Year: 2010
Genre: Comedy, Cartoon, TV series
Country: United States
Language: English
Starring: Trey Parker, Matt Stone
Creators: Trey Parker, Matt Stone
Box set distributor: Paramount Home Entertainment
South Park has done this before. They have released The Cult of Cartman in box-set form, a collection of the best Cartman episodes. That was likely a tough task – Cartman has had many brilliant moments over the course of the show. Now, they do the same with Butters, the best character on the show (personal bias noted). I think they likely grabbed all the Butters episodes and put them together on two discs. He doesn’t have quite the oeuvre of Cartman.
That being said, Cartman of course figures prominently in the Butters box. One of the best episodes sees Cartman dressing up as a “robot” to get Butters to divulge his dirtiest secrets so Cartman can make fun of him at school. But when Cartman discovers that Butters, in fact, has some damning evidence against Cartman, he’s forced to keep the charade going. He can’t eat, can’t go to the bathroom, can’t do anything because he’s supposed to be a robot. Hilarious.
And such is the life of Leopold “Butters” Stotch. Sometimes he’s the antagonist, when he dresses up as his alter-ego Professor Chaos and fails to destroy the world. Most of the time though, Cartman is the antagonist who does despicable things to the mild-mannered, cheerful and loveable Butters. Butters, who is eternally the optimist and so mild that he is mostly unaffected by things like his parents trying to kill him, or trying to sell him to Paris Hilton. (The Paris Hilton episode is the cutest – with Butters dressed up as a little bear – but also the most disgusting…I won’t go into detail about that.)
The box set comes with a bunch of Butters-related paraphenalia. An “Inspector Butters” badge from the episode where the little guy catches his dad visiting bath houses. A canceled cheque from Paris Hilton from the episode where she tries to buy him. A pimp chain from the episode where Butters becomes a pimp. A “manuscript” of The Poop That Took a Pee, the novel the boys wrote with the intention of getting it banned. A newspaper clipping of the tap dancing accident that left eight people dead. And a “what would Butters do” wrist band. It comes out September 28th from Paramount Home Entertainment.