29 Years Ago, The Most Controversial Animated Series in History Premiered & Killed A Main Character For The 1st of 127 Times

Almost three decades ago this week, one of the most iconic cartoon comedy shows in small screen history debuted with a grisly gag that the series then repeated over a hundred times before it was retired. It is sometimes tough to understand just how much the success of The Simpsons reshaped TV history. Even saying that Family Guy, American Dad, King of the Hill, Bob’s Burgers, Big Mouth, BoJack Horseman, Smiling Friends, and Adult Swim’s Rick and Morty wouldn’t exist without the show doesn’t quite cover it.

Like Seinfeld pioneered the hang-out sitcom and Cheers helped define the workplace sitcom, The Simpsons made adult animated comedy shows a viable genre. This soon gave rise to imitators, many of which then lasted so long that they spawned imitators of their own. In 1997, Comedy Central took a chance on South Park, a ribald, R-rated cartoon about a group of foul-mouthed kids in a small town plagued by aliens, zombies, and all manner of weird threats. In 2026, South Park season 29’s upcoming release proves that this gamble paid off.

South Park Killed Off Kenny In Its Pilot Episode (And It Wasn’t Even A Major Twist)

Although South Park season 1, episode 1, “Cartman Gets an Anal Probe,” marked the first time viewers had met Cartman, Kyle, Kenny, and Stan, the show didn’t give new fans long to get attached to one cast member. As Cartman tried to stop farting fire as a result of his eponymous anal probe and Kyle tried to save his brother Ike from the aliens attempting to abduct him, Kenny was unceremoniously killed off.

Midway through the third act melee where the boys face off against the aliens, Kenny throws a rock at their spaceship and gets hit by a ray for his troubles. This sends him flying into the road, where he is trampled by a stampede of cows but miraculously survives. Then a cop car crushes and kills him. It’s a gross, brutal gag worthy of Rick and Morty‘s grossest Stephen King spoof, and one that set the tone for Kenny’s fate throughout the rest of the show’s history to date.

In the years that followed, South Park did everything in its power to emerge from the long shadow cast by The Simpsons and to prove to viewers that, although the main characters were kids, the show was most definitely not for children. To this end, while The Simpsons was busy introducing new characters, South Park killed off Kenny a total of 98 times in the series proper, 12 times in the show’s shorts, 14 times in its tie-in video games, twice in 1999’s feature-length spinoff movie South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut, and two more times in its TV specials.

Kenny’s Many South Park Deaths Illustrate The Show’s Evolution

Although Kenny’s deaths in the TV specials prove that the series never really retired this gag in earnest, the changing attitude toward the joke does illustrate South Park‘s shifting priorities. Up until season 5, episode 13, “Kenny Dies,” South Park treated Kenny’s frequent, almost weekly deaths as a fun way to remind viewers that the show had next to no continuity.

However, since The Simpsons changes its canon all the time too, establishing a more consistent continuity and focusing plots more on timely, topical current events allowed South Park to develop a more unique niche from season 4 onward. Thus, season 5 dropped Kenny’s weekly deaths, and season 14’s “Mysterion” trilogy even explained Kenny’s previously inexplicable ability to reincarnate regularly. This proved South Park does have some canon, loose as it may be.