South Park: Kenny’s 12 Greatest Deaths

Season Four episode Cartman Joins NAMBLA is one of South Park’s most audacious instalments to date. On a search for more mature friends, Eric inadvertently joins the North American Man-Boy Love Association, an astonishingly real group defending the rights of paedophiles. Naturally, South Park couldn’t help but base an episode around them.

Meanwhile, Kenny takes the B plot, in which he attempts to foil his parents’ attempts at conceiving another child. Sensing that he would fade into the background, he does everything in his power to prevent the baby from being born, including luring his mother onto a rollercoaster and feeding her laced drinks, eventually chasing her with a plunger (it’s not South Park’s most nuanced episode). In due course Kenny comes to terms with his parents’ plans, but is then splattered by an ambulance.

The death itself isn’t the most dramatic, but the final scenes give us an insight into the show’s mythology, as Mr and Mrs McCormack have their baby, an identical child who they name Kenny. They remark that this is the 52nd time this has now happened. This leaves a few questions unanswered, but it’s something by way of an explanation.