South Park’s Halloween specials aren’t as renowned as that of The Simpsons, but that’s only because of a schedule change after three seasons. The back end of the fourth season didn’t air until after Halloween, and so we were bereft of the show’s Halloween episodes for some time. But a few years ago, the schedule changed again, so that Trey Parker and Matt Stone could produce the episodes the week they aired, and with that, the Halloween episodes returned.
Updated on December 4th, 2020 by Theo Kogod: For decades, South Park has stayed on top of the times and released episodes that deal with current events and from the very beginning, the show has indulged in silly antics, horror themes, and goofy holiday episodes. Since this list was first published in 2019, a new Halloween Special has come out so let's reassess and take a look at every Halloween episode can appear here, no matter how good or bad it might be.
14 Worst: Pandemic
It is ironic that the Halloween two-part episode “Pandemic” only now gets added to the list when the whole world is impacted by a global pandemic. The episode follows the aftermath of the boys trying to form a Peruvian flute band to make money, only for the world to be consumed by masses of giant guinea pigs, including some in Halloween costumes.
Randy tries to capture the events on a new video camera, overreacting as he stares into the lens and proclaims how startling everything is. "Pandemic" was meant to capitalize on the success of the then-recently-released movie Cloverfield, using shaky cam and a plot about giant monsters. It was a pretty mediocre episode.
13 Best: Tegridy Farms Halloween Special
The newest Halloween Special is the “Tegridy Farms Halloween Special,” which follows Randy as he engages in one of his most insane hijinks to date. Ever since Randy began his new business growing and selling marijuana from Tegridy Farms, he has engaged in just about every unscrupulous business practice imaginable. Randy’s extreme personality makes him one of the most popular characters of the show, and every time he has ever gotten a bright idea, it either seems to blow up in his face or come at the expense of others.
When Randy decides he needs a new strain of weed to sell for Halloween, he and Towelie make a new hybrid which they call their “Halloween Special.” However, Randy’s daughter Shelley has a marijuana problem—which is to say she has a problem with his marijuana business. To express her disapproval, she pours a vat of chemicals all over the new strain of marijuana, causing it to grow mutated Lovecraftian vines. When people smoke it, they turn into plant zombies (or rather, the chemicals make people hallucinate a zombie apocalypse). An additional side plot involves Butters being stalked by a mummy from the local museum.
12 Worst: Pandemic 2: The Startling
This is the sequel to the Season 12 episode “Pandemic.” The first episode was a disappointment, and making this a two-part episode makes it twice as bad (and twice as painful to sit through).
The story from the previous episode about giant guinea pigs continues, taking the boys to the jungles of Peru where they explore the lost ruins of an ancient Incan temple that predicts how Peruvian flute bands (and Craig) will be able to drive off the giant guinea pigs. Sometimes, the silly over-the-top nature of episodes works, but this is not such an episode.
11 Best: The Major Bush
It is difficult to know whether “The Major Bush” counts as a proper Halloween Special or not, but it has definite horror elements to it and first aired on October 29th, 2014, so seems to fit the bill.
When Cartman, Butters, and Kenny use Butters’s dad’s new drone without permission, they spy on Craig’s mom while she is undressed, then upload a video of her to the internet, resulting in a popular backlash as the entire community opines on her personal grooming in her most personal area. Butters’s dad, Stephen Stotch, begins to suspect that his drone is flying by itself. He tries to return the drone to the store, terrified that it has become sentient—which makes much more sense to him than thinking his son Butters would fly it without permission.
10 Worst: Goth Kids 3: Dawn Of The Posers
The most disappointing episodes of South Park tend to be the ones that focus on anyone outside the main group of four boys. If the show deviates from Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny, it has to be for a really great character, like Randy or Butters.
“Goth Kids 3: Dawn of the Posers” has a fun take on goth and emo culture, imbuing it with vampire fiction and a parody of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but unfortunately, the goth kids just aren’t funny enough to carry their own episode. They’re okay for a one-off gag, or when Stan joined them after Wendy dumped him, but not on their own.
9 Best: Korn’s Groovy Pirate Ghost Mystery
Plenty of celebrities have guest-starred in South Park, but they’re usually used for an ironically small role, like when Jay Leno played Cartman’s cat. In “Korn’s Groovy Pirate Ghost Mystery,” the entire band Korn play themselves in a parody of Scooby-Doo.
From the Antonio Banderas sex doll that Cartman mistakes for a Christmas present to jokes about necrophilia, this episode is full of the inappropriate, hysterical humor that made South Park a cultural phenomenon in the first place. Plus, the spoofing of Hanna-Barbera’s animation style comes off brilliantly, with all the recognizable colors and quirks and visual reference points.
