South Park/Heartwarming

Kyle and Stan Watching the Sunset

Wait, this is a "Heartwarming Moments" page, right? What the heck is it doing in a show like South Park? Believe it or not, even a show like South Park, with its killing Kenny, F-bombs, and Dead Baby Comedy, has its emotionally redeeming moments as well. Your Mileage May Vary on whether or not it makes the show worth watching, but one would be surprised about how much more there is to the show than blatantly offensive comedy.

• Ike and Kyle. "Ike's Wee-Wee." 'Nuff said.
• Butters... Oh so much. Most of his scenes and a number of his focus episodes (see below) fall under this. More pronounced given he is surrounded by Too Stupid to Live adults and Jerkass friends
• The South Park episode "Raisins" contains an atypical moment in the series where Butters, up until now little more than the Butt Monkey, is crying because of a broken heart. A group of goths attempt to get him to join their depressing group, but Butters refuses, stating that even though he's depressed over having his heart broken, he feels happier knowing he can express that kind of pain and would rather be mocked for being a wuss who cries a lot instead of a "faggy Goth kid." For such a cynical, satirical show, it was oddly uplifting and was a turning point for the character.
• Cartman crying and screaming trying to revive Kyle in the Imaginationland Trilogy. And grinning and laughing with joy when he succeeds.

Cartman: Goddammit, Kyle, you never walked away from anything in your life! Now fight! Fight! Fight! Right now! [begins to break down] Fu-hight! Fu-hu-hight! [pounds Kyle's chest hard] Fight!

• • Somewhat lessened by the fact that this was more of an The Only One Allowed to Defeat You thing (he can't die until he sucks Cartman's balls).
• Butters gets another one in "Cartman Sucks" in which Butters is sent to a church camp for sexually confused boys and tries to save his best friend, Bradley, from suicide by accusing the camp counselors of being confused and projecting their insecurities on the children.
• And then there's the episode "Kenny Dies", which is a subversion of a Heartwarming Moments. Cartman spends the entire episode crusading to lift the ban on stem cell research to save Kenny from an degenerative muscle disease. Meanwhile, Stan is freaked out by Kenny's impending death and is unable to face him. When he finally is able to, he races to the hospital, only to learn that Kenny died, his final words being "Where's Stan?" And Cartman? He didn't care about Kenny at all, he just wanted to make money selling the aborted fetuses he found at the beginning of the episode and use the medical technology to clone a Shaky's Pizza.
  • And then there's the end of the movie.
    • Specifically Kenny's decision to go back to hell to save his friends.
    • "Good-bye, you guys."
• Season 15's finale, "The Poor Kid" has this one with Kenny as Mysterion consoling his sister upon being placed in foster care.
  • Also, this episodes shows that you DON'T fuck with Karen McCormick.
  • It may not have been treated as the least bit heartwarming but having Kenny back at the end of "Red Sleigh Down" was kind of nice. On a similar note, so was having Cartman channel Kenny's ghost from "A Ladder to Heaven" to "The Biggest Douche in the Universe".
• A lot of "The Death of Eric Cartman", in which Cartman actually shows some sincere decency and regret for past actions. Especially heartwarming is his relationship with Butters through the episode. Of course, at the very end things return to normal and Cartman reverts back to the Jerkass everyone loves to hate, but the episode was heartwarming all the same.
• At the end of "Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset", when Mr. Slave delivers a speech about how parents need to do better in being role models to their children, thus proving his wisdom... right after outwhoring Paris Hilton.
• Kip GODDAMN Drordy from "You Have 0 Friends." The kid had a sad clown poster on his wall and spent all his time looking sadly at his friendless Facebook page, and was just so ridiculously happy that Kyle was his Facebook friend. This Troper spent the whole episode expecting him to shoot himself and then he got all Stan's friends.
• How about "It's Christmas In Canada"? Kyle went to great lengths to get Ike back by traveling to Ottawa with his friends, a Mountie, a French-Canadian mime, and a Newfoundland fisherman, to the see the Prime Minister (in an homage to The Wizard of Oz, no less) because of the respective laws of Ike going back to his birth parents, Mounties being forced to ride sheep in lieu of horses, wine being outlawed, and a ban on sodomy. When they arrived, the guard refused entry, and the boys started crying, and the guard felt so bad for them that he decides to grant them entry. It turns out that the Prime Minister was Saddam Hussein in disguise and the Canadians proceed to beat the crap out of the villainous Iraqi dictator, and in the end, the laws are null and void, and Kyle and Ike are reunited.
  • Although the effect is diminished somewhat by the fact that they were just going with Kyle so they could get presents at Christmas, and didn't give a damn if Kyle would never see his brother again and Saddam remained in control of Canada.
• A lot of the moments where Stan and Kyle's friendship is made clear qualifies as a Heartwarming Moments. Once such moment took place in the episode "Ass-Pen", some time after Kenny was Killed Off for Real, when Stan was planning to race an experienced skier down an extremely dangerous slope. This Troper will admit that Kyle's line made her misty-eyed.

