Butters' Very Own Episode

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“Butters' Very Own Episode”
South Park episode
"Everyone knows it's Butters! - That's me!"
Episode no.	Season 5 Episode 79
Written by	Trey Parker
Directed by	Eric Stough
Production no.	514
Original airdate	December 12, 2001
Season 5 episodes
South Park - Season 5 June 20, 2001 – December 12, 2001
Scott Tenorman Must Die It Hits the Fan Cripple Fight Super Best Friends Terrance and Phillip: Behind the Blow Cartmanland Proper Condom Use Towelie Osama Bin Laden Has Farty Pants How to Eat with Your Butt The Entity Here Comes the Neighborhood Kenny Dies Butters' Very Own Episode

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List of South Park episodes

"Butters' Very Own Episode" is episode 79 of the Comedy Central series South Park and the season finale for the show's fifth season, making it the first season not to have a Christmas special. It originally aired on December 12, 2001.

[edit] Plot

Butters' Very Own Episode begins with his own theme, and Butters is excited because his parents' anniversary is coming up, and the whole family is going to Bennigan's to celebrate. A few days before this event, Butters' mom asks him to go and spy on his father, to find out what gift he was buying her. However, Butters (without understanding what he was seeing) finds his father going into a gay movie theater and bath house to have casual sex with men. He blithely reports back what he finds (complete with photographic evidence) to his mother, who goes completely insane. Butters follows his dad the next night to the bath house, only to find him lying on a bed masturbating, and also sees Mr. Garrison have sex with an unknown man. At home that night, Mr. Stotch advises Butters not to tell what he's seen, saying it's okay to tell a little white lie if it keeps people from getting hurt. Butters responds that that won't be an issue, as he has already spilled the beans to his mother, which in turn alarms Mr. Stotch.

At that moment Mrs. Stotch (who has decided to kill herself) enters the room and dully announces that she will be taking Butters for a car ride; Mr. Stotch, she states, will be staying home alone so he can think about what he has done. Mr. Stotch is concerned, but momentarily at a loss for words. It is revealed that Butters' mom intends to kill him so that he won't be left without a mother, but Butters is once more oblivious to her motivations and proceeds to confide in her about difficulties he has been having at school. She sends her car with Butters in it into the river, expecting him to drown, and then returns to their house to hang herself. Butters assumes that the incident with the car was an accident, and when his car is washed ashore, he tries to go back home so that their anniversary won't be ruined and they will still be able to go to Bennigan's.

Meanwhile, Mr. Stotch walks in on his wife writing her suicide note, and prevents her from taking her own life. He admits to his affairs, explaining that his fascination with homosexuality grew out of experimentation on the Internet, and likens it to an addiction and a sickness. Butters' father refuses to take responsibility for his actions instead, blaming the Internet itself for everything that had transpired. Mr. Stotch insists that he still loves his wife and wants to save their family, but upon finding out that Butters is "dead", he agrees to help cover up the deed and the two concoct a story about Butters being abducted by "some Puerto Rican guy."

As the media centers in on the "missing child" case, the pair are inducted into a "club" of people whose loved ones have taken from them by "Some Puerto Rican Guy", including Gary Condit, O.J. Simpson, and the Ramseys. Butters makes his way back to South Park, while his parents begin fighting over which version of their story he must tell, he scolds them for lying and trying to teach him to lie as well. Agreeing with their son, the two go before the press and reveal everything that has happened; the father's homosexuality and affairs, the mother's attempted murder, and the whole cover-up, and it is only at this point that Butters realizes what actually happened, and is visibly disturbed. This is followed by a lengthy scene in which Butters' father repeatedly screams about "Liars", "slimy scumbag liars" and "murdering murderers" while the camera cuts to the blank but smiling faces of Condit, Simpson, and the Ramseys. Butters, having been completely ignorant of the truth, is aghast and deeply traumatized. When Stan, Kyle and Cartman look at him in shock, he attempts to respond with a joke. He then explains to the boys that, while the knowledge of what really transpired is horrible and his faith in the inherent goodness of truth is shaken, he's certain a delicious meal at Bennigan's will get him feeling back to normal: "I'm gonna be ok!" The boys are stunned and Stan asks "Really?" to which Butters sadly replies "No, I'm lying."

He then leaves to join his family at Bennigan's.

[edit] Development of Butters

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This episode is perhaps most notable for marking the point where Butters became a popular and important character. Before this, he had been little more than a supporting character. With Kenny dead (having died “permanently” in the previous episode), a spot had been opened, temporarily at least, for a new main character, a role Butters held until “Professor Chaos” the following season. In DVD commentary, Parker and Stone indicate they already planned to make Butters the fourth group member, and created this episode as a prelude to him assuming a more prominent role in the series. Even after Kenny's eventual resurrection (in "Red Sleigh Down") Butters would remain an important character, despite not being one of the main four.

[edit] References to pop culture

The scene at the restaurant, where Simpson, the Ramseys, and Condit start chanting, “One of us! One of us! Gooble gobble! Gooble gobble!”, is a homage to the famous scene in the 1932 horror film, Freaks.
The events of the episode parallel the well-publicized case of Susan Smith.
Butters encounters the three laser dots of an unseen Predator that watches him with heat vision on the creepy road to South Park. Butters is also attacked by Predator in "Imaginationland Episode II".
The old man that tells Butters how to walk back to South Park is based on Fred Gwynne's portrayal of Jud Crandall in Pet Sematary. He also appears in "Asspen" and "Marjorine", another Butters-centric episode.
When Butters is in the gay bathhouse you hear the song It Feels So Good by Sonique.
When Butters and his mother are in the car by the lake, the radio plays Jingle Bell Rock by Bobby Helms. Even though the episode is not a Christmas special, the song on the radio could indicate that this episode's timeline is around Christmastime.
The title card sequences are a homage to MTV's Just Say Julie.
One of the voice heard by one of the men in the gay bathhouse is the same voice as a character that joins the show in season 6, Mr. Slave.