Kenny McCormick

Kenneth "Kenny" McCormick is a character in the animated series South Park. Created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, he first appeared in the short films both entitled The Spirit of Christmas in 1992 and 1995. He is voiced by Matt Stone and Mike Judge in the feature film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut. His birthday is March 22.

Kenny is most famous for dying in nearly every episode in the first five seasons of South Park. He is also easily recognizable for almost always wearing an orange parka that covers most of his face and muffles his speech.

The character was taken off the show in the fifth season episode "Kenny Dies", but returned in the following season and has since been a regular character; however, he now only dies occasionally. In most of the episodes in the 10th and 11th seasons, he tends to recede into the background, though this tendency seems to have ended with the 11th season finale.

Concept and creation
Early versions of the character first appeared in Parker and Stone's two pre-South Park shorts, The Spirit of Christmas (1992 and 1995). In the first Spirit of Christmas short, the character resembling Kenny is unnamed, while the character resembling Cartman is named Kenny. Both of these characters get killed in the short. In the second Spirit of Christmas, a character with both Kenny's appearance and name appears and dies.

Like the other three main characters, Kenny first appeared on the South Park television series in the first episode, "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe" (1997).

Possible character inspirations
While little official information has been given on the origins of Kenny's character, fans often speculate over some connections with ancient and modern culture.

Highlander's Kenny
There was an immortal named Kenny who was stuck at the age of around 10 or so, and who was over 1000 years old, in the 1990s Highlander series. The Highlander immortals typically die repeatedly and then come back to life, until they are decapitated.

Meatloaf coincidence
In the song "Objects in the Rear-View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are" by Meatloaf, the first verse is about a boy named Kenny who died, and the second verse is about having an alcoholic father. The question remains: coincidence, or deliberate on the part of the writers?

Ken McCormick
(More background information is needed)

There was a real-life boy named Ken McCormick, who killed himself while listening to Ozzy Osborne.

Appearance
Kenny almost always wears an orange Snorkel parka, orange trousers, and brown gloves or mittens. Almost all of the time, Kenny has his hood on so that only his eyes and nose are visible, although on some occasions when he gets frightened, he'll pull the strings of his hood over his face tighter. The shape of his hood surrounding his face makes him look considerably like a large vagina or ankh symbol; whether or not this was intentional on the creators part is unknown. Underneath his hood he has messy blond hair, which looks somewhat similar to that of Tweek, another South Park character. He is also shown to have almost nothing on underneath his parka, as seen in the episodes "The Tooth Fairy Tats 2000", the film, "Lil' Crime Stoppers", and "Lice Capades", though he does have a white T-shirt on. In the episode "Good Times with Weapons" and in "Major Boobage", his anime self is shown to have blue eyes. Kenny is also shown to have blue eyes in the episode "Starvin' Marvin", in which a mutant turkey pulls out his eye and in a close-up, a blue iris is momentarily visible.

It would seem that his parka was made from pieces of his bedroom curtains, as in the episode Quintuplets 2000, when we see Kenny practicing opera singing, we see his curtains in the background. They are of orange material, and a huge part of one is missing.

A photorealistic version of Kenny's appearance was produced as a police artist sketch for the episode "Free Willzyx", showing his nose.

Voice
Kenny's speech is muffled, so that it is often difficult to hear what he says (although the closed captioning sometimes verifies his lines), though his lines have become somewhat more intelligible in later episodes. An example of this is in the episode "Chinpokomon", where he appears to say "Fuck you" to Cartman after Cartman attempted to trade another chimpokomon for Kenny's Pengin. Kenny speaks clearly and without his hood in "South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut", "The Jeffersons", and "Lice Capades" with proper, unmuffled lines. He also cheers in "The Losing Edge" and groans in "The Tooth Fairy Tats 2000". Kenny is shown without his hood in "Lil' Crime Stoppers", "The Losing Edge", "Lice Capades", "The Jeffersons", "Bus Via War to France" (hair blond, Same Creation/same of South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, Would no Put Hood ever in this episode Bus Via War to France), "Super Best Friends", and "South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut".

