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South park: 20 best cartman episodes.

Love him or hate him, South Park wouldn't be half of what it is today without Eric Cartman, as the best Cartman episodes continue to prove.

South Park 's resident bigoted pottymouth has a knack for being both irritatingly cruel and lovably silly. In a way, Cartman is emblematic of the show itself, with his mix of juvenile toilet humor, button-pushing edginess, and comedic wit.

So not surprisingly, episodes centered around this character make for some of the funniest and most interesting in this expansive series. His trash-talking and insane antics often set the stage for some truly memorable romps — but which of these romps truly stand out from the rest?

Updated on July 21st, 2022, by Shawn S. Lealos : South Park has gone through 25 seasons and 317 episodes, along with some movies that are now appearing on the Paramount+ streaming service. As one of the longest-running animated shows in the United States, Matt Stone and Trey Parker have done a lot to keep it interesting, funny, and always cutting edge with up-to-date news stories and pop culture playing into the episodes almost in real-time. However, when the two are just playing it for fun, nothing is better than the best Cartman episodes, which often see the young child doing things that would send an adult to jail, yet somehow always coming out okay in the end.

Cartman Finds Love (S16 E7)

While the episode's title, "Cartman Finds Love" makes it seem that he gets a girlfriend, that is not what happened. Instead, a new Black girl named Nichole moves to South Park and Cartman sets out to hook her and Token up since he feels that she should only date Black people. However, the problem is that she liked Kyle.

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The entire episode showed how far Cartman would go to get his way, and he had his own Cupid helping him out. He pretended he and Kyle were a gay couple and then started sending gifts to Nichole and Token to help them hook up. Of course, as with the best Cartman episodes, he ends up getting it in the end as well.

Medicinal Fried Chicken (S14 E3)

The season 14 episode "Medicinal Fried Chicken" had two storylines and both were great. In one storyline, Randy willingly contracted testicular cancer just so he could get medicinal weed. This was part of the long-running story where Randy wanted weed at all costs , and the side effects in this episode were grotesque.

However, this was also one of the best Cartman episodes, with him becoming a crimelord similar to Scarface. His goal was to sell illegal KFC and he had his minions and operation set up to perfection.

HUMANCENTiPAD (S15 E1)

The first episode of Season 15 was a disgusting homage to the body horror movie The Human Centipede . However, South Park took the title and used its sound to also parody Apple and their iPad by renaming it "HUMANCENTiPAD." In this, Apple chose to create their latest phone by creating a Human Centipede.

This is a Cartman episode with him demanding to own an iPad and setting out to get one at all costs. Meanwhile, Kyle signed the iTunes terms and conditions, not knowing he was willingly submitting himself to the Human Centipede for the company, and Cartman was told he would own this first version.

World War Zimmerman (S17 E3)

The season 17 episode, "World War Zimmerman," somehow managed to combine the movie World War Z and George Zimmerman killing Trayvon Martin. The episode highlights the racism that Cartman exhibits and has him suffering from nightmares of a zombie apocalypse that is all rioters after the George Zimmerman trial.

Cartman then decides Token is a "ticking time bomb" and he has to kill him to save the world. Instead, he goes to kill Zimmerman himself, but when Zimmerman shoots Cartman in self-defense, he is arrested and executed for shooting a white person. The episode showed that even when he is wrong, Cartman somehow manages to come out okay in the end.

Tsst (S10 E7)

If there is one thing that is true about the best Cartman episodes, it is that he is a very bad boy and he almost never gets what is coming to him no matter who he hurts. In "Tsst," his mother decides she needs to get him some help so she hires Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer.

Cesar then uses dog training techniques and it amazingly works to get Cartman under control. However, deep down inside Cartman is trying to break out and finally gets that when Cesar refuses to date Liane, and she offers Cartman anything he wants to spend time with her again. The episode ended with Cartman showing a frightening smile and proving the worst might still be yet to come.

Cartman Gets An Anal Probe (S1 E1)

The series launched in the summer of 1997 with "Cartman Gets An Anal Probe" which saw the town of South Park visited by aliens who repeatedly abduct Cartman at night and install an anal probe that begins to oddly affect his behavior.

RELATED:  8 Best Stan & Cartman Episodes Of South Park

When Kyle's brother Ike is abducted, they are forced to use Cartman's anal probe which made a few hilarious fart-filled appearances throughout the episode to contact the aliens. The episode laid the foundation for the series' humor and hadn't quite hit the series' usual tone, but remains a memorable Cartman episode regardless. It was one of the best Cartman episodes of the first season.

Cartman's Incredible Gift (S8 E13)

The eighth season episode "Cartman's Incredible Gift" featured a comically-injured Cartman who believes his accident gave him psychic powers following a series of lucky guesses and coincidences tied to a serial killer prowling the streets of South Park.

His "psychic" exploits and the serial killers' continued murders draw in a group of psychic detectives who want Cartman to pay to join their organization. The episode is filled with gut-splitting mental battles and a cringe-inducing crime story that is not to be missed. This was one of the best Cartman episodes in what might be South Park's best season ever .

Ginger Kids (S9 E11)

Cartman has never kept his distaste for redheaded "gingers" like Kyle Broflovski a secret, though in the ninth season's "Ginger Kids" he shares his hate-filled theories with the school during an assembly to warn them against the dangers of "gingervitis." When Stan and Kyle prank Cartman by bleaching his skin and dying his hair, he is led to believe he has contracted gingervitis himself.

After taking ridicule from his friends and the school based on his new look, he decides to organize the other ginger kids together and spurred them into violence against the non-ginger kids of South Park because "the only way to fight hate… is with MORE hate!" One of the best Cartman episodes, this showed just how far he is willing to go and how dangerous Cartman can be when he is motivated.

Fat Butt And Pancake Head (S7 E5)

One of the most ridiculous but insanely hilarious episodes focused on Cartman was the seventh season's "Fat Butt And Pancake Head" which featured a cultural diversity event with presentations from the students. Cartman's entry involved the creation of a Jennifer Lopez hand puppet that wowed the judges despite his offensive and racist impression.

Cartman's use of the puppet annoys Kyle so Cartman decides to record a song as Jennifer Lopez which becomes a hit and soon attracts the attention of Ben Affleck, who enters into a relationship with Cartman's hand Jennifer Lopez. It was one of the weirdest Cartman episodes in the series.

The Coon (S13 E2)

Cartman decided to become a costumed crimefighter using a raccoon theme with a problematic nickname for his alter ego, which was also the title of the thirteenth season episode "The Coon" and the beginning of a multi-episode storyline that would also inspire 2017's  South Park: The Fractured But Whole  video game.

RELATED:  The 10 Best South Park Characters Introduced After Season 1

While the town of South Park doesn't seem to acknowledge Cartman's crimefighting, he soon finds a nemesis in Mysterion, whose identity reveal was drawn out for a couple of episodes as new costumed characters followed in Cartman's footsteps.

Cartoon Wars Part 1 & 2 (S10 E3-4)

While this pick may seem a bit unconventional, it's tough not to be amused by Cartman's palpable hatred of rival cartoon  Family Guy  in this two-part epic. As an enraged Eric himself puts it -  "I am NOTHING like Family Guy!" 

The episode revolves around a classic Cartman-Kyle showdown, as Eric attempts to get Fox studios to pull a controversial episode of  Family Guy . This saga is loaded with crazy hijinx and quotable gems from Cartman, funny  Family Guy  jabs, and even a cameo from another   famous animated comedy.

Cartmanland (S5 E6)

Given the aggravation and downright abuse this troublesome kid inflicts on his friends, it's usually nice to see Cartman get his comeuppance. And there are few episodes that present him with a bigger, more well-deserved slap in the face than "Cartmanland."

This season 5 classic starts with a rather irritating plotline of Eric inheriting a vast amount of wealth, which he uses to invest in an amusement park. Not only this, but he bars others (especially Kyle) from entering, and is sure to rub it in their faces. In addition to some humorous moments and a pretty dramatic Kyle-based subplot, this one ends with a delicious twist ending that screams "poetic justice."

Probably (S4 E10)

Cartman takes on many amusing personas in  South Park , ranging from a raccoon superhero to a caricature of Dog the Bounty Hunter. But one particularly funny rendition that stands out is his stint as an over-the-top Evangelical preacher, who implores the people of  South Park  to repent - or face the wrath of "gawd-ah!"

In typical Cartman fashion, his plot in establishing a new church is merely a ploy to extort the townspeople of their money and finally earn his coveted 10 million dollars. But the real highlight of this one is the love triangle between Satan, Saddam, and a man named Chris.

The Death Of Eric Cartman (S9 E6)

Given that Cartman is usually the one doing the conspiring and the razzing, it's refreshing and funny to see him at the brunt of a collective prank. The kids of South Park have had enough of him — oddly spurred by the glutton eating the chicken skins in a bucket of KFC.

RELATED:  Reddit's Favorite Seasons Of South Park (& Why)

This coaxes everyone to simultaneously ignore him when he tries to talk to them. Being the naive child he is, Cartman's conclusion isn't that he's annoyed the whole town, but rather, that he must be a ghost. In a  Sixth Sense- esque plot, Cartman enlists the help of the even more   naive Butters to carry out good deeds so he may pass on in peace.

Up The Down Steroid (S8 E2)

Cartman really outdoes himself with his deplorable actions in this one, and that's saying something. But regardless of his repellent behavior — and maybe partly  because  of it — "Up the Down Steroid" is widely regarded as one of the best Cartman episodes to date.

Basically, Cartman concocts a plot to win at the Special Olympics by pretending to be mentally challenged. Deplorable as it is, this naturally sets the stage for plenty of the controversial  South Park -style silliness the show is known for. Yet, it also injects some clever social commentary, likening this plot to athletes using steroids.

Le Petit Tourette (S11 E8)

In yet another bout of insensitivity, Cartman decides to exploit Tourette's syndrome by pretending to have the condition. What follows is another fun showdown between Cartman and Kyle, as well as an amusing parody of Chris Hansen and his show  To Catch a Predator  for good measure.

While the plot parallels the previous entry in some ways, this time Cartman's goals are just to be able to shout out whatever he wants and to speak obscenities on TV, par for the course when it comes to Eric.

Casa Bonita (S7 E11)

If there's one consistent trait to Cartman aside from his foul mouth, it's his relentless determination. This classic romp dials this up to hysterically absurd levels, as Cartman's hellbent on getting to a Mexican restaurant/theme park, Casa Bonita. There's only one problem — Kyle refuses to invite him to his birthday party there. What resulted was one of the best Cartman episodes with Kyle .

Cartman's response isn't to accept defeat though, but rather, to trick Butters into holing himself up in a bomb shelter so that he might take his place. This one is full of moments of goofiness from both Butters and Cartman, along with a crazy fast-paced ending at Casa Bonita. It's a rare instance where you almost don't  mind  Cartman (partly) getting away with his antics, as it's all so off-the-wall.

The Passion Of The Jew (S8 E3)

Amongst all of Cartman's wacky personas, his bout of essentially emulating  Hitler  is one of his most memorably insane ones. This one tends to be controversial even for the already high standards of  South Park , as it involves a Mel Gibson-obsessed Cartman trying to radicalize people through  The Passion of the Christ .

Kyle finds himself unjustly receiving the brunt of Cartman's hatred yet again, as he pressures him to watch the film and shames him. Meanwhile, an apparently "righteous" Cartman dresses in Hitler garb while marching through the streets of South Park and rallying the townsfolk against his people.

AWESOM-O (S8 E5)

When it comes to the best Cartman episodes, this one really has it all. It sees the zany character partaking in his typical schemes and spouting off the usual goofy, raunchy rhetoric. It's got the funny dynamic between the malevolent Eric and a pure, whimsical Butters  — who thinks that Cartman dressed in a cardboard box is a robot.

RELATED:  The South Park Creators' 12 Favorite Episodes, Ranked By Their IMDb Score

Yet, it's also another satisfying example of Eric getting what's coming to him in the funniest of ways. The fact that Butter's naivety is partly what  makes  Cartman suffer in this one is a humorous bit of irony.

Scott Tenorman Must Die (S5 E4)

Beyond just being a  South Park  classic, "Scott Tenorman Must Die" is a rare moment of glory for  actual  fans of Cartman, who (for whatever reason), truly wish to root for him. It's one of the few bouts where he actually comes off as the "good guy," as he takes part in a prank-based battle of wits with the ultimate bully, Scott.

There are tons of laugh-out-loud moments in this gem, from the squeamish use of a certain variety of hair to the simultaneously gross and hysterical twist ending in arguably the best Cartman episode ever.

NEXT:  The Best Episode Of Each Season Of South Park, According To IMDb

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Recap / South Park S 2 E 16 Merry Christmas Charlie Manson

Edit locked.

"Merry Christmas Charlie Manson" contains examples of:

• Affably Evil : Charlie Manson.
• Bait-and-Switch : Kenny leaving with Charlie Manson for a more secluded part of the mall. Instead of killing him, Charlie just watches another Christmas special and has his tattoo redone. Stan: Hey, where's Kenny? Charlie Manson: Oh, he's... around. Kenny: [entering] Hey, guys.
• Berserk Button : Do not tell Kyle Mr. Hankey isn’t real.
• Birds of a Feather : Almost all of Cartman's relatives are exactly like Cartman, to the point that they all act like him and use his catchphrases. Notably, Liane can clearly be seen and heard saying, "Aww, weak!" in unison with the rest of the family when the football broadcast returns after the news report on Charlie Manson's escape.
• Borrowed Catchphrase : Uncle Stinky says “Respect my authoritah” when he refuses to take the boys to the mall.
• Bratty Half-Pint : Despite his parents telling him not to, Stan sneaks out of the house to go on vacation with Cartman's family along with Kyle and Kenny.
• Christmas Episode : The Boys all go to Cartman's relatives in Nebraska for Christmas.
• Clothes for Christmas Cringe : The boys accompany Cartman as he visits his family in Nebraska for Christmas. Cartman is excited to get his present from his grandma until he opens it and it turns out to be a new shirt. Cartman: Mom, Grandma's gone senile! It's time to stick her in a home!
• Corny Nebraska : All of Nebraska is notably surrounded by cornfields.
• Darker and Edgier : The version of It's a Wonderful Life that Howard and Charlie Manson watch on TV in the basement. George Bailey: You just can't buy people, Mr. Potter. Why, you know what you are? You're a little bitch. That's right, you're a bitch, and I bet you'd like to suck it, wouldn't you?
• Fate Worse than Death : Staying in a house full of Cartmans is this for Kyle.
• Generation Xerox : Cartman's extended family is fat and repeats his various catchphrases.
• Heel–Face Turn : Charlie Manson through the power of Christmas specials.
• Holiday Pardon : Subverted. Stan goes with his friends to spend Christmas with Cartman's relatives when his parents said he couldn't go and he lies about them being dead. They decide to postpone his punishment until after Christmas.
• Jerkass : Howard Cartman. He takes his family hostage and even points a gun at his mother. It gets to the point where even Charlie Manson is lecturing him on etiquette.
• Never Bare Headed : This is the first time in the series where Cartman is shown without his hat.
• Noodle Incident : Apparently, riots starting at malls because a kids exposed the Mr. Hankey as a fake is a regular occurrence.
• Oh, Crap! : The Boys upon meeting Charlie Manson and then when they're running from the cops at the mall with him. The cops when Cousin Elvin throws a fudgesicle on the highway during the car chase and Stan when it turns out his parents found him in Nebraska.
• Liane is the only member of the Cartman family that isn’t overweight or uses Eric’s catchphrases.
• Cartman inviting Stan, Kyle, and Kenny to Nevada despite his hatred of them counts as this.
• Police Brutality : The police gun down Kenny without a second thought for holding up a white flag in surrender , and beat and cuff him even when he's dead.
• Prison Rape : As Howard's getting arrested, his father tells him to watch out for this. Howard replies that he always does.
• Second Verse Curse : Invoked with Liane and Cartman who only know the first stanza of "Over the River and Through the Wood". They sing that for the entire car trip to Nebraska much to the annoyance of the other boys.
• Stock Footage : Real-life footage of Charlie Manson is shown during the news report on his escape.
• Shoot Him, He Has a Wallet! : Kenny tries to emerge from the house with a white flag and promptly gets gunned down. Police Chief : Look out, he's got a white flag!
• Shout-Out : The entire episode is more or less a Shout-Out to Christmas specials and has an in-universe one to How the Grinch Stole Christmas! in the form of The Grinchy Poo . The ending where everyone is singing "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" is also an obvious parody of the ending of A Charlie Brown Christmas .
• Shown Their Work : Both football teams that were playing the game Cartman's family were watching are real college football teams.
• That Was Not a Dream : Kyle wakes up screaming, saying he dreamed they were in a house full of Cartmans. After being told that's all real, he screams again.
• They Killed Kenny Again : Kenny holds out a white flag of surrender and is shot to death by the police. Instead of Stan saying "Oh my God, they killed Kenny!", we get Charlie Manson saying, "Oh my God, they killed the little orange coat kid."
• Title Drop : The Cartman family does this with the episode title when they make a surprise visit at Charlie Manson's cell at the end.
• White Flag : When the police storm the Cartman's residence because Charlie Manson is in there, Kenny is sent out with one of these. The police shoot him regardless.
• Would Hurt a Child : The Nebraska police have got no problem with clubbing rioting children and using tear gas on them. Not to mention riddling Kenny with bullets.
• South Park S 2 E 15 Spookyfish
• Recap/South Park
• South Park S 2 E 17 Gnomes

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Liane Cartman

• View history

Liane Cartman is the mother of Eric Cartman . She makes many appearances throughout the series and is considered to be one of the most prominent out of all the South Park parents. She first appears in the Season One episode " Cartman Gets an Anal Probe ".

