South Park

1997animated TV series / meme sourceclassic

Published September 28, 2026

South Park is the long-running Comedy Central animated sitcom created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone in 1997, following four foul-mouthed fourth-graders in a Colorado mountain town. Its cutout-style animation and rapid-turnaround topical satire made it a memetic goldmine, spawning some of the internet's most recycled reaction images and catchphrases.

south park memescatchphrase memeslate 1990s memespolitical satire memesanimation memes

Overview

South Park centers on Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman and Kenny McCormick, four kids whose small mountain town keeps getting overrun by celebrities, cults, aliens and whatever news cycle Trey Parker and Matt Stone want to skewer that week1. The paper-cutout look, originally a production shortcut, lets the crew turn episodes around in about six days, which is why episodes often reference events that happened the same week they air2.

That topical speed is a big reason the show became a meme engine rather than just a sitcom. Set pieces like the Underpants Gnomes' three-step business plan, Cartman's "Respect my authoritah," Butters' "Oh hamburgers," and the "They took our jobs" chant all migrated out of episodes into forum signatures, image macros and shorthand for online arguments. Cracked, working with Know Your Meme, ranked the Underpants Gnomes plan at the top of its 25 Greatest South Park Memes list in December 20233.

Origin & Background

Platform
Comedy Central (TV broadcast) / email chains (viral spread of pilot short)
Creator
Trey Parker and Matt Stone
Date
1997

The show grew out of two shorts Parker and Stone made in college, Jesus vs. Frosty (1992) and Jesus vs. Santa (1995), collectively known as The Spirit of Christmas1. The 1995 short was originally sent as a video Christmas card to fewer than a hundred people by Fox executive Brian Graden, then leaked onto the early web as one of the first bootleg viral videos4.

That bootleg reached Comedy Central, which hired the pair to develop a pilot. "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe" premiered on August 13th, 1997, animated with construction-paper cutouts and voiced almost entirely by Parker and Stone1. The show has stayed on Comedy Central ever since, becoming the network's longest-running program5.

How It Spread

South Park's meme footprint predates most modern meme platforms. The Spirit of Christmas short was passed around via email attachments and early file-sharing sites in 1995 and 1996, giving the eventual TV show a built-in cult audience before the pilot aired4. Once the series debuted in 1997, catchphrases like "Oh my God, they killed Kenny" and "Respect my authoritah" spread through AOL screennames, Geocities fan pages and the alt.tv.southpark Usenet group1.

As image-macro culture took over in the 2000s and 2010s, individual scenes got a second life. The Underpants Gnomes flowchart from the 1998 episode "Gnomes" became internet shorthand for any plan with a missing middle step, and got name-checked in tech and finance writing well outside the show's fanbase3. Clips of PC Principal, Member Berries and the "And it's gone" bank teller circulated on Reddit and Twitter whenever the news gave them a hook.

By the 2020s the show was still generating new formats through episode-length specials on Paramount+, while older reaction images kept getting reposted. Cracked's December 2023 collaboration with Know Your Meme cataloged 25 recurring South Park memes still in active use, from Cartman's "Screw you guys, I'm going home" to "Aaand it's gone"3.

How to Use This Meme

South Park memes typically pull a single screenshot or line from an episode and drop it onto an unrelated topic. Common templates include the Underpants Gnomes' "1. Collect underpants 2. ??? 3. Profit" flowchart for mocking half-baked business plans, the "They took our jobs" panel for immigration or automation jokes, and the "I'm not your buddy, guy" Canadian argument chain. Most formats work as image macros with captions swapped, or as short video clips reposted on TikTok and Twitter with new context.

Frequently Asked Questions