8 Worst: Dead Celebrities
In 2009, a ton of celebrities bit the dust: Michael Jackson, David Carradine, Billy Mays, Walter Cronkite, Bea Arthur, Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, etc. It became so ridiculous that it was termed “the Summer of Death.”
South Park tackled this with a spooky parody of movies like Poltergeist and The Sixth Sense in which Ike can see dead celebrities. While there are some funny moments in the episode, the targets of beauty pageants and dead celebrities seem to be too easy for the show’s satirical edge to be truly sharp. It’s not terrible, but it’s also not a great Halloween episode.
7 Best: Pinkeye
“Pinkeye” was not only the first-ever South Park Halloween episode – it was the seventh episode of the show altogether. Viewers were still getting to know the characters and the style of humor and animation because it was all very new and unique and fresh and weird back then.
“Pinkeye,” with its skewering of zombie movies, Worcester sauce, and Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video, is a perfect example of how to blend the crude satire of the show with the spooks and frights of Halloween. It set the template for the rest of the show’s Halloween episodes in the best way possible.
6 Worst: The Scoots
“The Scoots” was the most recent South Park Halloween episode. The best episodes of South Park in general – at least the latest ones, when they’re produced the week they air – are the ones that take a few current events or cultural phenomena and make them fit into an engaging story. Sometimes they’re just crammed together, like the George Zimmerman trial and World War Z, and sadly, “The Scoots” is another example of that.
Satirical takes on the e-scooter craze and Fortnite are crammed into a Halloween-themed parody of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. The episode focuses on Mr. Mackey and Kenny, two of the show’s funniest characters, but it’s just not thrilling.
5 Best: Sons A Witches
In the fall of 2017, Halloween was the furthest thing from people’s minds. The focus was instead on the #MeToo movement, which finally exposed all the sexual abuse that had been happening in Hollywood for years. As the likes of Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, and Louis C.K. were exposed and quickly had their careers ended, other male celebrities like Liam Neeson and Woody Allen started calling it a “witch hunt.” So, South Park responded by allegorizing the movement with actual witches.
All the men in South Park dress up as witches and then when one of them starts kidnapping children, Randy tries to get women to see a distinction between “good witches” and “bad witches.” It’s a great satire.
4 Worst: Spookyfish
Season 2’s “Spookyfish” has the makings of a great episode, without the substance. It’s presented in “Spooky Vision,” which just means Barbra Streisand’s face is on every corner of the screen, as a response to her negative comments about the show. But what’s in the episode doesn’t live up to that – the whole personification of Aunt Flo is more unpleasant than hilarious.
Its parody of Star Trek’s Mirror Universe – complete with the goatees on the parallel versions of people – is pretty funny. Plus, the fact that everyone likes the Mirror Universe version of Cartman a lot better than the real one is a nice touch. But on the whole, this isn’t a strong episode.
3 Best: A Nightmare On FaceTime
Episodes with a focus on Randy tend to be the funniest. In “A Nightmare on FaceTime,” Randy buys a Blockbuster store as the company quickly goes out of business and expects Halloween to make him a ton of money as people rent “spooky movies.” He refuses to accept that video rental is a dead industry and devolves into full Jack Torrance mode.
The episode is a pitch-perfect parody of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, nailing the framing and the camera movements and the facial expressions and the musical cues perfectly. The B-plot, involving Stan going trick-or-treating with the guys via FaceTime with his iPad strapped to a skateboard, isn’t as strong, but it still makes up the pieces of a great Halloween episode.
2 Worst: City Sushi
This one might not technically count as a Halloween episode, since it aired in June 2011 and its plot doesn’t revolve around Halloween, but there are enough spooky moments and horror movie spoofs in “City Sushi” to make it at least a semi-Halloween episode.
It’s a real shame when episodes revolving around Butters turn out to be weak, but this one wasn’t much of a surprise, because a lot of season 15 was weak – from “Funnybot” to “Royal Pudding” to “Crack Baby Athletic Association,” there weren’t many gems hidden in the season. Considering it’s Butters starring in a parody of both Paranormal Activity and Psycho, we expected more from this.
1 Best: Hell On Earth 2006
After deciding My Super Sweet 16 was the “most disgusting, foul show ever made,” Trey Parker and Matt Stone parodied it with “Hell on Earth 2006,” which replaces the bratty teenagers on the show with Satan, who simply wants to plan the perfect Halloween party.
With unabashedly dark humor, like depicting Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and John Wayne Gacy as the Three Stooges, “Hell on Earth 2006” is quintessential South Park.
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