20 Mind-Blowing Facts You Didn't Know About South Park
6. Kenny Is Based On An Actual Person
A bunch of characters from South Park are loosely based on real people, but the funniest example of that has got to be Kenny, who was modeled off of an actual childhood friend of Trey Parker.
The creators said that most groups of childhood friends seemed to include one poor kid, and for the South Park boys, that would be Kenny. He was based on a kid Parker knew who was the poorest kid in the neighborhood and who always seemed to wear an orange parka, making him ridiculously hard to understand. Kenny would also frequently skip school, and because nobody knew where he was, all the kids would joke that he died. Then a few days later, after apparently having "died," Kenny would just show back up again good as new.
Years later, that would morph into the character of Kenny McCormick, who is also poor, wears an orange parka, is impossible to understand, and is always dying but inexplicably coming back days later.