South Park: Kenny’s 12 Greatest Deaths
5. Squished By A Cop Car
South Park started as it meant to go on, with a pilot episode delightfully titled Cartman Gets an Anal Probe. They set out their stall from the off, with a heavy dose of potty-mouthed humour, irreverence to the point of nihilism, and their most famous joke of the early days: repeatedly killing one of their main characters.
They don’t hold back on this first death, either, as Kenny is blasted into the road by an attacking spaceship, is then crushed by a herd of cows, and finally meets his end under the wheels of Officer Barbrady’s police cruiser. South Park has always had a penchant for shock value, but this was especially true when the show was a hot new property, before viewers knew quite what to expect on a weekly basis. Before long we were used to seeing Kenny dying every week, but here it was quite the surprise.
South Park so quickly became an example of degenerating moral standards that one of its darkest tropes mostly escaped criticism. Kenny’s death is usually played for laughs and one of the most cartoonish elements, but it’s nonetheless daring to include it in the opening episode of a comedy show.