Kenny's unmuffled voice sounds like a slightly higher-pitched version of Stan's. In the film, Kenny's voice is performed by Mike Judge, creator of "Beavis and Butt-head" and "King of the Hill". In "The Jeffersons", Kenny's unmuffled voice was performed by Matt Stone.

Despite that his mouth is rarely shown and covered by mouth, causing the muffled lines. He vomits in "Major Boobage" and his mouth is clearly seen - it disappears when he finishes vomiting.

Personality and impact
Kenny is the most knowledgeable of the group, and is probably the most perverted. In earlier episodes, when an unknown term is introduced to Stan, Kyle and Cartman, Kenny will be called upon by his friends to clarify, although sometimes Kenny does not know the meaning of the term. His muffled responses are often met with laughter or further confusion. He has a passion for Quote"big fat titties" as shown in the episode "Lil' Crime Stoppers". His knowledge may be gleaned from his parents or from the pornography which Kenny is shown to possess in "Osama Bin Laden Has Farty Pants". He is usually the first to perform disgusting acts (such as drinking from Jimbo's gas tank or giving Howard Stern a hummer for money). Stan and Kyle noticed this behavior in "Fat Camp" and created the "The Krazy Kenny Show" which starred Kenny doing undesirable acts for money (such as eating mice, pretending to kill newborn babies in front of their mothers, and washing his hair in battery acid) and in "Roger Ebert Should Lay Off the Fatty Foods" he creates a haiku that goes like this:

When you rub your dick

You might find a discharge that

Winds up on the floor.

Although he is something of a silent protagonist, Kenny still seems to be very empathetic when it comes to his friends. In "Do the Handicapped Go to Hell?" he is quick to show worry about the prospect of Timmy going to Hell. Again, in "Best Friends Forever", Kenny's will states that Cartman will receive his PSP because he feels sorry for him. Kenny also alludes to his many deaths and his friends' attitude towards them in "Cherokee Hair Tampons", when he gets angry at Stan for crying over Kyle's impending death and not recognizing Kenny's at all. Kenny is ultimately revealed to be a heroic character in "South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut" when he saves the world by sacrificing himself. This was only one of a few sacrificial deaths that occurred throughout the show.

Kenny is also shown to be very loyal to his friends, even when he is insulted or ridiculed. In the episode "Jewbilee", Kyle betrays Kenny by ratting him out to the elders. Afterwards, Kenny ends up saving everyone by sacrificing himself. In the early seasons, Cartman consistently insults Kenny for being poor and constantly reminds him how much he hates him. Nonetheless, it is shown that he and Kenny are BFFs, since Stan and Kyle are so close.

In "The Biggest Douche in the Universe", in which Cartman is possessed by the late Kenny, Kenny is shown to be a fan of Rob Schneider. When Cartman refuses to watch Rob Schneider's films, Kenny's soul keeps trying to get him to change the channel back.

Deaths

 * See also: Kenny's deaths and List of Kenny's deaths.

Kenny McCormick is best known in the show for his recurring death in nearly every episode of the first five seasons, often followed by some variant of "Oh my God, they killed Kenny!" and "You bastards!" from his friends Stan and Kyle, respectively. The gag has many precedents, going back at least as far as the regular cry, "You rotten swine! You've deaded me!" by Bluebottle voiced by Peter Sellers in "The Goon Show" in 1951. In the first few episodes, Kyle said the entire phrase. Later on, it varied, depending on who killed Kenny.

Kenny has died and come back over 102 times in the South Park franchise (79 in the series, to date, two in the early animated shorts, six in other authorized TV parodies, six times in the video game, and twice in the movie). He is also killed nine different ways in the opening sequence. Kenny’s most recent death (the first since "Best Friends Forever", two and a half years earlier) was in "The List".

Kenny died in almost all the episodes until the writers killed him off permanently in the fifth season, but he returned at the end of the next season's finale, remarking that he's "just been over there" (pointing off screen). By the sixth season, Matt and Trey dispensed with the practice of killing him in every episode, as they got bored with the joke. The reason why Kenny died continuously was given in an interview with Matt Stone and Trey Parker, who stated vaguely that it was because Kenny is poor. Kenny is always resurrected for the next episode, although the explanations for his reappearance varied. One episode explained that his soul returns to his mother, takes to another body, is reborn, and then grows to be 8 or 9 years old in record time, while another simply had Kenny magically reappearing out of thin air in the second part of the two-part episode "Cartman's Mom is a Dirty Slut" after he was run over by a train in the first.