• 1.1 Personality
• 1.2 Name Origin
• 1.3 Hermaphrodite and Eric's Parentage
• 1.4 Sexual Appetite
• 2 Appearance
• 3.1 Eric Cartman
• 4 Relationships
• 5.1 South Park Rally
• 5.2 South Park: The Stick of Truth
• 5.3 South Park: The Fractured but Whole
• 5.4 South Park: Phone Destroyer
• 5.5 South Park: Snow Day!
• 9 References

Personality

Liane is a good-natured individual but with a definite edge to her. Her voice is usually kind and soft and her actions are usually to aid others, particularly her son . She is also a great cook, as implied by Stan and Chef in " Damien ".

However, there has been many implications that Ms. Cartman is as racist and anti-Semitic as Eric, who on numerous occasions (at least during the early seasons) quoted his mother on saying offensive and politically incorrect statements regarding black people, gays, and Jews. Despite this, Liane herself has not vocalized these opinions on the show, so it is certainly possible that Eric was lying. An example can be seen in " Good Times with Weapons " when Cartman claimed his mom took him to see the movie The Passion in argument that proves Jews are sneaky liars.

In accordance with her sweet-natured, motherly image, she was originally frequently shown giving people her baking (usually cookies), even in situations where it is inappropriate. For example, in " Cartman's Mom is Still a Dirty Slut " she gives a plate of cookies to Officer Barbrady at the Drunken Barn Dance , and behind the Cartmans' couch is a picture of her and Cartman by Mount Rushmore, in which she is holding a plateful of cookies.

She has also been shown numerous times to be extremely promiscuous, being referred to as a "slut" numerous times, making several sexual jokes, having sex tapes of her and Mr. Mackey , etc.

She is also known to host great parties.

She also most recently got a job at South Park Realtors in " City People ", but quit because Eric was scared he would have less attention. As a result, they were forced to move to Coney Island Hotdog . However, in " DikinBaus Hot Dogs ", they moved back into their old house after making money.

Name Origin

She is named after Liane Adamo, the ex-fiancée of South Park co-creator Trey Parker . The engagement was broken up because she reportedly committed infidelities on Parker during their engagement, hence the promiscuous nature. The character of Liane Cartman is one of the characters (another was the horse Liane from Parker's Cannibal! The Musical) Parker created as a bitter "tribute" to her.

Hermaphrodite and Eric's Parentage

Liane Cartman with Chef and Mr. Garrison in "Cartman's Mom is a Dirty Slut".

In " Cartman's Mom is Still a Dirty Slut ", it was stated that Liane Cartman was a hermaphrodite, meaning that she had both male and female sexual organs and that years ago during the Drunken Barn Dance, she proceeded to have sex with a series of men and women. After it was revealed that Liane was Cartman's father and mother due to the fact that she was a hermaphrodite.

However, in " 200 ", Eric Cartman and Mitch Conner go to Mr. Garrison and Mr. Hat who revealed that the events of " Cartman's Mom is Still a Dirty Slut " were a fabrication and the results for the paternity test were tampered with and that. However the identity of the father was not told until " 201 ", in which Cartman was captured by his arch-foe Scott Tenorman , who then revealed that Liane was not a hermaphrodite and Cartman's real father was Scott's own father, Jack Tenorman , a Ginger who played for the Denver Broncos , and who Cartman had arranged to be killed, made into chili, and fed to his half-brother Scott. It is explained that Liane had questioned whether or not to tell Eric, not because of her own personal feelings, but because the Broncos had been having a really good year, and she along with the rest of the town did not want to distract from the game season.

Sexual Appetite

Despite her sweetness, she is extremely promiscuous. Quite early on, it was stated that Ms. Cartman was actually Eric's father, as she was supposedly born a self-fertilizing hermaphrodite with both female and male genitalia (though Dr. Mephesto implies in " Cartman's Mom is Still a Dirty Slut " that she no longer has the latter). However, in " 201 ", it is revealed that she actually is not a hermaphrodite, and that the town of South Park lied in order to protect the Denver Broncos.

In the early seasons, she was very sexually active and regularly pursued this activity. She was reputedly a crack whore, and has taken part in German scheisse movies. She also had no issue with commencing sexual relations with complete strangers, instead usually inviting them to the home as frequent visitors. This appetite is not strictly for men, for it is hinted in " Cartman's Mom is Still a Dirty Slut " that she had intercourse with Ms. Crabtree, Mayor McDaniels, and Sheila Broflovski.

Although Liane used to constantly have sex, and ignores the presence of anyone around her to sexually persuade men into her bedroom, it is unknown if Cartman knew the full extent to what his mom really did behind closed doors. Eric has come across various numbers of porn sites and so-called "family videos" gone awry, but seems to either ignore the fact that his mom is a slut or looks as it to be just his sweet, loving mother conned out of her own environment, such as when he explains that his mother told him she was young and needed money when she was featured in Crack Whore Magazine in " Pinkeye ", to which Stan retorts, "Cartman, those photos were taken a month ago!" Cartman knows not to complain to his mother, probably already figuring out that if he makes her feel bad about hurting her son, she will eventually turn on him and no longer spoil him in the natural way. Even in " Cartman's Mom is a Dirty Slut " and " Cartman's Mom is Still a Dirty Slut " where it is revealed to Eric that his mom has had sex with the entire town, he still has no conversations with his mom about her secret life. Also in " Trapper Keeper ", she ends up having sex with the cyborg from the future, Bill Cosby . It is implied " The Wacky Molestation Adventure " that she was having a threesome with Chef and an unnamed man.

In later seasons, her character seems to have changed. For instance, her working as a prostitute has only been occasionally referenced since the fourth season. She is now generally shown to be more responsible with Eric, especially in " Tsst " and " Go God Go ". However, in " The Death of Eric Cartman ", Cartman mistakes his mom's screams of pleasure for cries of sadness, when in reality, she is receiving sex from a plumber whom she invited to her house. Aside that instance, Ms. Cartman's infidelities have remained virtually unmentioned between the fourth season and " 200 ". As mentioned above, whenever Liane has any male guests over, she'll offer to show them "the rest of the rest of the house" which she uses as an excuse to sneak the guest up to her bedroom and have sex with them as she does with Bill Cosby (BSM-471) in "Trapper Keeper".

In South Park: The Stick of Truth , if the New Kid hits Liane with a weapon, she will either yelp or moan in amusement or say "Oh, my!" which reveals Liane's sexual appetite.

She can be seen again in South Park: The Fractured But Whole when she decides to start again her "Tutoring classes" in the town, in which she ask The New Kid to help her spread the tutoring business cards in Skeeter's Wine Bar and giving it to three men.

She also appears in South Park: Phone Destroyer as Sorceress Liane, a fighter under the Fantasy theme, with the ability of turning nearby enemies into cocks upon her death.

Liane's formal black dress

Liane is about average height for an adult female South Park character. She wears a turquoise sweater, and brick red trousers. Her outfit slightly resembles that of Cartman's, in that her sweater is the same color as his toque, and her trousers are like his coat. She has long brown hair which is usually tied back in an old-fashioned bun design, and wears rosy lipstick, and usually has a sweet, motherly expression on her face.

As a teenager or young adult at the 12th annual drunken barn dance, she wore a dark red long-sleeve crop top, a dark black skirt, and dark red shoes to match the shirt. She also had her hair down.

For special occasions, she wears a black dress with gray lining on the top that partially reveals her cleavage and a white necklace. In " Tonsil Trouble ", she wears a red version of this dress. When dressed for bed, she wears either a dark cyan nightgown or a pink robe, and often wears a green facial mask.

When outside of the house or re-entering the house, she is often seen wearing a light brown trench coat over her usual outfit, especially in newer episodes from the fourteenth and fifteenth seasons. It is usually buttoned up with a belt around her waist, but sometimes she leaves it open. She wears it most prominently in " HUMANCENTiPAD " where she wears it for nearly the entire episode.

In " Merry Christmas Charlie Manson! ", she wore glasses while driving, which implies that she is nearsighted. However, in later episodes such as " Medicinal Fried Chicken " she drives without them.

In South Park: Phone Destroyer , she wears the same black formal outfit as in " Cat Orgy " but with a pointed sorcerer hat and a broom, despite her card artwork showing that she wears a black bodysuit.

In " The Pandemic Special ", she wears a yellow face covering over her mouth and nose during the riots. She wears it over her chin while standing on the street outside the school, waiting for Mr. Mackey to make an announcement on the students' conditions.

In South Park: Post Covid , her attire has not really changed much other than her wearing a blue button up cardigan over her regular sweater. She has visible bumps and wrinkles on her face and her hair has darkened due to old age. She also gained a little bit of weight.

Some of Liane's relatives.

Liane understood a German-speaking man in South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut , indicating that she may be of German descent, though it may just be that she learned the language while filming the scheisse films, which are German. According to Eric, she is Dutch-Irish on her mother's side.

Her family is shown for the first time in " Merry Christmas Charlie Manson! ", where she, her son, and the rest of the main four, go on a trip to Nebraska to visit them for Christmas. Most of her relatives appear to be similar in matter to her son; all fat, with the same speech impediment and catchphrases such as "Kickass!" and "RESPECT MY AUTHORITAH!!" "No, (Pet's name), that's my pot pie. No, (Pet's Name), that's a bad (Pet's Name)!". The family is seen again in the beginning of " Cartmanland " at her mother's funeral — where she leaves her estate (valued at $1,000,000) to Eric, citing that all the other family members would have spent it all on crack.

• Her parent's names are Harold and Mabel (deceased).
• Her brothers are named Howard and Stinky.
• Her sister-in-law is named Lisa.
• Her two nephews are named Fred and Elvin
• She has a teenage niece named Alexandra
• And she has a grandmother named Florence .

Various other unnamed members of the Cartman clan were shown in the episode, as well as in " Cartmanland ".

Eric Cartman

Liane shows great deference to her overweight son Eric, and has been seen on numerous occasions bowing to his will, constantly spoiling him rotten. She also ignores his obesity (often saying that he is "just big-boned") and will usually give him some normal food smothered in junk food, as seen in the pilot episode " Cartman Gets an Anal Probe ", giving Cartman a, "chocolate chicken pot pie with icing on top". Of course, Eric's obesity is at least partly genetic. It is seen that Eric and his mother have a great bond with each other. However, since " Tsst ", she has begun to grow resistant to his whining and his demands — seen in " Go God Go " and " Go God Go XII ", where she is quite stern with him when he shows great impatience regarding the release date of the Nintendo Wii console. She shows further resolve in " Coon 2: Hindsight ", " Mysterion Rises " and " Coon vs. Coon & Friends ", during which she punishes Cartman for his behavior and violent actions against his friends, particularly Clyde and Bradley . She also shows further resolve in " HUMANCENTiPAD ", where she refused to buy Cartman an iPad because it was way too expensive and then refused to head back to Best Buy to get a Toshiba Handibook due to Cartman's unacceptable behavior at the store.

Liane rarely raises her voice (the most prominent occasion being in " Cartman Gets an Anal Probe ", in which she suggests he go out and play with his friends and then shouts "don't be difficult Eric!" when he protests, and in " Shots!!! ", during a school meeting when Sheila insinuates that Liane does not love Cartman enough to vaccinate him, Liane yells at her and the rest of the protesting parents that none of them have had to hold Eric down and go through what she goes through), and the only discipline she dispenses is a very rare slap on the head when Eric embarrasses her in public (in " Do the Handicapped Go to Hell? " and " Quintuplets 2000 ") and infrequent grounding such as when he tried to exterminate the Jews, or when he saw the Terrance and Phillip movie two times then accidentally made Kenny set himself on fire. She has shown admonishing him not to pick his nose (to which he insists he was only scratching it). In " Coon 2: Hindsight ", Liane not only punishes Eric for being bad, every time he talks back to her, she would raise her voice. In " HUMANCENTiPAD ", Liane again shows a strong stance against her son, as she is seen yelling at Cartman for loudly implying that she was "fucking him" (leading others to believe he means sexually, when in truth he means figuratively). She seems to have no issue yelling at him in public anymore as she berates Cartman's misbehavior on the Dr. Phil show. In " Shots!!! ", although initially allowing Eric to get away with not receiving his shots and receiving a toy after every visit, she decided not to force her child to get shots, although when he asked to get a toy, she firmly yelled that he would not be allowed to get a toy since he did not receive his shots, demonstrating she is no longer willing to reward Eric when he does not deserve it.

Liane has also supposedly instilled in Cartman some of his bigoted behavior towards the Jews, gingers, and black people. Cartman was often heard to quote his mother's supposed beliefs, much to the surprise of his friends and the towns people. Liane however has never vocalized these opinions on camera, leading to questions of whether or not she really said them or if Cartman misquoted her or made it up. However, in Pinkeye , Liane created for Cartman an Adolf Hitler costume for Halloween, which at the time Cartman had no idea who Hitler was. In " Cherokee Hair Tampons ", she told her her son to stay away from Kyle because he had AIDS, when Kyle actually had kidney failure. Also, in " Merry Christmas Charlie Manson! ", she had Kyle hold Florence Cartman 's catheter bag. This implies some sort of bigotry or at least ignorance on Liane's behalf. In " Ginger Kids " she screamed when she realized that Cartman turned ginger (though Kyle, Stan, and Kenny dyed his hair and whitened his skin to make him look ginger). However, Lisa Cartman and Jack Tenorman are both ginger.