Kyle: Look, Stan. When Kenny died I learned how important friends are. I'm not gonna lose another friend.

• The end of the Lice Capades episodes is so uplifting (the music doesn't hurt) even the subsequent Take That can't reduce its effect.
• Timmy's relationship with Gobbles, a turkey with disabilities, in the Helen Keller school play show. Especially when he goes to sleep and Gobbles hops up to sleep beside him.
• The ending of "I'm a Little Bit Country," more on a meta-level. One could not really care less if the Jerkass useless adults were killing each other or not, but the overall message it carried was very heartwarming.
• At the end of The Movie, when the town sings a final reprise of "Mountain Town", Sheila calls Terrence and Phillip "super sweet". Yeah, that's right. Sheila Broflovski, who hated them to a cancer, lead an over-the-top crusade to have the duo killed (and had the honor of doing so), and repeadedly hopped, skipped and jumped the Moral Event Horizon throughout the film, is being nice to them? Of course this came with her Heel Face Turn after doing the dastridly deed and promising to be a better mother to Kyle.
• Randy walking with Stan into the sunset in "Bloody Mary," discussing how much alcohol Randy should drink for it to be considered "in moderation." One of the few moments on the show that actually feels human, and a season finale to boot.
• The last song in "Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics" is "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas," and unlike the others it's unaltered for Rule of Funny. Around the line "happy golden days of yore," there's suddenly a mini-Montage of some of the South Park females, followed by them and others crowding around Author Avatars Stan and Kyle during "faithful friends who are dear to us." All of those characters were originally voiced by Mary Kay Bergman, who committed suicide shortly before the episode was produced.
  • During "through the years we'll always be together," the four boys throw their arms around each other's shoulders in a rare moment of full group solidarity so nice it's only partially ruined by Kenny's death during "if the Fates allow."
• It's always nice when Butters gets thrown a bone. At the end of "Hell on Earth 2006", he not only manages to get Biggie Smalls to Satan's Halloween party, but gets to boogie on the dance floor (in his jammies) with him and everyone else when Satan decides to stop being a spoiled brat and let everybody in, rather than just those who received the special invitations.
• Near the end of "AWESOM-O", just when the military soldiers are about to kill Cartman (who they are unaware AWESOM-O is in disguise), Butters saves him and pulls an awesome Big Damn Heroes moment, begging the scientists not to hurt AWESOM-O and how much he means to him. That is, until Cartman accidentally farts and is forced to reveal his true identity and get embarrassed.
• In a really bizarre example, one of the Christmas songs starts with Hitler crying over not having a Christmas tree in song. It's pretty depressing, even if it is Hitler. Satan comes in and cheers everybody up with a happy song, even giving Hitler a wrapped Christmas Tree. Mostly Played for Laughs, but the whole "no one deserves to be miserable on Christmas, even Satan and Hitler" message behind it all is really touching. Hear the song here.
• "Mecha-Streisand" features Robert Smith, who is one of the only famous people not made fun of by South Park. Robert Smith himself was touched by the episode, especially when they call him, "The best person ever."
• It's a little weird, but I thought it was sweet that Ike ran to Kyle for help when he was seeing ghosts in "Dead Celebrities." It may sound messed up, but it shows how close they are and that Ike feels so safe with Kyle.
• The ending to "Crack Baby Athletic Association".
• Though the episode itself was soul-crushingly depressing and deserves to be on the Tear Jerker page, the fan reaction to "You're Getting Old" has been pretty touching. You have people who have been so touched by this seemingly asinine show; they are depressed, they are sad, but as a fanbase, we are pulling together. This troper wanted to cry after that episode, but then almost immediately went to the internet to see what others were saying. Within an half-hour, there were reviews and comments and YouTube vids. Some were kinda critical of the show, talking about how the show had become stale and old. But others sounded like they were going through grief. I know I woke up depressed from this episode, but seeing that others feel the same way makes me rather happy.
  • From the episode itself, Cartman and Kyle smiling pleasantly at each other in the ending montage. Heartwarming in a weird way, definitely.
  • YMMV, definitely.