None of the other characters seem to find this at all unusual. Stan merely greeted Kenny when he materialized, and no one else even blinked. Kenny himself is sometimes aware of the fact that he is constantly killed, expressing resentment over the fact that Stan was worried about Kyle's impending death while never mourning Kenny, opting to take home economics classes over wood shop partly because he was afraid of getting killed by the dangerous power tools in the shop class, and cheering after realizing he had survived the episode "Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo".

Other characters occasionally seem to be vaguely aware of Kenny's deaths. In "Cartmanland", Kenny dies in Cartman's theme park, and when the lawyers suing him mention "that boy who died," Cartman replies with, "Who, Kenny? He dies all the time." It would seem that the others are also aware of Kenny's deaths, but are quite nonchalant about them since they know he will re-appear. Even Stan mentioned that Kenny died all the time in the episode "Gnomes", in which the gnomes accidentally crush Kenny, and mourn over this tragedy, but are confused as to why the kids don't seem to care. In "Chef Goes Nanners", Kenny eats antacid tablets, thinking they're mints, and drinks a lot of water afterward. When Kenny explodes, the four boys and Kyle's dad laugh and applaud, and Stan even says, "That was a good one." Kenny survives a few episodes in the first five seasons:
 * "Mr. Hankey the Christmas Poo".
 * "City on the Edge of Forever", which takes place entirely within Stan's dream. Kenny only dies within the dream (and a false flashback that Cartman has in the dream).
 * "Rainforest Schmainforest", when he is struck by lightning and then revived with CPR by his new girlfriend Kelly.
 * The "Do the Handicapped Go to Hell?"/"Probably" two-parter, when he is run over by a bus in Part 1 and presumed dead. When the bus stops in Mexico in Part 2, he is scraped from underneath the bus by a Mexican man and found to still be alive.
 * "Fat Camp", in which a kid from drug rehab who had previously been posing as Cartman is forced by Stan and Kyle to dress in Kenny's orange parka and climb into Ms. Crabtree's uterus as part of a television stunt. His dead body is later squeezed out, followed by the corpse of another kid resembling Harry Potter. Kenny was serving jail-time in New York after performing a sex act on Howard Stern during his live radio show at the time.
 * In the fifth season episode "Terrance and Phillip: Behind the Blow", Earth Day activists hack all of Kenny's limbs off, but he is not shown to die at any point in the episode.

In addition to escaping death in a few episodes, Kenny does not appear in the episodes "Terrance and Phillip in Not Without My Anus", "Cat Orgy", "Two Guys Naked in a Hot Tub", and "Pip" and therefore does not die in any of these episodes.

Kenny has died only rarely during seasons 7 through 11. Some "deaths" are not actual instances of Kenny dying, but are still accompanied by Stan and Kyle's remarks, such as when Kenny's "World of Warcraft" character was killed in "Make Love, Not Warcraft".

The episode "Cripple Fight" suggests that Kenny's deaths are caused by his parka. When Timmy gives Jimmy a nearly identical parka, a series of unfortunate and fatal events repeatedly happen behind him (meaning they all miss him); a voice can even vaguely be heard screaming, "There's Kenny! Kill him!", but Jimmy does not even notice. On the other hand, in some episodes, Kenny dies without the parka.

Theme Song
Kenny's lines in the first season are
 * I like girls with big fat titties; I like girls with deep vaginas.


 * In season 3, this changed to:
 * I have got a ten inch penis; Use your mouth if you wanna clean it.


 * In season seven, this changed to
 * Someday I'll be old enough to stick my dick in Britney's butt.


 * In season ten part two, the theme was revamped and Kenny's lines were
 * I like fucking silly bitches; I know that my penis likes it .

Background and family
Kenny's family is one of the poorest families in South Park. Even worse is that it's also fairly large Because Kenny's family is so poor, they eat frozen waffles with no side dishes for dinner and bread sandwiches for breakfast. In "Starvin' Marvin", Kenny won a can of green beans for his family, though they could not afford a can opener. Cartman frequently exploits Kenny’s poverty by offering him money for performing strange or dangerous tasks. In "The List", Cartman frequently mentions that his family eats Pop-Tarts for dinner. This is actually proven at the end of the episode, as Kenny and his family are all seen eating Pop-Tarts before a stray bullet kills Kenny at the dinner table.