In more recent episodes, Liane seems to have grown tired of Cartman's behavior. This was seen in " Shots " where she gets embarrassed and upset after Eric freaked out when the doctor attempted to give him his shot despite Eric promising her that he would let the doctor do so moments earlier. She reluctantly lets Eric pick out a toy he was not deserving of. At the end of the episode, though she would not force Cartman to get shots, she refused to let him pick out a toy that he did not deserve in the first place. In " Pajama Day ", after Cartman tells Liane that she got his demands of what to say to PC Principal on the phone wrong, Liane responds with an annoyed expression. At the end of " City People ", Cartman's actions not only caused Liane to lose her job but also caused the both of them to move out of their home and into Coney Island Hotdog. Liane blames Cartman for making her lose her job, clearly upset of the situation and even ignores him who tries to make light of it and acts oblivious of what he caused. In South Park: The Streaming Wars , Liane kept blaming Cartman for causing her to quit her job and the both of their current living state. Cartman, on the other hand, devises a plan to coerce Liane into getting a breast implant, which escalated all the way up to a legal issue in South Park: The Streaming Wars Part 2 , further angering Liane. In " DikinBaus Hot Dogs ", she once again blame Cartman for getting her fired from her job while gets annoyed when he pleads to get a job and starts making renovations to Coney Island Hotdog. Later on, the two move back into their old home much to Cartman's chargin. Despite Cartman's pleads to go back to the hotdog stand, Liane simply ignores her son's begging.

Relationships

In terms of friends, she seems integrated into the circle of parents around the town often seen interacting with Sharon Marsh , Sheila Broflovski , Carol McCormick and the other parents when they congregate. However, " Tsst " seems to imply that Liane has few or no friends, and that her servitude to her son is a psychological attempt to make up for that. Given how rarely she is seen alone with the other mothers - usually while the children are playing or as a group - it is possible that she does not consider them friends due to their relationships being more related to their children. Her loneliness could also be a reason for her promiscuity.

Video Games

South park rally.

Liane appears as a secret playable character in the game. To unlock her, the player must win the Pink Lemonade race while being the only player to deliver pink lemonade to the tables. However, she is not available on the Nintendo 64 version.

South Park: The Stick of Truth

She can be seen sweeping in her kitchen the first time the New Kid joins Kupa Keep and after the Elves' first attack when the player leaves. On the player's first night, she tells Cartman and his "little druid friends" to go get ready for bed. She can be talked to and friended on Facebook. She also attends the PTA meeting in the quest PTA Problems .

South Park: The Fractured but Whole

Liane gives the player a side mission in the game titled Vigilante Marketing . Here, she will ask the player to give out tickets for an adult tutoring class she is hosting. After this is done, she will award the player with some special hand-cooked brownies, which are needed to make the Chocolate Memberito item to unlock the Summon TimeFart.

Later on The Big Beatdown , the player must fight a pimp who has invaded her house. After he has been defeated, Liane will ask the player to take a selfie with the pimp's two prostitutes as part of their new "family", and she will even start to refer to the player as "Daddy". After this is done, The Coon arrives to the scene and notices the situation, but Liane just tells him there are some snacks in the kitchen.

South Park: Phone Destroyer

Sorceress Liane is a 5-Cost Epic Fighter of the Fantasy theme that sees Liane dressed up as a witch. While her card art shows her in a very provocative outfit, her in-game sprite shows her in a simple witch hat and dress. When she dies in battle, any enemies or allies near her turn into Cocks, and the number of targets from her spell increases depending on her level.

South Park: Snow Day!

In the game's prologue, Liane stays at home to watch the news of the blizzard that has fallen on South Park.

In the South Park Backyards chapter, Cartman calls up the now-possessed Liane to fight the New Kid.

Liane had a major role early on in the series and was the most prominent of the boys ' parents, but over time she gained less spotlight as Randy took on that role. She has had a speaking role in every season to date, as well as in the movie and several video games.

• " The Unaired Pilot " - She gives Cartman snacks and later sees Ike being thrown into her house.
• " Cartman Gets an Anal Probe " - She gives Cartman snacks.
• " Weight Gain 4000 " - Goes to buy her son some " Weight Gain 4000 " supplement for Cartman.
• " Volcano " - Waits with her son for Jimbo Kern to pick him up for their camping trip.
• " Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride " (cameo) - Seen in the crowd watching the football.
• " An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig " (indirectly mentioned) - Cartman indirectly mentions her and the fact that she has had sex with another man.
• " Death " - Tells Eric that Terrance and Phillip is naughty and he should not watch it.
• " Pinkeye " - Decorates her Residence for Halloween.
• " Starvin' Marvin " - Her son asks her if he can keep Starvin' Marvin , which she agrees with.
• " Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo " - Seen watching the school play.
• " Damien " - Seen at Cartman's party.
• " Cartman's Mom is a Dirty Slut " - Is nervous about telling her son who his biological father is.
• " Terrance and Phillip in Not Without My Anus " (cameo) - Seen on Television.
• " Cartman's Mom is Still a Dirty Slut " - Revealed to be Eric's father, much to her son's shock.
• " Chickenlover "
• " Ike's Wee Wee " (cameo)
• " Conjoined Fetus Lady " (cameo)
• " City on the Edge of Forever (Flashbacks) "
• " Chickenpox " - Sends Cartman to Kenny 's house to get him affected with chickenpox.
• " Roger Ebert Should Lay off the Fatty Foods " - Repeated tells Cartman not to pick his nose.
• " Clubhouses "
• " Cow Days " (cameo)
• " Merry Christmas Charlie Manson! " - Drives her son and the boys to her mother 's for the Christmas holidays.
• " Rainforest Shmainforest " (cameo) - Seen along with the boys' mothers, before they go on a trip to the rain forest.
• " Spontaneous Combustion "
• " The Succubus " - Takes her son to an eye doctor to get his eyes checked.
• " Jakovasaurs "
• " Sexual Harassment Panda "
• " Cat Orgy " - Leaves Shelley Marsh to babysit Cartman.
• " Two Guys Naked in a Hot Tub " (cameo) - Seen at the meteor shower party.
• " Korn's Groovy Pirate Ghost Mystery "
• " Chinpokomon " - Buys Cartman a chinpokomon toy.
• " Hooked on Monkey Fonics " - Buys Cartman a monkey to help him in practice for the spelling bee.
• " Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics " (cameo) - Seen in the Holy night song and during the final song.
• " The Tooth Fairy Tats 2000 " - Tells Cartman that the Tooth Fairy is not real.
• " Cartman's Silly Hate Crime 2000 " - Upset with Cartman for throwing a rock at Tolkien Black .
• " Quintuplets 2000 " - Goes to the French-Canadian performance along with Cartman the other main character's families.
• " Timmy 2000 " Buys Cartman Ritalin as a treatment for ADD, she later starts taking it herself along with other parents in South Park .
• " Cherokee Hair Tampons "
• " Something You Can Do with Your Finger " (on videotape) - She appears on a sex tape with Mr. Mackey .
• " Do the Handicapped Go to Hell? "
• " Probably " - Tries to get her son to go back to school.
• " Trapper Keeper " - Stan Marsh , Kyle Broflovski and Kenny McCormick try to convince her not to buy Cartman a new trapper keeper, but instead takes VSM-471 off to her bedroom to have sex.
• " Helen Keller! The Musical "
• " Fat Camp " - Sends Cartman to fat camp.
• " The Wacky Molestation Adventure " - Arrested for sexually abusing Cartman along with Chef and another unnamed man. Like every adult in town.
• " Cartmanland " - Goes to her mother's funeral.
• " Proper Condom Use " (cameo)
• " Here Comes the Neighborhood " - Seen with Cartman going into a welfare building.
• " Kenny Dies " - Tells Cartman that Kyle and Stan need to talk to him downstairs.
• " Freak Strike " - Goes on TV with Cartman to talk about how out of control he is.
• " Fun with Veal " - Sneaks food for Butters , Kyle, Stan, and Cartman.
• " The Simpsons Already Did It " - Proud that Cartman is the god of the sea people.
• " Red Hot Catholic Love " - Becomes atheist along with everyone else in town.
• " Bebe's Boobs Destroy Society "
• " Child Abduction is Not Funny " - Seen saying goodbye to her son.
• " A Ladder to Heaven " - Tells Cartman off for drinking Kenny's ashes.
• " The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers "
• " The Death Camp of Tolerance " Sends Cartman to " Devitzen's Tolerance Camp ".
• " The Biggest Douche in the Universe " - Goes with Cartman and Chef to get Kenny's soul out of his body.
• " Red Sleigh Down " (cameo) - Seen in the crowd during Jimmy 's song.
• " Krazy Kripples "
• " I'm a Little Bit Country " - Seen in the hospital with Cartman.
• " Lil' Crime Stoppers " - Scolds her son for coming home late from police duty.
• " Red Man's Greed " (cameo) - Seen in the crowd.
• " South Park is Gay! " - Seen with numerous other mothers.
• " Grey Dawn "
• " Casa Bonita "
• " Butt Out " - Angry at Cartman for smoking and burning down the school.
• " It's Christmas in Canada " (cameo) - Seen at the town meeting and agrees with Chef's idea to give money to the Broflovski's.
• " Good Times with Weapons " (cameo) - Seen at the town meeting with her son.
• " Up the Down Steroid " - Her son manipulates her into signing him up the for Special Olympics.
• " The Passion of the Jew "
• " AWESOM-O " - Allows her son to go to Los Angeles with Butters.
• " The Jeffersons " (cameo)
• " Goobacks " (cameo)
• " Douche and Turd " (cameo) - Seen in the background.
• " Cartman's Incredible Gift "
• " Die Hippie, Die "
• " Best Friends Forever "
• " The Losing Edge " - Seen watching baseball.
• " The Death of Eric Cartman " - A plumber has sex with her.
• " Erection Day " - Seen watching Eric Cartman perform in the talent show.
• " Ginger Kids "
• " The Return of Chef " (cameo) - Seen at Chef's funeral.
• " Smug Alert! " (cameo)
• " Cartoon Wars Part I " - Seen in the crowd at the town's meeting.
• " Tsst " - Hires numerous nannies to help control her son's behavior.
• " Make Love, Not Warcraft " - Supplies the boys with everything they need including a bedpan for Cartman to crap as they play their video game World of Warcraft .
• " Mystery of the Urinal Deuce " (cameo)
• " Hell on Earth 2006 "
• " Go God Go " - Tells her son that he needs to be patient.
• " Go God Go XII " - Goes to the video game store to get Eric Cartman.
• " Cartman Sucks " (cameo)
• " Le Petit Tourette " (cameo)
• " Tonsil Trouble " - Shocked that her son has HIV.
• " Britney's New Look " (cameo) - Seen taking photos of Britney Spears , along with many other people.
• " Major Boobage " (cameo) - Seen in the crowd towards the end of the episode.
• " Over Logging " (cameo) - Seen in the crowd at the end of the episode.
• " The China Probrem " - Tells her son that the Chinese are not going to get him.
• " Breast Cancer Show Ever " - Goes with her son to the Testaburger Residence .
• " The Ungroundable " - Calls Butters' parents, when Butters believes he is a vampire.
• " The Ring " (cameo) - Seen at Kenny's funeral.
• " The Coon "
• " Margaritaville " (cameo) - Seen in the crowd.
• " Eat, Pray, Queef " - Seen at the emergency school meeting.
• " Pinewood Derby " - Seen among the residents at the end of the alien test.
• " The F Word " - Attends a court session involving the boys.
• " Sexual Healing " (cameo) - Seen at Kenny's funeral.
• " The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs "
• " Medicinal Fried Chicken " - Drives Cartman to KFC to get fried chicken.
• " 200 " - (cameo) - Seen in the crowd giving Santa in a bear costume to gingers.
• " 201 " - Reveals that she is Eric’s mother after all as the events of "Cartman's Mom is Still a Dirty Slut" was a lie.
• " It's a Jersey Thing " (cameo) - Seen trying to make people from New Jersey go home.
• " Coon 2: Hindsight " - Grounds Cartman for the use of bad language and beating up his friends, also she drives Coon and Friends to the burning building.
• " Coon vs. Coon & Friends " - Extends Cartman's grounding for leaving the house, in order to get past her he uses the LeBron James technique.
• " HUMANCENTiPAD " - Upset that Cartman embarrassed her on both TV and in Best Buy, as a result, she refuses to buy him anything and takes him home.
• " T.M.I. " - Seen at anger management therapy with Cartman.
• " You're Getting Old " - Gives Cartman a present, to keep him from getting upset.
• " The Last of the Meheecans " - Ask Eric if he wants to say "hi" to his Grandfather.
• " 1% " - She and Cartman stay at the Black Residence due to the fire Cartman had started.
• " The Poor Kid " - Framed by his Cartman for having meth lab at her home.
• " Reverse Cowgirl " (cameo)
• " Cartman Finds Love " - Sees her son chasing after his imaginary friend, Cupid Me , by the bathroom.
• " Sarcastaball " - Seen at the Stotch Residence along with several other parents.
• " Raising the Bar " - Seen in Tolkien Black's video.
• " Insecurity "
• " Obama Wins! " - Grounds Cartman for hiding the election ballots.
• " Let Go, Let Gov "
• " Titties and Dragons " - Tells her son Bill Gates is on the phone.
• " Gluten Free Ebola " (cameo) - Seen at the town meeting.
• " The Magic Bush " - Attends the Neighborhood Watch meeting.
• " Grounded Vindaloop " - Gives Cartman some food, while he is in a virtual reality coma.
• " The City Part of Town "- Seen at the Whole Foods Market .
• " Tweek x Craig " - Walks in the bathroom where Cartman is having sex with Cupid Me, which in reality was Cartman masturbating.
• " PC Principal Final Justice "- Buys a gun along with the other South Park residents, including her son Eric, and points her gun at Eric for staying up past his bedtime to watch a movie. She ends up winning.
• " Skank Hunt " - Seen at the school assembly.
• " Fort Collins " - Seen in Cartman's flashback walking out of the movie theater after having seen Ghostbusters and asks if he liked the movie.
• " White People Renovating Houses " - Talks to Heidi about Eric's behavior.
• " Put It Down " - Seen at the school assembly.
• " Franchise Prequel " - Participates in a meeting with the other parents.
• " Sons A Witches "
• " Doubling Down "
• " Dead Kids "- Seen when Sharon calls the other parents together to speak about school shootings. Later seen when Randy sings.
• " The Problem with a Poo " - Watches Mr. Hankey leave South Park.
• " The Scoots " - Seen at the Park County Community Center .
• " Nobody Got Cereal? " - Seen in front of Park County Courthouse , waiting for Stan's verdict on the negotiation with ManBearPig .
• " Buddha Box " - Participated with Eric at the Community Center with the therapist and concerns about her son's anxiety.
• " Unfulfilled - Tells her son that nothing is coming for him from Amazon due to the strike.
• " Shots!!! " - Struggles to get Cartman the immunizations required to attend school. She then gets help from other parents and professionals to force Cartman to receive his vaccination but fails.
• " Let Them Eat Goo " - Seen in the town meeting.
• " Turd Burglars " - Seen at the women's meeting at Park County Community Center.
• " Christmas Snow " - Loses her "Christmas Spirit" after liquor is prohibited during the holidays, but cheers up after Randy comes up with his Christmas special.
• " The Pandemic Special " - Seen at the beginning of the episode warning Cartman that school will return despite the COVID-19 pandemic. She is also seen fighting with the rioters across South Park.
• " South ParQ Vaccination Special " (cameo)
• " Pajama Day " - She rallies all of the adults to wear their pajamas to work when Cartman tells her that the kids cannot wear pajamas to school.
• " The Big Fix " - Seen on a picture with Cartman.
• " City People " - She gets a job at South Park Realtors and tries to stop Cartman's fear of her leaving.
• " Cupid Ye " - Cartman finds her asleep, before leaving the bedroom for a prayer.
• " Japanese Toilet " - Attends Stan's speech outside of City Hall.
• " DikinBaus Hot Dogs " - Purchases her old home with the help of Butters.
• South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut
• South Park: Post Covid - Appears in the Shady Acres retirement home.
• South Park: The Streaming Wars
• South Park: The Streaming Wars Part 2
• South Park: Joining the Panderverse - Convinces Cartman that Kathleen Kennedy is not under his bed. Also appears as herself in Universe 216-B, and as an alien form in Universe 5429F .
• South Park (Not Suitable For Children) - Finds Cartman lying on his bed, leaving his resignation note from Cred Affinity Group .
• In the episode " Jakovasaurs ", she is seen smoking crack, which is stated by Cartman to be "an old joke". In Season 15's " The Poor Kid ", she tells police she has not done drugs in a long time.
• It has been said that "Liane" is the name of the longtime lover and ex-fiancée of Trey Parker. When he found of her repeated infidelities on him, he was inspired to create this character; who is promiscuous and a drug addict, not to mention also an inept mother.
• Other characters sometimes call her "Mrs.", despite the fact that she has never married onscreen.
• LGBT in South Park
• ↑ Mentioned in " The Poor Kid ".
• ↑ "South Park" Up the Down Steroid (TV episode 2004) . IMDb.com.
• ↑ "South Park" Cartman Gets an Anal Probe (TV episode 1997) . IMDb.com.
• ↑ "South Park" The Tooth Fairy's Tats 2000 (TV episode 2000) . IMDb.com.
• 1 Kenny McCormick
• 2 Kyle Broflovski
• 3 Eric Cartman

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South Park Reveals [Spoiler]’s Tragic Future in Return of COVID Special

Executive editor.

