounded in this episode to level out the weirdness but the episode is
way too crazy for it to reach its potential. As such, Gary and Mingey remain forgotten,
only being brought up occasionally to be criticized by people on the internet.
Another early season character who is no longer with us is Ms. Veronica Crabtree. In the first
few seasons of South Park, Ms. Crabtree appeared frequently as South Park Elementary’s bus driver,
often picking up the boys from their iconic bus stop. Portrayed as mentally unstable and
suffering from severe anger issues, Ms. Crabtree’s defining characteristic was
her loud screaming, often telling the kids to sit down and shut up.
The only time Ms. Crabtree was a main character in an episode was in The City on the Edge of Forever
where she abandoned her stint as a bus driver in favor of becoming a stand up comedian. However,
since the events of that episode turns out to be Stan’s dream, that small bit of character
development that Ms. Crabtree received was essentially retracted. Ms. Crabtree eventually
fell by the wayside like many other early season South Park characters and it’s not hard for us
to see why. While her unrestrained anger was amusing at first, it’s really not enough on its
own to develop a compelling character and Matt Stone and Trey Parker clearly realized that.
Ms. Crabtree was eventually killed off in the season eight episode Cartman’s Incredible Gift.
Upon discovering her body, detective Mitch Murphy comments that she was “an ancillary character,
one the fans wouldn’t miss much.” Sadly for her, we think that’s a very accurate description.
Another character who has been on the show since the first season is Principal Victoria.
We seem to be giving South Park Elementary’s a hard time today. Not everyone can have the
same lasting impact as Chef, Mr. Garrison or Mr. Mackey and Principal Victoria is probably
the most prominent forgettable character in the first nineteen seasons of the show. We
understand that Principal Victoria is much more grounded than those aforementioned characters
but there’s a difference from being grounded and being boring. Ask any South Park fan what
there favorite Principal Victoria moment from the series is and we’re willing to bet they’ll
struggle to come up with an answer if they even find one at all. Principal Victoria was fired off
screen before the events of season nineteen and replaced with PC Principal. The character was so
insignificant that her partial exit from the show wasn’t even deemed important enough to be given
screen time. We also realize that PC Principal himself has received a mixed response from fans,
with some finding him a funny addition to the cast and others finding him one
note and annoying. Say what you want about that character but at least he’s memorable
and makes an impact, which is much more we can say about Principal Victoria.
The final staff member of South Park Elementary we’ll be talking
about today is Ms. Diane Choksondik. Ms. Choksondik was introduced in season four
as the new teacher for the boys once they all transition from third grade to fourth
grade. This character essentially is limited to two jokes, those being her name and her
gross appearance. She also has a lazy eye if you want to count that as a third joke
but we don’t really. Aside from her initial appearance and the episode Proper Condom Use,
Ms. Choksondik didn’t really have much prominence in the series and mostly served her one and only
purpose as the boys’ teacher. Making fun of a character’s name and appearance can only go so
far and South Park’s showrunners seemingly became well aware of this considering she only lasted
two seasons amongst the cast. Ms. Choksondik was killed off in the season six episode Professor
Chaos which was expanded upon in its follow up The Simpsons Already Did It. As morbid as it sounds,
the situation surrounding her death was much funnier and more memorable than anything she
did while alive. Much like Ms. Crabtree and Pip, we don’t know of too many South
Park fans who were that upset to see this character be written off the show permanently.
Let’s move away from the school staff and toward the city council to talk about Mayor McDaniels.
This is another character who has been with the show from season one and has retained quite a bit
of prominence. That makes total sense to us as she is the mayor of the town the show is named
after. Much like Principal Victoria though, Mayor McDaniels fails to leave much of an impact despite
being in many episodes. We have to admit that writing funny or interesting female characters
doesn’t seem to be Trey Parker’s strong point and Mayor McDaniels is another example of that
shortcoming. That said, Mayor McDaniels does have some interesting aspects to her character.
She is corrupt, has a superiority complex and despises the town she runs, all of which could be
interesting aspects. However, these aspects Mayor McDaniels’ personality are not expanded on enough
for it to really matter. Thus, Mayor McDaniels feels like a much more mechanical character who
exists mostly to move the plot forward rather than being a funny character in herself.
Finally, let’s end off this video by talking about possibly the most hated one-off characters
in the series, the Jakovasaurs. Appearing in the episode title of the same name, the Jakovasaurs
are technically a species with the prominent members being Jakov and JunJun. Since the species
all look and act very similarly, we’re going to give them a collective ranking. The Jackovasaurs
are a parody of the Star Wars character Jar Jar Binks. Much like other episodes, this episode
was created out of the distaste that the South Park characters had for the Star Wars prequels:
The Phantom Menace and the Jar Jar Binks character in particular. While making fun of Jar Jar Binks
is pretty commonplace nowadays, this episode was aired only one month after the release of the
film, quite possibly marking the first time the characters was parodied on national television.
We do give them credit for being timely but many fans feel that the Jakovasaurs may have
served their purpose a little too well. While not as widely despised as say A Million Little
Fibers or Pip, Jackovasaurs is cited by many South Park fans as being one of the
weakest episodes in the series, mostly due to the sheer annoyance they experienced as
a result of the titular characters. Parodying a character like Jar Jar Binks may sound easy
on paper but in execution it runs the risk of being too accurate. Who would have thought that
lampooning a bad comic relief character would lead to… well, bad comic relief.
Let us know in the comment section if you agree with our ranking, and tell us what we should cover
next. Remember to hit that notification bell and binge our Good to Evil playlist, where we
break down the morality of the characters in your favorite shows. But most importantly, stay wicked!