Despite his family’s poverty, Kenny always manages to stay current with trends in toys and video games, such as maintaining a "World of Warcraft" subscription (and a computer to play it on), being the first kid to get a PSP in South Park, or buying the Chinpokomon dolls, and being the only child in the town to have a Go Go Action Bronco, a battery-powered miniature car.

Stuart McCormick
Main Article: Stuart McCormick

He is Kenny's alcoholic father. He is usually seen hanging out with the other men in South Park, or arguing - and sometimes beating - his wife. Stuart is an alcoholic, which is the most likely reason behind his family's poverty.

Carol McCormick
Main Article: Mrs. McCormick

She is Kenny's young mother. She is said to have had Kenny when she was only sixteen years old. In Cartman Joins NAMBLA, it is implied that after Kenny dies, his soul returns to her, takes to another body, and is reborn (though this was likely just a cutaway joke.)

Kevin McCormick
He is Kenny's older brother. He is very untidy in appearance. He hasn't had very many speaking lines, but when he does speak, he seems to repeat much of what he says. His voice sounds similar to those of Terrance Mephisto, Bill, and Fosse.

Little Sister
See "Best Friends Forever" for details

She is Kenny's reclusive younger sister. She first appeared in "Best Friend's Forever", when she and the rest of the McCormicks visited Kenny in the hospital. She has had no speaking lines, and her name has not yet been given.

Grandfather
See "Fat Camp" for details

He didn't have any speaking lines either, but he appeared in Fat Camp, when Kenny, as a stunt on the Krazy Kenny Show, gave him a full-body massage on live television.

Eric Cartman
Main Article: Eric Theodore Cartman

Cartman generally seems to tolerate Kenny, although he regards him as being lesser than him because he is poor, and can even at times be seen to treat Kenny as sort of a general laborer/servant. Cartman does appear to consider Kenny as his best friend out of the other three boys, although he is not above exaggerating the depth of their friendship in order to achieve or obtain something he wants, usually after Kenny dies or is incapacitated, such as in the episode "Best Friends Forever". In the same episode, Kenny described his general attitude toward his friendship with Cartman as his feeling sorry for him, because everyone else hates him. However, it is also shown that the two share a "best friends forever" necklace (hence the title of the episode), and in the episode "Kenny Dies", Kenny seems to agree with Cartman's assessment that the two are best friends, as Kyle and Stan are.

Kenny will go along with Cartman if he talks about something he agrees on (such as the time he giggled uncontrollably when Cartman farted in Kyle's face in "Cancelled"), or Kyle and Stan if he gets really annoyed by Cartman's attitude. On occasion, he is known to punch Cartman when Cartman rips on him for being poor.

Kelly
Main Article: Kelly

Kenny briefly had a girlfriend named Kelly in "Rainforest Schmainforest" (she was first to admit her feelings for him), who came to his aid during one of his famous "death" scenes. In the next episode, "Spontaneous Combustion", he spends a lot of time at a new girlfriend's house but the viewer never sees her. Because Kenny had started dating Kelly in the previous episode, it is safe to assume that they are one and the same. Kelly hasn't been heard of since (although she was seen at the dance in "Hooked on Monkey Phonics", possibly having arranged to meet up with Kenny, but not being able to as he is dead at that point).

Hero
Despite these problems, Kenny is often portrayed as the hero of the group; indeed, several of his deaths have been acts of heroic self-sacrifice. Matt & Trey tried to kill him off for a year (he died in the Hell's Pass Hospital of a muscle disease) and replaced him first with Butters Stotch and then Tweek. During the 2002 Christmas episode Kenny returned after being trapped in the depths of Cartman. During the following season, he seemed to have lost his bad luck and didn't die anymore. Kenny's lucky streak ended during the 2003 Christmas episode It's Christmas in Canada, and he continued to die once a season in Season 8 and twice in Season 9. He survived Season 10 and 11, up until the final episode of Season 11, when a stray bullet killed him.