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We should have known it would all come down to a fart.

South Park officially wrapped its Post COVID saga on Thursday with The Return of COVID , a one-hour followup to the futuristic feast Paramount+ served us this past Thanksgiving.

Before resuming the story at hand, we’re treated to a flashback of a seemingly average day at South Park Elementary School. Cartman is thrilled to announce that he took a picture of Heather Williams farting during gym class, one they can use as blackmail to score Denver Nuggets tickets from Heather’s well-connected mom. But before Cartman has a chance to confront her, the school announces a two-week shutdown, allowing the fart to remain unexposed.

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Then the misery of quarantine sets in. Stan’s parents start fighting, he’s depressed all the time, he accidentally burns Shelly alive, his mother kills herself — the whole nine yards. The memories still haunt Stan’s nightmares as an adult, especially now that he’s found himself in a second quarantine; due to the recent discovery of the McCormickron strain, no one is allowed to enter or leave South Park for 20–30 years.

Gaining access to Kenny’s time travel technology requires a vocal scan from his apparent associate “Victor Chaus,” whom Stan and Kyle discover to be Butters when they reunite at South Park Mental Asylum Plus. (Side note: The Chaus/Chaos reveal at the end of Post COVID really was just the best, wasn’t it?)

Meanwhile, Cartman has formed a modest rebellion determined to prevent Kyle from traveling back in time. Convinced Kyle is solely out to destroy his family and prevent him from ever meeting his beloved Yentl, he hides them in the church attic. (The fact that his daughter starts keeping a diary about Kyle’s injustice feels like low-hanging fruit, even for South Park .) When Cartman catches wind that his enemies are working with Butters, he seizes the opportunity to shut their operation down from the inside and steal the equipment for himself. The recruitment process includes a moment where Butters accidentally pees all over Cartman in the bathroom, which barely missed the cut-off for our annual Scenes We Wish We Could Unsee list.

This is where Cartman’s messaging suddenly changes. Instead of stopping Kyle from going back in time, he convinces Clyde to go back in time and kill Kyle in the past. He trusts Clyde to carry out this mission because, as an anti-vaxxer, Clyde has proven that he’s willing to stand by his beliefs even if it means other people will die. Cartman’s family, on the other hand, doesn’t support this violent plan. They believe that reuniting with Kyle has brought out the worst in Cartman, and she has faith that they will still find each other in a different timeline. Honestly, it’s kind of beautiful.

But because Cartman’s baby is chaos in its purest form, he pulls the lever and sends Clyde back in time before Cartman tells him about the change of plans. So Cartman, Kyle and Stan also have to go back to stop Clyde from killing Kyle. It’s a whole thing, one that ends with Cartman blowing Clyde’s brains out and dropping him off a bridge.

And yet… nothing changes. As the guys begin to face the possibility that they’re now stuck in the past as adults, they individually admit that they screwed up. Because Randy will always make love to that pangolin in every conceivable timeline, it’s impossible to prevent COVID from happening. What they were able to control, however, was their reaction to the pandemic. They were scared, confused and didn’t know what to believe, so they all took different paths — and they need to start cutting each other some slack.

Craving one single “precedented time,” the three grown men pay a visit to young Heather Williams, showing her the picture Cartman took of her farting in gym class. And just like that, their younger selves are being flown off to a Denver Nuggets game in Heather’s mom’s company helicopter. Future Stan makes one more change, sending a tegridy bud back to Randy which produces a strain potent enough to get Randy to apologize to Sharon for how he acted in the pandemic. He gives the weed out for free to everyone in town, and relationships are magically mended to the tune of Kelly Clarkson’s “I Forgive You.” But most importantly, there are no more Space Jam s.

“Poor Cartman. It’s so sad, he never did anything with his life,” Kyle and Stan lament as a drunk, destitute Cartman curses at them from across the street. But not even Butters has any sympathy left. “Come on, fellas, we can’t spend another holiday feeling bad for Eric,” he says. “There’s nothing that could have changed the path he was on.”

Uh… so much for Yentl, we guess.

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I had to give the episode and F rating. As much as I love seeing all the characters as adults , the small hint of i’Victor Chaus really spelled ‘Choas’at the end of episode 1 (which you knew was going to be butters) ,and most importantly seeing Ike Brovlofski as an adult became a distant memory once the ‘scene’ was shown. it wasnt emotional , Its was horrible…Very Dark for Trey and Matt in my opinion.And it wasnt just the events that transpired for Cartman in the end , But the fact no one , And I mean ‘NO ONE’ had a single ounce of sympathy for him. I love South Park and have probably watched every episode of every season including bigger longer uncut and Imaginationland 100 times each over. But I will never watch the post covid the return of covid episode ever again it was by far for me one of the saddest things I’ve ever watched on TV nausea and I just feel that any character on any show no matter what they do and how they are during all the episodes should have the type of ending Cartman did in the Post Covid 2 part series.. Cant wait for the new season to start, and get back to what weve come to love in South Park and make ‘Post Covid-The Return of Covid” a distant ,forgotten, thing of the past… “Screw you guys…..I’m going home!”

Seriously? Cartman is the worst type of human imaginable. He tried to create another Holocaust, he killed another kid’s parents and fed them to him. He has done the most despicable things imaginable to everyone around him, and you expect that anyone is going to feel sympathy for him?

Yes, that’s true. But we see him break away from who he was and not only fix himself, but build a living family and live well. As messed up as Cartman was, he was just a kid. Isn’t him growing out of it and becoming a good person what we are supposed to want?

Maybe it’s because I have a family off my own now, but it bothers me because he loved his family, and his family loved him. And he did the right thing, he saved Kyle, he fixed the boys friendship, and set South Park free by getting rid of Clyde.

And what was his reward? He lost everything he cared about, everything he built, and everything he loved.

Who relishes on something like that? Not me that’s for sure. He redeemed himself, and deserved better.

Here here on that. I mean they really lost the great potential of a romeo and juliet spoof with Kyle’s son (who is apparently Dylan Robert Broflovski) and Cartman’s Daughter(Menorah Cartman). I mean just picture the potential content!

I mean the general cringe for Kyle could be doubled with a reformed Cartman.

Agreed. Cartman deserves better since he was ready to sacrifice his family to save Kyle. And ended up a bum. That’s completely unfair!

Cartman got what he deserved. Even with a family, he was still a swearing minister and, rather than just stopping Kyle, still wanted to kill him. How much compassion could he have when he was still being selfish, wanting the whole world to change just for his own sake (albeit for a family, but still selfish). Also – look at how he taught his kids! The little one wouldn’t have been saying “F-U Kyle” had Cartman not said it somewhere. Forgiveness brought them all back together and they all had equal opportunity…I just wonder if there are more episodes leading up to that point, which may be an indicative of things to come which show just how much worse his behavior got.

Yeah, but in the end Cartman still did the right thing. His swearing and murderous intent was for the love of his family and fear of losing them. Once he realized that saving them that way would be worse than not, he relented and sacrificed himself for everyone else’s sins.

Cartman gave his friends aids. Sexually abused butters. Sexual Harassed the girls in his class. Murdered a kids parents and then had him eat them in a chilli cookoff. Reformed a NAZI hate party. Is a bigot and a racist He would be little and abuse his own mother to get what he wanted. Flooded an entire town after crushing a dam. Murdered an entire sea of hippies. The dude has done a lot of horrible things and deserved what came to him.

Even in the future he was happy he was still controlling and manipulative and had no problem or seeing issues with murder.

Perfectly said!

Not an F but still they did Cartman wrong. Not sure what they were thinking but it wasn’t funny, it made an otherwise great ep into trash.

Exactly how I feel , you said it all for me.it was a great episode until I seen Cartman at the end laid out on the street. Yes Cartman was always the asshole but they could of did bro better than that

No, it didn’t make it into trash. It made it into reflective pathos, and a bittersweet but realistic ending. I feel sorry for Cartman, who did reform his life, but had to sacrifice it all for everyone else.

I fully agree. Cartman was indeed a bad character, especially feeding someone dead parents to someone is unforgivable. But also remember a big plot of how the kids got away with so much on the show is that they were only 8 years old. Cartman had a whole life to become a new person and redeem himself. Sure you can take that argument and say that is just it, that he could have improved himself, but instead became homeless drunk on his own accord. However the fact that he showed compassion in the kovid timeline along with having a loving wife and kids, they should have given him a better ending than this. The mentality may have been that only in the worst of times could cartman get a good ending for himself, which indeed can be seen a bit clever. But being clever does not always equal realistic. Overall feels like the happy-go-lucky ending, where puritans get blessed, and those who did bad early in life have to pay for it for eternity and cannot seek redemption.

Loved it!!!! Thought it was hilarious. Giving it an A+++. And funniest ending ever. That final Cartman scene had me laughing for 10 minutes straight. Everyone is throwing a childish fit about what they did to Cartman, but this is a comedy. It’s supposed to make you laugh, and it made me laugh. And Cartman isn’t supposed to have a happy ending. He’s a terrible character. And that’s why he is so funny. Because the character is just so absurd. Love South Park.

Yes, the ending was dark but that’s what I loved about it: We had this Hollywood style happy ending and then at the last moment, we see the true hero of the thing, the man who went through redemption, down and out and nobody feels sorry for him. It’s tragedy become farce. I laughed my head off because a mushy ending for me, feels out of place somewhat with South Park.

Not only that, but T&P didn’t do Hot-Tub-Time-Machine and use the time travel to further enrich themselves. It would have been easy to drop a few stock tips or suggestion to buy all the Bitcoin they can, but they held out of that and minimized it.

I like European style complex endings, not simple minded spoon fed tripe. I liked this ending just like I enjoyed the ending of The Sopranos.

wow…umm, ok. 1. Not everyone saw the butters thing “chaos” thing. So, not, Not “everyone” saw victor chaos as butters. That is called an absolute and all absolutes are automatically false.

2. I guess you are new to South Park if you think this post covid episode was dark. I get it, it’s sad to what happened to Stan’s family, but literally everyone else led a decent life, kyle was just single. Wendy turned out amazing and everyone else was fine and healthy. Kenny turned into a super scientist. There are literally way darker episodes in the show than this.

3. Literally almost everyone had sympathy for Cartman . The fact that you cannot detach a small child from an adult is your problem, but you are likely to be the kind of person who cannot let go of high school or Jr. High School like some people I know of in real life. 8 year old children are not their 40 year old selves. He wasn’t ripping on Kyle he legitimately changed, he legitimately loved his family and he legitimately tried to save them, but sacrificed them for the sake of everyone else. That deserves some sympathy.

It’s a cartoon. Jesus man, grow up.

[COMMENT REMOVED BY MODERATOR]

You obviously didn’t grow up in a small town. If you had, you’d understand what happened.

The ending was amazing! I love it when bad stuff happens to Cartman on South Park. Seeing him as a homeless drunk was amazing!

You don’t feel bad for his legitimate family of 18 years that got Thanos’d out of existence?

It’s just a cartoon, dude. It isn’t real. And that ending was hilarious. I laughed for 10 minutes straight. I’m still laughing. Funniest ending ever.

I see, some people jus hate Cartman in reality, even if it is just a cartoon, people like steve feels belitteld by a 9 year old comedy cartoon… And gets his happiness from his disgrace… Patetic. The “Thanos´d out” of hir family, after a deep change of caracter, is just too much. Laugh of this show how depressed one must be.

Dude, there’s something wrong with you. I’m belittled by a cartoon? Are you out of your f…ing mind??? You need therapy. (And some people hate Cartman in reality???? IT’S A COMEDY CARTOON. IT’S NOT REALITY. IT’S NOT TRYING TO BE. CARTMAN’S NOT REAL!!!! There, I typed in all caps so that your little mind could comprehend it. Now go call a therapist. I hope you get better.)

and nothing about TIMMY standing at the end of the episode?

That’s what I really wanted to know. How did they “cure” Timmy’s MR and make him able to walk?

Whaaaatttt I totally missed that!! Gotta go rewatch it lol thx for the heads up!

I fell sad for Cartman, I know he was a very bad kid, but he outgrow that. He sacrifice his family for better future.. However it was successful but not for Cartman….

That was pretty great. He looked like Stephen Hawking standing with a cane did before he was wheelchair-bound. I’m thinking stem cell research took off in the future.

I feel That they felled Cartman even though he is a bad person he has so much potential that they could’ve done much more with him I feel like his life should’ve been hell but then again I feel like how the way Cartman’s character is explained is very intelligent and he gives people to do what he wants by manipulating them I just felt like they could’ve been a hell of a lot more with him then just causing him to be a homeless drunk . I could’ve seen him being a cop with no wife having a lousy life being even more obese just Saying.

I feel That they felled Cartman even though he is a bad person he has so much potential that they could’ve done much more with him I feel like his life should’ve been hell but then again I feel like how the way Cartman’s character is explained is very intelligent and he gives people to do what he wants by manipulating them I just felt like they could’ve been a hell of a lot more with him then just causing him to be a homeless drunk . I could’ve seen him being a cop with no wife having a lousy life being even more obese just Saying. ……

People feel bad for Cartman? A kid who had his rival’s parents killed and then fed the dead parents to the kid. A kid who used The Passion of the Christ to try and start a new movement to exterminate Jewish people. Wow. Alrighty then.

Key word here is “kid”. You literally can’t blame an adult for a single thing they did as a child; to do so is generally considered pretty unfair.

Perfect. Only depressed people with a “lesser caracter” can really take offense by Cartman’s doings as a kid, and laugh of his disgrace..

Cartman had it coming. Stop whining.

few questions. what happened to clyde in the ending future? didnt see him.

what happened to the other timelines? did they get wiped?

if not, did the trio get stuck in the past, died, existing along with their young versions?

I think the true meaning behind why cartman turn out the way he did at the end is when they stick together cartman will always be the hateful little abuser as long as he is friends with Kyle because he has a very complicated love, hate relationship with him he like having him around to pick on but deep down he hate kyle because he is a racist which led him to that ending.

I think you were on to something but its not that Cartman is racist but that he loves and wants to be Jewish…or loves Kyle. Thats why he married a Jewish woman and became a rabbi when he lost his relationship with Kyle,

It’s extremely dark that people are so eager to doom a fictional character to homelessness because of bad decisions he made at eight years old, especially when it’s been shown to us that he’s capable of spending the majority of his life as an upstanding citizen.

Absolutely. Cartman is the whole reason South Park is still on the air. This 2 part episode was an extreme disappointment. Yes, he is despicable, but that is the charm with the edge of South Park. I feel like this “special” was just pandering to the masses, and lost their edge. And acting like that Clyde didn’t get his “vaccine” (which is BS)was the cause of their future situation, pandering to politics. I thought South Park was above that, but I guess the writers succumbed to pressure. Matt and Trey sold out. Disappointing.