• The episode "Broadway Bro Down" reveals to Randy that men sit through Broadway musicals with their wives because they use Subtext to Brainwash them into giving blow-jobs. By the end, Sharon is understandably pissed at Randy for all that, who goes from "pretending to agree with her" mode to "genuinely apologetic" mode. The heartwarming comes when Sharon decides that she still likes Broadway musicals despite the brainwashing, since all it does is make her make Randy happy, bringing them closer together. Considering the end of "Ass Burgers", in which they decided to live together in an unhappy coexistence because Status Quo Is God, seeing them have something that bonds them and bring them happiness was very moving.
• The Poor Kid shows one important thing, don't fuck with Karen McCormick, otherwise Kenny will kick your ass.
  • Even beyond the beatdown, the fact that he dresses up like a superhero to make his scared little sister feel protected (something that, according to their conversation, was a regular occurrence even before the latest incident) is just fantastic.
  • From the same episode, a small CMOH but worth a mention is Kenny holding Karen's hand on her way to class.
• Season 6's episode "Simpsons Already Did It" has Chef, under the assumption that the boys had raped and killed Ms. Choksondik, packs their clothes and plans to go on the run with them. Hilarious, but also heartwarming when you realize that he was willing to give up his life in order to protect the kids.
  • ...even if they would have done such a horrible thing.
• A small one, but in "Fun With Veal", when the kids (led by Stan) stage a lock-in in Cartman's room to protest the slaughter of calfs into veal. When the parents decide not to interfere or feed them in order to get them to drop the protest, Liane sneaks the kids some food.
• In "A Very Crappy Christmas", while Kyle and Ike are sleeping in the hallway waiting for Mr. Hankey to show up, Kyle's parents quietly come in and put the sleeping children to bed, while a chior humming "Silent Night" plays in the background. A stark contrast from the insane Moral Guardian we knew just a season before.
• In "Cartmanland", Kyle watches Cartman get all sorts of wonderful things, and the stress of a Jerkass like Cartman getting his own theme park makes him horribly sick, and he loses his faith and his will to live. But what's sweet is that Stan knows him so well that he brings him all the way to Cartmanland to see Cartman lose everything. Kyle recovers pretty sharpish when he sees that God gave Cartman gifts to take them away, just the same as he does with everybody else (at least that's how it works according to Chef).
• In "Ladder To Heaven", the boys try to build a ladder to heaven to ask Kenny where he put the ticket stub for the candy shopping spree they won. Oh sure, it's just candy... but they still think you can build an actual, physical ladder to heaven. Kinda cute, even if it is more shallow than the grown-ups think. And all the time Cartman is channelling Kenny's memories.
• "Cash for Gold": the parts with Stan and his grandpa. 'Nuff said.
  • Even with the Mood Whiplash directly afterward.
• In "Jewpacabra", after Cartman has been chained in a dark, empty park at night in a bunny costume, doused with blood, shot with a tranquilizer dart, and forced to suffer through one of the worst night terrors of his entire life, Kyle comes along and cuts his chains, walks him home, and tucks him into bed. By the end of the episode, after having suffered through one of the scariest nights of his life, Cartman ends up with a much greater appreciation for Jewish people (even going so far as to convert himself, if only for a day).
• Token and Nicole's "Falling in Love" Montage.
• The final punchline in All About Mormon was surprisingly heartwarming. The entire episode was making fun of Mormonism, but when Stan insults Gary's family and faith, Gary gives him a massive "The Reason You Suck" Speech because his faith gave him good values and closeness with his family.
• The concern of the boys- even Craig- at Butters being bullied in "Butterballs". Its really nice to see that the Reset Button hasn't affected everything in the show, and for all that Butters has been through he's gone from an unpopular wuss to actually being good friends with his class, even a fifth member of the main four boys. Before, Stan and Kyle would only be nice to Butters out of pity, but now it's because he's their friend. Made even better in that it shows Character Development in terms of Stan being the most angered by Butters getting bullied (despite what it ended up setting off), when back in Season 3's "Two Guys Naked in a Hot Tub" he hated the idea of having to just spend a few hours with him.
• In "Probably", God gives Satan advice on how to deal with his relationship problems despite everything that's happened between them.