Music
Kenny has a very good opera voice (after taking lessons), as seen in "Quintuplets 2000". He uses this talent to travel to Romania where he sings for money. He is also a proficient drummer as seen in "Christian Rock Hard" and plays violin as seen in "Summer Sucks." He can also sing and dance at the same time, extremely evident in Rainforest Schmainforest and Something You Can Do With Your Finger.

Gaming
Kenny is shown to have a large mastery of strategic video gaming in "Best Friends Forever", reaching Level 60 in the PSP Game "Heaven vs Hell", and was known by the angels as the heaven's equivalent of Keanu Reeves (Neo or Constantine). In "Make Love, Not Warcraft" he is a human hunter in the game World of Warcraft (a race/class combination not actually possible in the game). In Towelie, he plays the 2001 Okama Gamesphere with the other boys until his death, at which time Towelie takes his place. He has also died while playing video games, such as in the "Chinpokomon" episode, he suffers a non-fatal seizure while playing a game about bombing Pearl Harbor.

Fighting
Kenny has fought on a few occasions. He also holds the ability to perform his "Spin Blossom Nut Squash" on command, as seen in "The Return Of Chef". He is also able to throw shurikens correctly, as demonstrated by hitting Butters directly in the eye with one in "Good Times with Weapons".

Acting
Kenny dressed up as a pregnant underage girl to get morning-after abortion pills (though the only thing he wore was a long, blond wig) in Cartman Joins NAMBLA.He also dressed up as Michael Jackson's son in "The Jeffersons."

Sports
Played football in the season one episode "Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride", was part of the dodgeball team in the season two episode "Conjoined Fetus Lady", and played centerfield of the baseball team in the season nine episode "The Losing Edge". In "The Losing Edge" and "Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride", the number on the back of his shirt is the number 13, a joke on how Kenny is unlucky due to being in poverty and dying all the time. In the second of those episodes, his number is 69, a reference to his perverted sense of humor. Kenny can also play tetherball, but ended up getting strangled by it in Mecha-Streisand.

Computer skills
In "Christian Rock Hard" he teaches Stan and Kyle how to download music for free off the Internet. He also helped save the World of Warcraft in "Make Love, Not Warcraft".

References in other media

 * In the book South Park and Philosophy: Bigger, Longer, and More Penetrating, there is an article about Kenny, by Southern Illinois University philosophy professor Dr. Randall Auxier, entitled: "Killing Kenny: Our Daily Dose of Death.".
 * In his 2007 television special Jeff Dunham: Spark of Insanity, ventriloquist comedian Jeff Dunham and his puppet Walter remarked while looking into the camera, "This is Comedy Central! I can see Cartman.  I can see Kenny.  Oh, he just got killed."
 * In Episode 3 of the anime FLCL, there is a scene best seen via freeze frame in which Kenny can be seen as a car ornament impaled through the head with an arrow.
 * In the 2007 The Police reunion tour, the guitar strap used by Andy Summers features Kenny being electrocuted (the words "Oh My God! They killed Kenny!" can be read on the strap).
 * The golden Spacesuits in Danny Boyle's Sunshine (2007 film) are influenced by Kenny's trademarked Parka
 * The rapper Master P released a single in 1998 entitled "Kenny's Dead".
 * In an episode of celebrity deathmatch Flea (Red Hot Chille Peppers) vs Kenny G, when Kenny G dies Nick Diamond cries out "Oh my god! Flea Killed Kenny G! Flea killed Kenny G!" Then a child that looks like Timmy Turner from "The Fairly Odd Parents" but supposed to be Kyle calls out "You Bastards!"
 * Kenny's deaths and the "Oh my God! They killed Kenny!" catchphrase is well known in popular culture, and has appeared on various pieces of merchandise, from T-shirts to guitar straps (like the one used by The Police guitarist Andy Summers),
 * In volume 3 of the Shrine of the Morning Mist manga, one of the posters shown in Yuzu Hieda's room is that of Kenny McCormick. In episode 5 of FLCL, Lieutenant Kitsurubami's has a Kenny McCormick keychain and when Naota is having an awkward conversation with Mamimi, his appearance changes to resemble Kenny and talks with his voice muffled.