They didn’t lose their edge, you just don’t like that they’re pointing out people like Clyde ARE ruining everything for everyone by extending the pandemic out of selfishness.

Its actually a 3 parter. Because i remember that episode. We know the USA is trying to manufacture the virus in different forms. Most likely to make a medicine for people to take to profit off. Lets be clear.

If it was still a problem. Why do you no longer hear about people in hospitals? Also i am from Texas. We don’t do any mask or distance garbage. An no one is sick. So we know its all manufactured lies.

So someone is going around saying. An You have Covid. And YOU have Covid and YOU have covid! Lying like they said you had aids and like they said you had cancer but anyone taking mega doses of Vitamin C are immunized from any virus. This is now about conformity.

You are being told you cant go anywhere without us Tampering with your body. Take our mark or you cant buy or sell or travel. An don’t think Trumps going to save you. So this needs to come to an end. Protest wont work. You just need to let business know with your dollar.

They will collapse and say OK FINE give us what little money you have. Speak with your wallets and do not take the vaccines. They do nothing but damage your DNA.

It is a 3 parter; the prequel was when Marsh and Mickey went to China to make it with a bat and a pangolin.

Pretty funny how the ending turned out. Remember folks the future isn’t set in stone – it’s what’s done now that affect it.

It is interesting to see that Kyle is doin well and has two kids. Strangely I think Kyle may have hooked up w/ Yentl. Thought it was a good episode overall and gave me a good amount to think – Covid and all it entailed was a bummer.

Everyone- I’m sorry whatever you went through these past few years. It hasn’t been much fun or easy. I’m sorry. We were all kinds of wound-up, huh?

I hated what they did to Cartman at the end. Sometimes I just don’t like the way the Cartman character is written into a villain. Probably my least favourite episode of all time is “Tsst” when Cartman is trained by Cesar Milan, because at the end it’s his Mother that turns into a monster again. I know it’s just a show, but it’s kind of sad. For the last few years, I’ve stopped following South Park as closely because I’m tired of being disappointed by how the Cartman and Butters characters are written. A little too crude…if there is such a thing with South Park

I wish they could have given eric a better ending

I think everyone missed the point. Cartman sacrificed himself, and his family, for everyone. It didn’t seem like anyone was happy in the future BUT him. The irony was that he couldn’t receive (didn’t deserve?) the forgiveness that allowed everyone to heal to get to the better future. I loved how Kyle was Cartman’s trigger – and we saw a tiny bit of this during the end of serialization season, where he was a sweet, quiet, timid, caring person when he was cut off from everyone.

The lesson? Don’t be afraid to leave to chase your dreams, but always remember where home is. And avoid Alexa.

I thought it was freaking brilliant. The Cartman twist at the ending was just genius. Love, love, loved it. [Thought comments were monitored, BTW. If so, why is there a guy on here blasting COVID misinfo?]

You know people can actually be homeless. I work with two people that were at one point. One for 6 days one for 5 weeks. And the guy that used to live nextdoor to my 2nd cousin. 2 and 1/2 months. So I know what it like. Considering this all happened during different winters. I know know like many people we just pretend it not real but it’s. And there a shot that somewhere between you and you 3rd cousin One of you know someone that was.

Enjoyed every second of it, but they could’ve done something better for Cartman. Something less… harsh. Make him a miserable man married to a redhead, have him married to Yentl but they’re childless and hate each other. Easily could’ve gone ironic twist over bottom of the barrel. And besides, if Cartman is homeless… will he jump himself on his skateboard?

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West Coast questioned over call to let Harley Reid visit family in Victoria while being rested

Sport West Coast questioned over call to let Harley Reid visit family in Victoria while being rested

AFL legend Paul Roos has questioned whether West Coast's decision to allow Harley Reid to visit his family while being rested is an example of player power going too far. 

Reid was rested for West Coast's Round 7 clash against Gold Coast with Eagles coach Adam Simpson explaining the club's internal measurements had indicated his body was "flagging" .

The 19-year-old was given the opportunity to travel back to Victoria to spend some time with his family on his week off.

Roos, who played 356 games for Fitzroy and Sydney, said it was "ridiculous" that Reid had been allowed to fly across the country, given the physical toll the long flights have on players based in Perth.

"I understand giving him the weekend off, but what I'm saying is, the reason that it becomes tiring for West Coast and Freo is the flights," he told the ABC's AFL Daily podcast .

"If he's not fit to play, why is he OK to fly back and see his family? We can only assume that was a part of the deal of the recruiting. He's a No.1 draft pick so you're going to bend over.

"I don't understand it because he's an AFL player getting paid to play AFL football and his team is playing."

Roos said if Reid was injured and not available, then he should be in rehab and at home in Western Australia.

"But I understand that if you want to keep the No.1 draft pick (at the club) and you're strategising so he can to back and see his family," he said.

"We shouldn't be talking about it because he should be playing, and 20-30 years ago he would be playing. But now, we've got this ridiculous complexity around free agency.

"Let's not forget what happened with Jason Horne-Francis. He played one year at the North Melbourne Football Club and got traded, so the players have all the power now."

Reid will return for Saturday night's clash against Essendon after his week off, but Roos said West Coast was running the risk of dropping its standards by catering for a single player.

"It's not a great look for the West Coast Eagles, let's be perfectly frank," he said.

"If they lose him and sacrifice the standards at the footy club, then it's a lose-lose. The standards of the football club should always override a player every single time.

"That's not to say it's not a part of the discussion with the leadership group, and the leadership group might've said it's fine, but if you start dropping your standards, you stand for nothing."

Roos, who coached Sydney between 2002 and 2010, suggested clubs should weigh up the "go-home" factor heavily when drafting players from interstate. He revealed how the Swans had chosen future club captain Jarrad McVeigh in the 2002 draft over other prospects purely because he was from New South Wales.

"We had pick five and we went for Jarrad McVeigh because he was a NSW kid, 100 per cent," he recalled.

"We were weighing up two or three players with that pick, one I remember was a Victorian kid, and we took Jarrad McVeigh because we knew he was going to stay in NSW.

"You have to weigh it up. I would be surprised had West Coast not weighed up trading the No.1 pick last year knowing it was Harley Reid. It's a huge risk.

"If North Melbourne had traded the No.1 pick instead of taking Jason Horne-Francis, they would've got a lot more for it. Now it's tough to do, but they would've had those conversations."

The ABC of SPORT

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Cartmanland

• Episode aired Jul 25, 2001

Cartman inherits a large sum of money and uses it to purchase his own amusement park. His resulting success causes Kyle to lose faith in God. Cartman inherits a large sum of money and uses it to purchase his own amusement park. His resulting success causes Kyle to lose faith in God. Cartman inherits a large sum of money and uses it to purchase his own amusement park. His resulting success causes Kyle to lose faith in God.

• Trey Parker
• David R. Goodman
• Mona Marshall
• 6 User reviews

• Kyle Broflovski

• Sheila Broflovski

• Liane Cartman

• (credit only)
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• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

Did you know

• Trivia When the lawyers show up to take Cartman's money one of them mentions that a portion of the money was being taken due to "the little boy who died in his park." Cartman responds with "Who? Kenny? He dies all the time!" This is the first time that one of the character mentions how often and frequently Kenny is killed, and revived in the next episode.
• Goofs Sometimes barbed wire is shown atop the fences of Cartmanland, sometimes not.

Eric Cartman : [In a TV commercial] Hey everybody, check out the all new Cartmanland! It's our gra-hand opening! Cartmanland has over a hundred fabulous rides, six rollercoasters, and tons of great surprises! And the best part is... *you* can't come! That's right, because at Cartmanland, only I, Eric Cartman, can get in. That means only I can ride the all new tornado twister, a rollercoaster that splashes in the water. Wow! It's the greatest amusement park in the Colorado area, and nobody can go! Especially Stan and Kyle! Hahaha! So come on down to Cartmanland now, but don't plan on getting past the parking lot, 'cause remember:

Eric Cartman : So much to do at Cartmanland, but you can't come!... especially you Stan and Kyle.

• Connections Spoofs How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966)
• Soundtracks South Park (theme song) Music by Primus Lyrics by Trey Parker and Matt Stone Performed by Les Claypool , Trey Parker and Matt Stone

User reviews 6

• gangstahippie
• Dec 1, 2008
• What story from the Holy Bible was told?
• How much money did Eric Cartman come into and who gave him the money?
• Is "Johnson's & Associates Law Firm" a real or fictional law firm?
• July 25, 2001 (United States)
• United States
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Technical specs

• Runtime 22 minutes
• Dolby Stereo

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Prince William shares rare update on how Kate Middleton is doing amid cancer battle

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Prince William provided a hopeful update on Kate Middleton’s health amid her ongoing cancer battle .

During his visit to northern England Tuesday, a royal supporter asked the Prince of Wales, 41, how his wife and their three children – Prince George, 10, Princess Charlotte, 8, and Prince Louis, 6 – are doing in light of the news.

“Do you mind if I ask how your wife and children are?” asked one concerned fan, who was draped in the British flag, according to a video circulating online .

William graciously responded, “All doing well, yes, thank you. All doing well,” while kindly patting the woman on the shoulder.

The well-wisher then asked for further clarification on Middleton, 42, adding, “I mean, obviously Catherine?,” to which William reinstated, “Yeah, we’re all doing well.”

The future king engaged in a spontaneous walkabout during a visit to James’ Place Newcastle, a male suicide prevention center in the city of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne.

Nearly two weeks ago, William made his return to public duties for the first time since Middleton’s cancer diagnosis was revealed.

On April 18, the prince went to the food charity Surplus to Supper in Surrey, where he chatted to volunteers and lent a helping hand in the kitchen.

More must-see royals coverage:

• How Prince Harry and Meghan Markle met
• Prince William and Kate Middleton’s relationship timeline
• Royal family tree and line of succession

Royal expert Richard Fitzwilliams told the Sun shortly thereafter that William’s appearance was an indication that the royals were returning to some sense of normalcy.

“Royals realise that every single thing they do sends a message in one way or another,” the royal commentator said on April 20, adding, “If Catherine had been there, it would have been fantastic, but no one is expecting that.”

Middleton shocked fans worldwide on March 22 when she revealed she had cancer – which she discovered after undergoing  major abdominal surgery  in January.

“We hope that you will understand that, as a family, we now need some time, space and privacy while I complete my treatment,” the Princess of Wales said in an emotional video message at the time.

“My work has always brought me a deep sense of joy and I look forward to being back when I am able, but for now I must focus on making a full recovery.”

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As expected, Middleton then skipped out on the royals’ Easter Sunday service as she continued to undergo chemotherapy and treatments for her illness.

She has reportedly also spent some time with her family at a vacation home in Norfolk, England, while she recuperated.

The exact form of cancer Middleton is battling or which stage she is in remains unknown.

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Official South Park Studios Wiki | South Park Studios

Eric cartman.

Eric Theodore Cartman

• 1.1 DNA Overview
• 2.1 Catchphrases
• 2.2 Life Lessons
• 3 Greatest Hits
• 5 Main Alter Egos
• 6.1 Season 1
• 6.2 Season 2
• 6.3 Season 3
• 6.4 Season 4
• 6.5 Season 5
• 6.6 Season 6
• 6.7 Season 7
• 6.8 Season 8
• 6.9 Season 9
• 6.10 Season 10
• 6.11 Season 11
• 6.12 Season 12
• 6.13 Season 13
• 6.14 Season 14
• 6.15 Season 15
• 6.16 Season 16
• 6.17 Season 17
• 6.18 Season 18
• 6.19 Season 19
• 6.20 Season 20
• 6.21 Season 21
• 6.22 Season 22
• 6.23 Season 23
• 6.24 Season 24
• 6.25 Season 25
• 6.26 Season 26
• 6.27 EVENTS SOUTH PARK
• 6.28 Phone Destroyer
• 6.29 Cut Costumes
• 7.1 Extended Family
• 7.2 Non-Canon Family
• 8.1 Ex-Girlfriend
• 8.2 Past Love Interests
• 8.3 Romantic Rivalry
• 9 Arch Rival
• 10 Best Friends
• 11.1 The Guys
• 11.2 Imaginary Friends
• 11.3 Other Friends
• 11.4 Classmates
• 11.5 Acquaintances
• 13 Role Models
• 14.1 Music Groups
• 14.2 Sports
• 15 Residence
• 16 Favorite Locations
• 17.1 Absences
• 18.1 Creation and Design
• 18.2 NPR Interview
• 18.3.1 "Parachute" Production Art
• 18.4.1 Character Art: The Wizard
• 18.5.1 Character Art: Cartman
• 18.5.2 Character Art: Cartman
• 18.6.1 Where'd The Idea Come From: "Cartman on Speakerphone"
• 18.7.1 Fist Bump: Storyboard
• 18.7.2 Hip Hop Cartman: Character Design
• 18.8.1 Character Art: Wet Kids
• 18.9.1 Production Art: Cartman's Throne Poses
• 18.10.1 Character Art: Salesman Cartman
• 18.10.2 Character Art: Cartman's Redskins Gear
• 18.10.3 Character Art: Cartman's Keynote
• 18.10.4 Prop Art: Kickstarter Webpage
• 18.11.1 Props: Fat Ass's Caller ID
• 18.11.2 Character Art: Cartman in Bed
• 19.1 Let's Go Tower Defense Play!
• 19.2 Tenorman's Revenge
• 19.3 South Park: The Stick of Truth
• 19.4 South Park: The Fractured But Whole
• 19.5 South Park: Phone Destroyer
• 20 Bonus Factoids

Although his full name is Eric Theodore Cartman, he's usually referred to only by his last name (Cartman). He's one of the main characters in South Park, along with Kyle Broflovski (his frequent rival), Stan Marsh , and Kenny McCormick .

Cartman is fat, self-centered, racist, sexist, a murder, and just a general asshole. He is often concocting schemes to make money or fuck with his friens, mostly Kyle. He absolutely hates Kyle, despises hippies, and can't stand Family Guy. But he does have a soft spot for Mel Gibson, his stuffed animal Clyde Frog , and cats (especially his own cat, Mr. Kitty ).

DNA Overview

You are a fairly average person; you just want to sit on the couch, play video games and eat delicious Cheesy Poofs. But you can also be a sadistic, sociopathic piece of shit. People with Eric Cartman DNA are often only interested in wealth and authority, stopping at nothing to obtain both.

Memorable Quotes

• "Yeah, I want Cheesy Poofs!" ( Cartman Gets an Anal Probe )
• "No Kitty, this is MY pot pie!!!" ( Cartman Gets an Anal Probe )
• "BEEFCAKE!!" ( Weight Gain 4000 )
• "I’m not fat! I’m festively plump!" ( Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo )
• "I am a COP and you will respect my authoritah!" ( Chickenlover )
• "I wasn't saying anything about their culture. I was just saying their city smells like ass." ( Rainforest Schmainforest )
• "Do you like it? Do you like it, Scott? I call it Mr. and Mrs. Tenorman chili." ( Scott Tenorman Must Die )
• "Nya nya nya nya NYAAAA nya! I made you eat your par-ents! Nya nya nya nya NYAAAA nya!" ( Scott Tenorman Must Die )
• "Oh, let me taste your tears, Scott! Mmmm, your tears are so yummy and sweet." ( Scott Tenorman Must Die )
• "CRIPPLE FIGHT!!!!!" ( Cripple Fight )
• "There's so much to do at Cartmanlaaaaaand, but you can't come! Especially you, Stan and Kyle." ( Cartmanland )
• “Oh si, si, si…” ( Fat Butt and Pancake Head )
• "BUT THEY SAID I CANT BE IN THEIR CLUB!" ( Krazy Kripples )
• "I’m not fat, I just have a sweet hockey body." ( Grey Dawn )
• "And now I will use my powers to turn Kyle into a chicken!" ( Good Times With Weapons )
• "I’ve sometimes looked at people with disabilities as people God put here on earth for my amusement.” ( Up the Down Steroid )
• "They're not PEOPLE, they're HIPPIES!!!" ( Die Hippie, Die )
• "Vote for TURD SANDWICH. This is the MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION OF YOU LIFE. Turd Sandwich brings the hope for change. A vote for Turd Sandwich is a vote for tomorrow" ( Douche and Turd )
• "He's a Jewish Dolphin... A Jewphin." ( Mr. Garrison's Fancy New Vagina )
• "HOW DO I REEEEECH THESE KEEEEEDS!?!?!?!?" ( Eek, A Penis! )
• "DA FUCK!?" ( Fatbeard )
• "Me and Kinny don't give two shits about stupid ass whales!" ( Whale Whores )
• "I cannot offer you or your child any CASH. I CAN however... offer you a little bit of crack." ( Crack Baby Athletic Association )
• "Uh trust me, he's not fat and unimportant. I think we need to change his status to ripped and sweet." ( Let Go, Let Gov )
• "Boooooo. Boo Wendy. Boo Wendy Testaburger. Boo." ( Informative Murder Porn )
• “They don't salute in Game of Thrones, Butters.” ( Black Friday )
• "Boner Balls. B-Boner Forest. Dense Boner Forest." ( Go Fund Yourself )
• "Sitting on our asses, here we come!" ( Go Fund Yourself )
• "Fuck, I want pancakes..." ( Gluten Free Ebola )
• "CARTMAN BRAAAAAH!" ( #REHASH )
• "Speak Through the hood, KINNY!" ( #REHASH )
• ”Kyle, believe me... I know the struggle with hatred. Let's make ourselves better people... together.“ ( Stunning and Brave )
• "David! David! David!" ( You’re Not Yelping )
• "I'm now the leader of thousands of people! They all hang on my every word! [softly] And I'm gonna use my power to finally get what this town really needs." ( You’re Not Yelping )
• ”Hey Kyle. You wanna see what people said about my dick pic? Everyone's pretty stoked on it. “ ( Safe Space )
• "Every time Amy Schumer talks about her vagina, I lose my fucking mind." ( The Damned )
• "I don't have any friends. I don't know if I ever did." ( The Damned )
• "Do girls not have balls?" ( The Damned )
• "Have you met my girlfriend, Heidi ? She's really smart, and really funny." (" Weiners Out ")

Catchphrases

Cartman has coined a number of memorable and iconic phrases since the show’s very first episode that have helped to cement his status as the series’ most popular character and a pop culture icon. Since the early second season, they have often appeared in merchandising for the show, and sometimes appear in other media to reference South Park. They are even sometimes used by other characters, like Stan, Kenny, or Clyde.

In recent years, Matt and Trey use these phrases much more rarely, but Cartman still uses them on occasion.

• "I'm not fat, I'm big boned!"
• "Screw you guys, I’m going home!"
• "No kitty! That’s a bad kitty!!"
• "Seriously, you guys!" or “I’m so seriously!”
• “But meeeehm!”
• "Kewl." or "That's kewl."
• "I'll kick you in the nuts!!" or “I’ll kick you squah in the nuts!” (debuted in ” An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig “)
• "I hate you guys." or “I love you guys.” (debuted in “ Cartman’s Mom is a Dirty Slut ”)
• "Respect my authoritah!" or “Respect my authoritay!” (debuted in ” Chickenlover “)
• "Suck my balls!" (most famously in ” South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut “)
• "I'll make you eat your parents." (debuted in ” Scott Tenorman Must Die “)
• "You're breakin' my balls." (debuted in ” Kenny Dies “)
• "Whatevuh, I do what I want!" (debuted in ” Freak Strike “)
• ” Kevin godammit.“ (debuted in ” The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers “)
• "Oh hey babe, what's going on?" (debuted in White People Renovating Houses )

Life Lessons

• "Poor people tend to live in clusters."
• "Drugs are bad because if you do drugs, you’re a hippie, and hippie suck.”
• "It’s a man’s obligation to stick his boneration into a woman’s separation. This sort of penetration will increase the population of the younger generation”
• "I'm gonna spend my whole childhood eating what I want and doin' drugs when I want! WHATEVER! I will do what I want!"
• "Heaven could be like the pixie fairies of Bubble Yumâ„¢ Forest. You only see them if you really believe in them”
• "We're in this together, Craig! If Butters tells on us then we're gonna tell on you. That's the Ninja code!"
• "These are what we call giggling stoners. Pretty common form of hippie usually found in the attics. Problem is, if you see one hippie, there’s probably a whole lot more you’re not seeing”
• "What awaits each person in heaven is eternal bliss, divine rest, and ten thousand dollars, cash.” *"Stan, don't you know the first law of physics? Anything that's fun costs at least $8."
• "Everyone knows that only poor people get lice."
• "Real guitars are for old people."
• "Okay, our mission failed but we learned a lot. Primarily that girls do not have balls”
• "Remember Bill Beelicheck. Head coach of the New England Patriots. He’s won three Super Bowls. How? He cheated. He even got caught cheating and nobody cared! He proved that in America, it’s aright to cheat, as long as you cheat your way to the top”
• "Life goes by pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, and do whatever you want all the time, you could miss it."
• "I’d rather us be Chinese than A NATION OF UNETHICAL DICK SHOOTERS. Think about it”
• "This just goes to show that hard work doesn’t pay off. I’m going to be a homeless drug addict from now on!”
• “Kyle, that's the way the world works! If you wanna find some quality friends, you gotta wade through all the dicks first!”
• “Don‘t ask why Kenny wanted to be a chick, that‘s just how he seems to be rolling right now.”
• “Even if I don’t agree with his hateful bigoted thoughts... it doesn’t mean I’ll stand by while Kyle’s intolerance is dealt with violently.”
• “Sometimes joking about un-PC things can actually be important, because it starts a dialogue.”
• "I guess just because I don’t understand [homosexuality], doesn’t mean I can’t support it.”
• ”Girls rule, women are funny, get over it.”
• "I guess I didn't deserve a second chance."
• "I don't have any friends. I don't know if I ever did."

Greatest Hits

It's surprising to everyone, but Cartman actually has quite the singing voice -- you can rock out with some of his greatest hits right here!

• “Kyle’s Mom is a Stupid Bitch” from “ Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo ” and “ South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut ” - probably Cartman's Greatest Hit of All-Time!
• “Come Sail Away” (cover) from “ Cartman’s Mom is Still a Dirty Slut ”
• “My Best Friends” from “ Spookyfish ”
• “Christmas Trees and Pie (O Holy Night)” from “ Mr. Hankey’s Christmas Classics ”
• “The Dreidel Song” from “ Mr. Hankey’s Christmas Classics ” features a little Cartman
• “In the Third Grade...” from “ Fourth Grade ”
• “The Heat of the Moment” from “ Kenny Dies ”, featuring the United States Congress
• “Make it Right” from “ The Death of Eric Cartman ”
• “Super Fun Time” from “ Super Fun Time ”
• “Do What You Gotta Do” , from “ Elementary School Musical ”, with Stan, Kyle, and Kenny
• “Queef Free” , from “ Eat, Pray, Queef ” as part of the larger group.
• “Somalian Pirates We" from “ Fatbeard ”
• “Poker Face” (cover) from “ Whale Whores ”
• “Not My Water Park” from “ Pee ”
• “I Swear” from “ Cartman Finds Love ”
• “My Safe Space” from “ Safe Space ”
• "Let's Come Together as a School" from " Douche and a Danish ", with Heidi Turner

Here's Cartman's biggest design changes throughout the show's run.

Main Alter Egos

Alter egos that have appeared numberous times in-show and/or other official media.

Other Alter Egos/Outfits/Counterparts

More than any other character in the show, Cartman has created dozens of alter-egos, false identities and costumes - many chiefly to serve his own goals and purposes, such as pretending to be handicapped to win in the Special Olympics and a cash prize, or pretending to be a robot manufactured in Japan in order to humiliate Butters. Each alter-ego has a unique, detailed backstory and a costume lovingly crafted by his mother. One of these most notable of these identities, however, is the superhero The Coon , who seeks nothing less than fame, glory, and global merchandising rights (see above).

Not every alter-ego is so easy to explain though. Nobody's sure where Cartman's very own Cupid "Me" came from, and Hennifer Lopez and Mitch Conner seem to have a mind all their own, rhat is determined to run off with Ben Affleck regardless if Cartman gives his legal consent (see above).

Ming Lee , meanwhile, brought on by head trauma, seems to have a preference for Leonardo DiCaprio , who pays her handsomely for her services. Whether the sexual encounters his alternate identities experience reflect on Cartman, we're still figuring it out, but neither of them can be counted for processed affirmative consent forms.

Click on the alter-ego to visit their page, with more detailed information on their personaliy and adventures, or to visit the episode/storyline they came from:

EVENTS SOUTH PARK

Phone destroyer, cut costumes.

Though Cartman has a huge extended family, he's only ever lived with his loving, doting mother Liane Cartman , who often bends over backwards for whatever her muffin wants in exchange for his company, and their pets Mr. Kitty and the rarely-seen pot-bellied pig Fluffy . The identity of Cartman's father was a closely-guarded secret in the town until a series of conspiracies eventually revealed the true father's identity . (see below)

Extended Family

The extended Cartman family mostly lives in Nebraska and share many similar phrases and mannerisms to him, including a strong family history of obesity, save only Cartman's mother, Liane and Cousin Alexandra . His grandmother, Mabel Cartman loved him dearly despite his many imperfections, but died when he was eight years old. She left him one million dollars since the rest of them would presumably spend it on crack. They are also all quite close with convicted murderer Charles Manson , who they visit every year at Christmas. He touched weiners with one of his cousins, but something tells us it's not Alexandra.

He has also has an evil half-brother named Scott Tenorman who conned him out of sixteen dollars and twelve cents a little while ago, but Cartman got his revenge at a memorable chili con carnival ... but a while later, Scott would reveal a little surprise of his own .

Cartman has once noted one of his uncles is next-in-line to be a manager at the Gart Brothers store, but nobody knows which one.

Non-Canon Family

In an early version of the Unaired Pilot for South Park, Cartman had a father and a sister , neither of whom have appeared in the series' almost twenty-year run. (also see below)

He also creates a fantasy family in " World War Zimmerman " including two daughters he loves equally.

Romantic Relationships

Ex-girlfriend.

Eric Cartman has a surprising history with Heidi Turner that goes back quite a while.

When Cartman began to lead a Church in South Park at the end of the kids' third grade year, he attracted the attention of kids far and wide throughout the town including a girl named ' Marcy '. The church ended up to be a get-rich-quick scheme resulting in her father 's death.

Heidi and Cartman were later partnered for the fourth grade egg project and despite a mutual dissatisfaction with the initial choices, the two took care of their egg. When Cartman damaged the egg, he asked Mrs. Garrison to give Heidi a better grade in hopes of averaging it for both of them, it's still altruistic by Cartman standards. On a side note, he received four days of detention from PC Principal for referring to Heidi as "clitty litter".

When the girls were harassed online by a troll named skankhunt42 , Heidi was the first to openly accuse Cartman of being behind it despite his denial. The troll's continued abuse eventually drove Heidi to quit Twitter and the to would later form an unlikely friendship when Cartman was cast out of social media by his friends. Apologizing for her earlier accusations, they began comfort each other over the isolation they found themselves in.

They took their relationship even further when Heidi settled Cartmans dilemma as to whether girls do have balls. The experience of seeing hers in the dark with a flashlight triggered a spiritual awakening for Cartman and they officially became a couple. The two of them constantly held hands hang out and referred to each other by pet names like "boo" or "babe". Despite the disgust and disbelief of their classmates Heidi and Eric would defend each other and work to create positive changes in the school.

Their relationship however started to show a lack of depth on Cartmans behalf. Despite how Eric showed to be genuinely happy and protective of being with Heidi, Cartman doesn't actually respect her, he just talks about respecting her. A common phrase he had used was to constantly say how Heidi's "really smart and funny" but after a foreboding chat with Butters along with seeing Heidi cleverly solving a real problem for the first time, Cartman becomes convinced that Heidi, (and all women), are not only not funny but conspiring against men.

Eventually things soon took a rocky turn as Cartman could not bother to be honest or even stand being around Heidi, convincing his friends she was mentally abusive. He would even go so far as to nearly kill her by pushing her in front of a car and by having a witch try to abduct her (because of her lack of time management skills). Heidi however remains with him in part due to his threats to kill himself if they ever break up but also as a reaction to the constant criticism she gets from her friends causing her to double down . Eventually she attempts to avoid this by adopting Cartman's views, further alienating herself from the people who care about her.

Despite trying to help Cartman for the better, Heidi ending up becoming more like her boyfriend herself, adopting his attitude and becoming fat and self loathing. She began to adopt his self-loathing and bad attitude and by blaming everything else instead of her toxic relationship, Heidi fell in a downward spiral with only her boyfriend and the torment of others to sustain it. Only after an adventure with the boys in which she visited the places in which her romance with Cartman was born was she able to reflect on her relationship and how it transformed her for the worse, leading her to take personal responsibility by leaving Cartman and the victim-hood lifestyle behind for a more positive future.

Past Love Interests

Cartman has had his fair share of crushes, admirers, and attractions... though there's still a lot of confusion over his exact sexual identity. (see 'Cartman's Sexuality' below)

When Cartman suffered from Tourette's Syndrome, and began making spontaneous confessions of dark secrets, he suddenly admitted in front of hundreds of people to having a crush on Patty Nelson and that he 'fantasized' about kissing her, a secret that mortified both individuals. Patty has not been seen since. Cartman also displayed an attraction, along with the other boys, to substitute teacher Ms. Ellen and his classmate Bebe Stevens after she began to develop.

Though Cartman repeatedly refused Cupid Cartman 's affectionate advances, insisting that he wasn't homosexual, when the fate of Tweek and Craig 's relationship was on the line, Cartman bit the bullet and agreed to go on at least one date with Cupid Cartman, which was soon followed by a massage and a sexual encounter... the exact nature of their relationship is unknown, but they don't seem to be serious just yet.

Romantic Rivalry

Cartman has always had a rivalry with the intelligent and level-headed Wendy Testaburger , his buddy Stan 's girlfriend and one of the smartest students at South Park Elementary. They argue in class on a frequent basis, and he has targeted her for humiliation on more than one occasion. They can also be very competitive, particularly over the "Save Our Fragile Planet" contest as well as the student body presidency . She has in turn become quite adept at dealing with him, whether it's a matter of fact-based debate, an ass-kicking to remember, or just out-smarting him on school access television. Even when he spends much of his time booing her and accusing her of being a liar, she's not afraid to agree with him on the odd event.

However, on the rare occasion when they found themselves on the same side in the Great Flag Debate , they swapped debate tactics, shared some quadruple-stuffed oreos, and developed a bit of an attraction... which lead to an uncomfortable, public kiss at the Debate. Their attraction to each other flamed out afterward, the "sexual tension" resolved, and Wendy later voted Cartman last in the List of Cutest Boys .

Usually, Cartman is never afraid to tease her for her liberal beliefs and she certainly isn't afraid to throw down when he steps out of line.

He has simultaneously described her as having " huge frickin' hooters " and being " flat as a pancake ". If anything, it shows he's a little bit preoccupied with her chest.

While all four boys have been through adventures over the years and share similar goals of wealth and popularity, there is no weaker link between the four than the often intense rivalry between Cartman and Kyle. While the latter sees himself as more moral and philosophical, often trying to take the safest and most logical route, the notoriously stubborn and selfish Cartman will take what he wants by any means necessary, a common source of conflict between the two. Though they have been shown on rare yet notable occasions to be on civil terms, Cartman often shows an extremely sadistic and hateful side towards Kyle and will stop at nothing to humiliate him, and Kyle in turn often sees humiliating Cartman as morally justifiable, particularly given his anti-semitism. The two have also been known to make bets with full intent of humiliating one another, such as the loser having to pay a sum of money, being each other's slave or on one famous occasion, suck the winner's balls. Cartman in particular takes extreme pleasure in Kyle's suffering- going as far as to break him in Ginger Cow and even fantasizing about his tears , oddly enough. Cartman himself has shown a disturbing lack of care for Kyle's wellbeing as well; whether it be laughing at his bodily mutation from a certain apple company , or offering him up to a room of very angry Germans .

Cartman and Kyle have come to blows on multiple occasions, mostly notably after Cartman and Butters broke into the Broflovski Residence to infect Kyle with the HIV virus, when they had to be broken up by Mr. Mackey , as well as the FOX headquarters when they came into conflict over a controversial Family Guy episode, and after Kenny McCormick 's death and funeral, when Cartman used stem cells to create a new Shakey's Pizza. Despite hatred, when the two boys can set their differences aside, and a common goal is clear in sight, Cartman and Kyle can make incredibly strong allies, although this always seems to disband one way or another. They do have some common interests they do not share with Stan and Kenny in the same fashion, such as Faith Hilling and the Xbox One, and also share a particular shared business talent that is displayed both in their time together working at the Crack Baby Athletic Association and during their time at the Washington Redskins start-up company, where they even lead a high-profile press conference together. They maintain a surprising degree of tolerance for one another, with Kyle in particular continuing to feel sympathy for Cartman and his moments of plight despite their problems, and Cartman recognizing Kyle’s assets for various schemes, allowing no bathroom break stop him.

Another thing to note is Cartman's obsessive hatred with Kyle. Although hating his opponent dearly, when faced with the possibility of loosing him permanently from the horrors of San Francisco , he's willing to save him to avoid boredom and have an entertaining rival to torment once more. Kyle himself is willing to save Cartman as well, although for significantly less selfish reasons. Although loathing him with all his heart, Kyle is willing to compromise it all in order to see Cartman do the right thing once in his life- although he may be too optimistic in that regard.

Rumors of a relationship have been spurred by Cartman on occasion but have never been endorsed by Kyle in any way, shape or form.

Best Friends

Cartman's closest friendships are those with Kenny McCormick and Butters Stotch .

The foundation of Butters and Cartman’s relationship has largely been driven by Butters’ kind, earnest desire to listen to his problems, comfort him after his failures, help him with any scheme he suggests and allow himself to be manipulated in unspeakable ways, the two have gradually have developed a genuine friendship over the years and Butters’ naivete seems to have invited Cartman to trust and confide in him in ways he rarely has with the other boys. Butters has picked up a number of habits from Cartman both positive and negative. Full episodes revolve around the partnership of the two characters, with Butters as Cartman's right hand man, or just showing up to console him and give him advice, at times like Butters going to Eric's house or the Hospital for that, or Cartman himself going to Butters' house to let off steam. Cartman was the only one who maintained a closer friendship with Butters, with Eric being the one who highlights Butters in most situations, while the rest of the group maintained a much more distant relationship.

On the other hand, while they often insult one another openly, with Cartman once declaring his hatred of Kenny purely because they were alone together, a close friendship nonetheless exists between both boys. They have shared secrets, such as when they borrowed Stephen Stotch 's drone, and have also been to Casa Bonita together on occasion... but often disagree nonetheless, most notably during the bitter Console Wars, and of course, on the methods of superheroism, coming to a head when Cartman teamed up with the mighty Cthulhu .

While most episodes depict the boys as ignorant of Kenny's deaths, Cartman has acknowledged them more than any other character on the show, openly mentioning that he "dies all the time" on one occasion , though this has not been fully consistent.

Close Friends

Very few people throughout town are willing to put up with Cartman for the most part, such as Stan and Jimmy, though even they get fed up with his bullshit sometimes.

Cartman maintained a friendly relationship with his neighbor Chef until the latter's departure and later death, crying when he left town and admitting to Butters that he genuinely cared about him. Chef also played a crucial role in curing Cartman when Kenny's soul was trapped inside his body. Chef is the only recurring character, besides Cartman's own mother, that he has ever shown any selfless interest toward.

Cartman has an extended group of "friends" that he hangs out with at school. Outside of school though, he's usually trying to get them to go along with whatever crazy scheme he's come up with, or y'know, to just watch the newest Terrance & Phillip episode. No matter how nice to them he tries to be though, they generally hate him on a day-to-day basis.

Clyde and Cartman have a mutual understanding of body-shaming and are also close -- Clyde not only often goes along with Cartman's schemes, but defended him from the other kids more than once, became worried when Cartman fought Wendy, and nearly destroyed the entire town in retaliation when Cartman - er, the Grand Wizard King - banished him from space and time. Despite all this, Cartman still found him worthy of his " shit list ."

Unlike most of the other boys, Cartman tends to hang out a lot with Scott Malkinson at school, primarily at lunch for Sloppy Joe Day or Barbecue Rib Day . His relationship with Scott appears to thrive on a punching bag mechanic: he'll have someone to rip on, and Scott will have someone to hang out with. Despite this, Cartman rarely has any regard for Scott's feelings or wellbeing, often making fun of his diabetes. After all, diabetes affects us all, but it mostly affects Scott Malkinson.

After his death in Season Finale , Cartman revealed that he knew Jason pretty well. He even helped Jason's family in their time of mourning. This goes to show how well they got on with each other, even though Jason was a shitty receiver.

Imaginary Friends

Cartman has an array of imaginary friends. Besides his stuffed animals, who were mostly tragically murdered, with only Polly Prissy Pants confirmed alive, and Antonio Banderas preferring to keep to himself in the basement, Cartman has the one and only Mitch Connor.

Other Friends

Cartman also gets along extremely well with Kyle's little brother Ike - uh, extremely well for an anti-Semite and a Jew anyway.

He and Stan's sister Shelly Marsh learned to get along over their mutual love of making people, like Shelly's asshole ex-boyfriend, miserable.

Jimbo Kern , Ned Gerblanski and Dr. Alphonse Mephesto have shown sympathy for Cartman on multiple occasions as well.

We've never met Lawrence or Toby, but Cartman has some annoying but friendly cell phone conversation with the two of them in " Let Go, Let Gov ", much to Kyle's annoyance. Lawrence was mentioned a second time in " Buddha Box ".

As a general rule, his classmates hate Cartman on a normal day, but when things get tough at South Park Elementary, they aren't afraid to turn to him when they need his skills in combat, weaponry and leadership.

Acquaintances

Cartman's relationships with these characters have never been quite clear, and his mutual feelings about them is usually up for debate amongst fans.

Cartman has made a number of enemies over the years, particularly local authority figures and older kids... but his arch-nemesis is considered Scott Tenorman , a ninth grader who scammed Cartman out of his allowance for fake pubic hairs. Cartman's retaliation is a local legend... and ever since then the two have battled through time and space in a quest for vengeance against each other.

Cartman lists his mother, Kyle, Clyde, PC Principal and David on his 'Shit List' in " South Park: The Fractured But Whole ".

Role Models

Cartman has had a number of terrible role models in his short life. He was introduced to German dictator Adolf Hitler , albeit unintentionally, by Principal Victoria in " Pinkeye " and has since modeled him on multiple occasions. After the release of 'The Passion of the Christ', he spent a few weeks emulating director Mel Gibson as well, even seeming to pray to him, until he found out Gibson was actually mentally insane. He also emulated actor and director Rob Reiner for a week, admiring his ability to impose his will on others. Cartman also forged a close relationship with his idol Colonel Harlan Sanders when he participated in the Fried Chicken business, but the two later had a falling out.

Cartman has also exhibited an admiration for the New England Patriots football team, most notably Coach Bill Belichick and their quarterback Tom Brady , particularly how they cheated to get to the Super Bowl in the past and their “fuck the rules” attitude. He notably compared himself to Brady when dealing with PC Principal . Like Cartman's friends, he is a fan of Terrance and Phillip.

It’s also notable that Cartman was very fond of promoter Billy Mays , and was perfectly willing to help Kyle and his brother if it meant helping his deceased idol cross on to the next plane of existence. Cartman’s worship is a powerful thing indeed.

We've since learned he also 'loses his fucking mind' whenever he sees Amy Schumer perform stand-up comedy and talk about her vagina, which seemed to be a motivating factor in his shift in attitude towards women's comedy.

Affiliations

Cartman is a member of a wide variety of groups, clubs and teams across the town of South Park and it's history, and of course, has special outfits for many of them. His leadership has benefited many of these groups.

Music Groups

Cartman has had past fame with music, whether it's to make a buck or on other occasions.

While Cartman isn't usually the athletic type, he has been seen on a few sport teams.

Since the very first episode, Cartman has lived in this house on 93345 Ave. de los Mexicanos with his mother and their pets (" Wing "). He spends most of his time on the living room couch watching the Terrance & Phillip Show or playing video games - usually with plenty of snacks, from Cheesy Poofs to cereal - or up in his bedroom sleeping or playing with his dolls. He also sometimes uses his expansive basement for more lavish games, like Lambs , or bigger projects, like playing Warcraft with his friends, housing a Junior Detective Agency, or just being the permanent home base for the super secret superhero league, Coon and Friends .

He has had a number of temporary residences with his family over single episodes, such as with Stan’s family during a fumigation at his house, with Tolkien Black ’s family after a fire caused by arson, but when Cartman tries to run away from home , he finds he has nowhere else to go. Child Protective Services briefly placed him with the Weatherheads ’ family when he set up his mother’s arrest for drug possession... in hopes of being sent to Hawaii.

Despite these temporary residences, Cartman always ends up back at his old house next week.

Favorite Locations

There's lot of places in the Colorado area to offer any fourth grader the time of their life -- these are just some of Cartman's favorites in particular. It’s well-known that Cartman’s favorite fast food place is Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) on any occasion since he was six years old, and he’s developed a very specific dedication - and taste - for the Colonel’s chicken.

While favorite indoor amusement park is Super Phun Thyme , Cartman’s favorite place in the whole universe has to be Casa Bonita , which combines great, authentic Mexican cuisine with festive activities and games, and many of Cartman's most treasured memories are there. Just a few minutes at Casa Bonita is totally worth a trip to Juvenile Hall.

Another longtime dream of Cartman was always to have his own amusement park, a place where he'd never have to wait in any lines. A short while and one million dollars later, he briefly succeeded, with the revolutionary Cartmanland , but after lawsuits and the laws of market capitalism, he eventually was forced to sell the park back to it's original owner.

After being forced off of social media, Cartman begins spending a lot of time with Heidi Turner, who also left social media, at the park, the only place they can socialize freely after school, often on the park bench. When he offers to follow her, they get lunch together at McDonald's , and it becomes a staple of their relationship.

Featured Episodes

As a main character on the show, Cartman is almost always present - so here is just a partial selection of some of his most infamous moments...

• Cartman Gets an Anal Probe (s01e01)
• Weight Gain 4000 (s01e02)
• Volcano (s01e03)
• An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig (s01e05)
• Pinkeye (s01e07)
• Damien (s01e08)
• Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo (s01e10)
• Cartman's Mom Is A Dirty Slut (s1e13)
• Cartman's Mom is Still a Dirty Slut (s02e02)
• Chickenlover (s02e03)
• Chickenpox (s02e10)
• Clubhouses (s02e12)
• Merry Christmas Charlie Manson (s02e16)
• Spontaneous Combustion (s03e02)
• Cat Orgy (s03e07)
• Hooked on Monkey Fonics (s03e13)
• The Red Badge of Gayness (s03e14)
• Cartman’s Silly Hate Crime 2000 (s04e01)
• Cartman Joins NAMBLA (s04e06)
• Something You Can Do With Your Finger (s04e09)
• Fourth Grade (s04e11)
• Fat Camp (s04e15)
• Scott Tenorman Must Die (s05e04)
• Cartmanland (s05e06)
• How to Eat with your Butt (s05e10)
• Freak Strike (s06e01)
• Ladder To Heaven (s06e12)
• Fat Butt and Pancake Head (s07e05)
• Christian Rock Hard (s07e09)
• Casa Bonita (s07e11)
• All About Mormons (s07e12)
• Good Times With Weapons (s08e01)
• AWESOM-O (s08e02)
• Cartman's Incredible Gift (s08e13)
• Die Hippie, Die (s09e02)
• The Death of Eric Cartman (s09e06)
• Cartoon Wars Part I (s10e03)
• Cartoon Wars Part I (s10e04)
• Make Love, Not Warcraft (s10e08)
• Go God Go (s10e12)
• Go God Go XII (s10e13)
• Le Petit Tourette (s11e08)
• Eek, A Penis! (s12e05)
• Super Fun Time (s12e07)
• Breast Cancer Show Ever (s12e09)
• The Coon (s13e02)
• Fatbeard (s13e07)
• Whale Whores (s13e11)
• Pee (s13e14)
• You Have 0 Friends (s14e04)
• Poor and Stupid (s14e08)
• Coon 2: Hindsight (s14e11)
• Mysterion Rises (s14e12)
• Coon vs. Coon & Friends (s14e13)
• Crack Baby Athletic Association (s15e05)
• 1% (s15e12)
• The Poor Kid (s15e14)
• Jewpacabra (s16e04)
• Cartman Finds Love (s16e07)
• Raising the Bar (s16e09)
• Insecurity (s16e10)
• Obama Wins! (s16e14)
• Let Go, Let Gov (s17e01)
• World War Zimmerman (s17e03)
• Ginger Cow (s17e06)
• Black Friday (s17e07)
• A Song of Ass and Fire (s17e08)
• Titties and Dragons (s17e09)
• Go Fund Yourself (s18e01)
• Gluten Free Ebola (s18e02)
• The Cissy (s18e03)
• The Magic Bush (s18e05)
• Grounded Vindaloop (s18e07)
• #REHASH (s18e09)
• #HappyHolograms (s18e10)
• Stunning and Brave (s19e01)
• You're Not Yelping (s19e04)
• Safe Space (19e05)
• Tweek x Craig (s19e06)
• Member Berries (s20e01)
• Skank Hunt (s20e02)
• The Damned (s20e03)
• Wieners Out (s20e04)
• Douche and a Danish (s20e05)
• Fort Collins (s20e06)
• Oh, Jeez (s20e07)
• Members Only (s20e08)
• Not Funny (s20e09)
• The End of Serialization as We Know It (s20e10)
• White People Renovating Houses (s21e01)
• Put It Down (s21e02)
• Holiday Special (s21e03)
• Franchise Prequel (s21e04)
• Sons A Witches (s21e06)
• Doubling Down (s21e07)
• Moss Piglets (s21e08)
• SUPER HARD PCness (s21e09)
• Splatty Tomato‎‎ (s21e10)

On rare occasions, Cartman takes a complete backseat and doesn't even speak!

• Terrance and Phillip in Not Without My Anus (s02e01; photograph cameo)
• Two Guys Naked in a Hot Tub (s03e08)
• Jewbilee (s03e09)
• Pip (s04e05)
• A Million Little Fibers (s10e05)
• Stanley's Cup (s10e14)
• More Crap (s11e09)
• City Sushi (s15e06; crowd cameo)
• Goth Kids 3: Dawn of the Posers (s17e04)
• Handicar (s18e04)

Behind The Scenes

Creation and design.

Cartman is based on "the garbage in everyone's souls" according to Trey, and he and Matt often assert that they use Cartman to voice their negative thoughts, making him one of their favorite characters on the show. He was initially based loosely on the character Archie Bunker from the hit show ' All in the Family' , who was notably foul-mouthed and politically incorrect, but Matt and Trey thought in the political correct atmosphere of nineties America, such a character couldn't possibly exist... unless he was an eight-year-old boy who didn't seem to know any better. His name was allegedly borrowed from an acquaintance of the two by the name Matt Karpman.

Cartman’s voice has always been provided by series co-creator Trey Parker, and his accent, mannerisms and catchphrases have been developed throughout the show’s long run. Trey has cited the season 3 episode “ The Red Badge of Gayness ” as a highly influential episode in the evolution of Cartman’s voice, as it has lead to the adoption of elements of a southern accent. Although the boys' voices are digitally manipulated in Pro Tools to sound the pitch of a fourth grader, Trey has performed Cartman’s original voice in live-action on a handful of occasions, such as during a sequence in the movie BASEketball (which Stan and Kenny hated) and during an appearance on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon in 2011.

Trey has cited Cartman among his top three favorite characters, along with Butters Stotch and Randy Marsh , but particularly enjoys writing episodes such as “ Casa Bonita ” and “ AWESOM-O ” that rely on his relationship with Butters.

Below is a selection of kick-ass behind the scenes content, exclusively from South Park:

NPR Interview

Cartman conducted a special interview with Julie Rovner for NPR in April 2008 and answered the historical Proust Questionnaire, talking about things like his favorite color, who his personal hero is, and what he'd like to do as an adult. The interview was accompanied by a special article, " Eric Cartman: America's Favorite Little $@#&*% ", exploring the character's evolution, impact and legacy on American popular culture, all promoting South Park's twelfth season. Check it out!

From " Towelie " (508)

Check out this old-school storyboard from our archives, depicting the scene where Kyle and the boys try to make excuses so they can play more Okama Gamesphere. All boards used to be drawn individually by hand. Now, we do them all digitally.

"Parachute" Production Art

This is some old-school production art used while developing the parachute look for Towelie and the boys. The notes are there to give animators cues on which color textures to use while animating.

From The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers (613)

Character art: the wizard.

Character art used in designing Cartman's "Wizard" look.

From " Fishsticks " (1305)

Character art: cartman.

Cartman got a fresh "perm" character design for his appearance on Ellen.

Check out the character design for this super-cool version of Cartman:.

From " Let Go, Let Gov " (1701)

Where'd the idea come from: "cartman on speakerphone".

The speakerphone idea really kicked off when Trey did an imitation of how the Kardashians talk on their cell phones.

From " World War Zimmerman " (1703)

Fist bump: storyboard.

After the script is written, the first step in our production process is creating storyboards. Here's a "board" of the fist bump scene, before it was animated bro.

Hip Hop Cartman: Character Design

Our art department created this special hip hop outfit for Cartman. You can see it in action during his "I Was Not The Bullet" presentation.

From " Taming Strange " (s17e05)

Character art: wet kids.

"Wet" versions of all the kids needed to be created prior to animating this scene.

From " A Song of Ass and Fire " (1708)

Production art: cartman's throne poses.

Getting Cartman's fat ass through the door on his Royal Carriage required a special pose.

From " Go Fund Yourself " (s08e01)

Character art: salesman cartman.

This was from one of the 1st scenes written for this episode.

Character Art: Cartman's Redskins Gear

Character art: cartman's keynote.

This art was used while designing Cartman's "start-up" look:

Prop Art: Kickstarter Webpage

All props - including any web pages shown - must first be designed by the Art Dept.

From " Gluten Free Ebola " (1802)

Props: fat ass's caller id.

The art department is responsible for creating all props in the show, like Fat Ass's Caller ID.

Character Art: Cartman in Bed

This shot of Cartman in bed required a unique set up, and even a new set of hands.

Video Games

Let's go tower defense play.

Cartman is one of the playable characters in the game, first appearing as enemies show up at Stan's House first in the storyline. He, Stan Marsh and later others use snowballs to fight back waves of enemies. Cartman is a member of the same 'rocketeer' class as Tolkien Black , Wendy Testaburger and Red , which offer low speed but average range and high power.

• Special Ability - Cartman calls down a powerful airstrike causing explosions to occur around the play field.

Tenorman's Revenge

Cartman and The Boys team up in a battle through space and time to retrieve their Xbox 360 hard drive, which has been stolen by Scott Tenorman in hopes of destroying it, causing the boys to lose all of their game progress.

• Special Ability - Cartman can use his enormous belly to break through walls to access new areas.
• Special Ability - The Coon 's special ability is to climb up vertical walls...

South Park: The Stick of Truth

Noble and mighty, the Grand Wizard King commands all human barbarians of Zaron! He has harnessed the magical power of farts and will lay waste to any enemy who crosses him. Such is the power of a Wizard and King. Cartman is the Grand Wizard of the Kingdom of Kupa Keep and a master of the arcane and the profane. Cartman wields tremendous magical power—his ass and mouth are both capable of devastating spells.

Special Abilities:

• Burning Cloud - Cartman ignites his flatulence, with explosive results.
• Flame Strike - Cartman sprays the first two foes in a row with fire. Targets start burning if done perfectly.
• Magic Missile - Hits the target with a powerful magic missile.
• Curse - Cartman activates his v-chip and curses up a storm of electricity

against a single target.

South Park: The Fractured But Whole

Cartman and his alter-ego, the The Coon are set to make a stunning return in the next all-new South Park video game, leading Coon and Friends from Cartman’s basement once more in a civil war against the Freedom Pals ... but we don’t have all the details yet. Stay tuned!

South Park: Phone Destroyer

Cartman is a powerful character in the mobile game, with Sheriff Cartman appearing early on as a playable character, with his A.W.E.S.O.M.-O and Grand Wizard King cameos becoming unlockable much later as cards.

Bonus Factoids

• Cartman is first of the main boys to have his hair color revealed conclusively. He was first seen without his hat in “ Merry Christmas Charlie Manson! ”, revealing the light brown hair he has kept on the show ever since. He is also shown the most times without his hat on, being more easygoing than the other boys to show his hair.
• His first name Eric is chiefly used by most adult characters, but is also used by Butters on almost all occasions, usually Jimmy and Heidi, and on rarer occasions Kyle, Kenny and Wendy, usually around adults.
• His middle name Theodore has only been used once (" Roger Ebert Should Lay Off the Fatty Foods ") but has since been somewhat reinforced since as “Eric T. Cartman” (“ The Last of the Meheecans ”).
• Cartman weighed, by his own estimate, about ninety pounds in the third grade (" Weight Gain 4000 ").

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2 wives, 2 murder charges: Convicted killer’s case dropped after judge tosses evidence from slaying kept hidden for years

After Fran Smith vanished in 1991, her husband’s dark secrets began to unravel. 

In the three decades since, John Smith, 73, was convicted of killing his first wife in Ohio years earlier, in a murder authorities weren’t even aware of until they began investigating Fran’s disappearance . 

Fran’s body has never been found, but prosecutors in New Jersey charged her husband in her death five years ago. Then the case took an unusual turn: Those same prosecutors dropped the murder charge against Smith in exchange for information her family and the FBI agent who spent years investigating the cases said is unreliable and likely untrue.

In this first interview about the deal, retired FBI special agent Robert Hilland called out prosecutors for the arrangement.

“This was a failure on the part of the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office,” Hilland told “Dateline.”

“They hung our family out to dry,” said Sherrie Davis, Fran’s sister.

The prosecutor’s office defended the decision to dismiss the charge, with a spokesperson saying in a statement that because a judge blocked prosecutors from introducing key evidence, what remained would have allowed them to “paint Smith as a bad husband but not a murderer.”

The spokesperson added that Fran’s family was informed of the likely dismissal and agreement before the charge was dropped on July 6, 2023.

“They acknowledged their understanding of how we were proceeding and, although disappointed in the outcome, did not express any criticism at that time,” the spokesperson said.

A spokesperson for the public defender’s office that negotiated the agreement for Smith would not comment.

‘Yes, I lied’

Fran, 49, disappeared on Sept. 28, 1991. The paralegal had recently moved from Florida to a condo in West Windsor, New Jersey, with her new husband, John Smith, and was recovering from a broken hip, her daughter, Deanna Childers, told “Dateline.” 

Smith, an engineer, told authorities that his wife abruptly left to visit relatives, according to a West Windsor detective who investigated the case, Mike Dansbury. Her family said they hadn’t heard from her, however, and while relatives tried to piece together what happened, a detective revealed something Fran’s family hadn’t previously known: Smith had been married before. 

Decades earlier, he’d eloped with Janice Elaine Hartman after high school, another detective, Dave Mansue, told “Dateline.” But the couple split in 1974, after only a few years.

After tracking down a relative of Hartman’s, the family learned an even more startling detail: Days after they divorced, Hartman disappeared and was never heard from again. Authorities in Ohio believed she was a runaway and didn’t pursue the case as a possible homicide, Mansue said.

Smith offered strangely similar accounts and details in the disappearances of both wives, the detectives found. In a missing person’s report, Smith said he believed Hartman had gone to Florida with a red suitcase, Dansbury said. In Fran’s disappearance, he said he believed she’d gone to Florida to visit family with a yellow suitcase, Dansbury recalled. 

When Fran disappeared, authorities discovered that Smith had a long-time girlfriend — an HR manager he’d met while applying for a job — living at a Connecticut beach house he owned. Frank Barre, a detective with the Milford Police Department who began assisting in the investigation, recalled that the girlfriend didn’t know that Smith had been married twice. Nor did she know that both women had disappeared.

“Her whole world was upside down,” Barre told “Dateline.”

The girlfriend agreed to call Smith and allow investigators to listen in and record the conversation.

She confronted him about his relationship with Fran, according to audio of the call, and asked if she was dead. Smith told her he didn’t think so but — because he didn’t know where she was — “they think I must have hurt her,” according to audio.

When she asked about Hartman, he said they’d divorced and he’d reported her missing. He said he’d only just learned that she’d never been found, according to the audio.

When she asked if he’d lied during a police polygraph test, he said: “I failed it.”

“Wait, John,” she said. “Did you lie during the test?”

“Yes, I lied during the test,” he said.

A long-held secret revealed

Investigators suspected that Smith was responsible for the disappearances of his wives, but didn’t have proof. It wasn’t until years later, after Hilland took over the investigations in 1998, that authorities got a break.

By then, Smith had moved to suburban San Diego, remarried and was working for a car maker. On May 5, 1999, Hilland organized an effort with FBI agents across the country to carry out a series of coordinated interviews with people linked to Smith — relatives, colleagues and exes — and with Smith himself.

During an hourslong interview with Smith, Hilland said he repeatedly confronted him about inconsistencies in his accounts of what happened to Fran and Hartman. When the agent confronted him about lying on the polygraph, Smith denied making the comment, Hilland said.

“I pulled out the tape recorder, hit play, and John could hear in his own voice all those things that he had said,” Hilland said about playing the taped conversation between Smith and his onetime girlfriend. Smith “turned beet red and shrugged his shoulders.”

At one point, Hilland said, Smith offered a hypothetical about two people having an argument and one of them being fatally struck by a bus. 

Smith asked, “Is the other person responsible for a murder?” Hilland said. “We said, ‘No, that’s an accident. That would not be a murder. Is that what happened to Fran?’ He said, ‘I don’t know what happened to Fran. I just know she isn’t dead. If she’s dead, she’s probably in heaven.”

Smith told investigators he was having a heart attack, and the interview ended, Hilland said. But days later, the former investigator said, Smith’s brother shared something with t he FBI that he hadn’t previously disclosed.

In exchange for an agreement that barred prosecutors from charging him, the sibling revealed that in November 1974 he’d seen Smith with a large plywood box in a garage next to his grandparents’ house in Ohio. 

Smith was crying, Hilland recalled the brother saying, and appeared to be placing clothes that he believed belonged to Hartman in the box.

The box, which had been nailed shut, remained in the garage for five years, until his grandfather pried it open, Smith’s brother told investigators. The brother said he saw what appeared to be Hartman’s remains inside the box, Hilland said. 

Her legs had been removed and her hair appeared to be rainbow-colored — a detail authorities later attributed to clothing dye bleeding onto her body, Hilland said.

The discovery haunted the sibling for years, Hilland recalled, but he hadn’t come forward because his grandfather had asked him to stay silent.

“The grandfather said, ‘If we call the sheriff, this is gonna cause your grandmother to die,’” Hilland recalled the sibling saying.

After the brother called Smith and told him he’d found the box, Smith arrived at the grandparents’ home, put the box in the passenger seat of his Corvette and drove off, Hilland said the brother told officials.

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After his revelation to the FBI, Smith’s brother agreed to confront his sibling. In the conversation, which was recorded, Smith described the box as a “joke” and said someone had dropped it off with a dead goat inside, according to a transcript of the call.

At one point, the brother said: “I had nightmares where Jan chased me down the road, beat me with her legs, John.” 

“OK,” Smith replied.

Nearly a year later, remains were exhumed from a rural Indiana cemetery and, in April 2000, positively identified as belonging to Hartman. 

Years earlier, it turned out, a road crew had found the box described by Smith’s sibling in a roadside drainage ditch, but the remains couldn’t be identified and the body was buried in what Hilland described as a Jane Doe grave.

Six months after the identification, Smith was charged with murder in Hartman’s killing. He pleaded not guilty and was convicted at trial. In 2001, Smith was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison.

The case falls apart

After that conviction, Hilland continued searching for Fran. He said he organized multiple excavations at Smith’s workplace in New Jersey and the Connecticut beach home, and he worked with undercover informants at the prison where Smith was incarcerated to try and gather information. Neither efforts yielded evidence, he said.

Prosecutors from Mercer County later met with Hilland at the FBI Training Academy in Virginia, where he was working as an instructor. Although there was no new evidence, the prosecutor’s office said in its statement, after the meeting, they believed they had enough to charge Smith in Fran’s 1991 disappearance.

In November 2019, Smith was indicted on a charge of first-degree murder after prosecutors presented evidence to a grand jury about both Fran’s disappearance and Hartman’s killing.

“It was the state’s position that, in 1991, Smith believed he had a successful blueprint to get away with murder and followed his 1974 playbook but corrected the only mistake he made in the murder of Janice Hartman — keeping her body in a place where it would be accidentally discovered,” the prosecutor’s office said.

But in 2022, the statement said, a judge barred prosecutors from presenting evidence from Hartman’s murder, ruling that it would unfairly prejudice the jury. Faced with the impending dismissal of charges, the statement said, prosecutors entered into an agreement with Smith.

Because Fran’s body had never been found, the statement said, the likelihood of uncovering new evidence and pursuing a successful prosecution appeared “minimal.” To provide closure for the family, the statement said, prosecutors agreed to drop the murder charge if he revealed what he did with Fran’s remains.

The prosecutor’s office didn’t require corroborating evidence to back up the account — “recovery” would have been impossible given how long ago she disappeared, the statement said — nor did they require Smith to say how he killed her. 

“In negotiating the non-prosecution agreement, Smith would not admit to the murder but would agree to tell us what he did with her body,” the spokesperson said in an email.

Prosecutors shared what Smith said with Fran’s family but didn’t reveal the details publicly, according to the statement. Deanna Childers, Fran’s daughter, told “Dateline” that officials told the family that Smith confessed to wrapping her mother’s body in a blanket and leaving her in a dumpster at the factory where he worked in New Jersey.

Davis, Fran Smith’s sister, said the idea that the deal provided closure for her family was an insult. She didn’t believe Smith’s account, she said, adding that the information did “nothing” for her family.

Hilland, who retired from the FBI in 2022, was outraged that the deal didn’t require a full confession or corroborating evidence. He said it seemed highly unlikely that Smith would have left Fran’s body in a trash bin at a factory with many employees who easily could have noticed. 

To Hilland, there was so much circumstantial evidence implicating Smith in Fran’s alleged killing — including when he told his then-girlfriend in the recorded call that he lied to police while they were questioning him about Fran’s disappearance — that he believed prosecutors could have proven his guilt. 

“Shame on them for accepting” his account, Hilland said, “because now they’ve given him immunity based on that.”

Hilland added that when John Smith goes for his next parole hearing in 2029, he may have a better chance of getting out because he can say he cooperated with authorities.

Tim Stelloh is a breaking news reporter for NBC News Digital.