Ginger Kids/Trivia

Trivia

 * Kyle reveals to Cartman that he isn't really a ginger, however, in "201", it is revealed that Cartman has the ginger gene due to his biological father, Jack Tenorman, carrying it.
 * Kenny is dragged away by one of the ginger kids to an unknown fate, never seen again throughout the episode, however, this does not count as an official death because they may not have killed him.
 * When Kyle and Stan are visiting the "Ginger family", the father says that the odds of them having one ginger child is 1/4, and then asks "what are the odds [of having three ginger kids]?". The odds of exactly 3 ginger kids where the odds of having one are 1/4 is 0.253 = 1/64, or 0.015625 (1.5625%).
 * When Kyle makes his scientific rebuttal of Cartman's hate speech, [[Media:GingerKids06.jpg|an accurate synthesis diagram]] for melanin (the pigment determining skin, hair and eye color) is shown. Displayed are the biosynthetic pathways for two types of melanin: eumelanin and pheomelanin. A higher amount of the reddish pigment pheomelanin in proportion to the darker pigment eumelanin is the cause for lighter skin tone, freckles (clusters of concentrated melanin) and the distinctive color of red hair, not the lack of a soul (that is, as far as modern science can determine). The biosynthetic pathways shown in Kyle's diagram are:
 * tyrosine → DOPA (3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine) → dopaquinone → leucodopachrome → dopachrome → eumelanins
 * tyrosine → DOPA (3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine) → dopaquinone + cysteine → cysteinyldopa → benzothiazinylalanine → pheomelanins

References to Popular Culture

 * When concluding his first speech, Cartman says "If you think that the ginger problem is not a serious one," He then shows a picture of Carrot Top and Sean Doherty and finishes his sentence saying "think again."
 * The ginger kids appearing at a window is a reference to the TV adaptation of the Stephen King book Salem's Lot.
 * The term "Daywalker" is a reference to the Marvel Comics character Blade.
 * Cartman's group proceeds to savagely attack a non-ginger actress for portraying the ginger role of Little Orphan Annie in the musical Annie.
 * When Cartman wakes up, before he realizes he is now ginger, as he walks across the hall to the bathroom he sings "Lucille" by Kenny Rogers.
 * Six notable kids that weren't captured by the gingers were Butters, Wendy, Jimmy, Timmy, Pip, and Jason.
 * The nagging hotel clerk at the ginger's hotel convention meeting is a reference to The Witches.
 * When the kids go to talk to the parents of some local ginger kids, the father tells them that if they don't want to have gingers they should marry an Asian woman. He then says he knows a guy who is marrying a Japanese woman for that very reason. This is a reference to Trey Parker who at the time was engaged to (and later married) a Japanese woman.
 * In the playground when Cartman leads the gingers, they shout, "Red Power!" as a reference to the Ku Klux Klan's motto, "White Power!"
 * The scene, where the little girl is singing a tune while approaching the house, is a reference to the film Nightmare On Elm Street, where Freddy Kruger sings a similar song.
 * In the playground scene, when Cartman and the ginger kids shout "Better red than dead", it is a parody of "Better dead than red", a phrase used by Americans in the Cold War.
 * When the ginger kids appear at night, scare off several children in South Park and two of them lock themselves in to escape it is a reference to Michael Jackson's music video "Thriller" where the horde of zombies surround Michael and his girlfriend. This music video has already been parodied before in the Season 1 episode "Pinkeye".

Continuity

 * This is the first episode to introduce Gordon Stoltski, who would later appear in "Miss Teacher Bangs a Boy", "Fatbeard" and then be killed off in "Dances with Smurfs"
 * This is Cartman's second formal attempt at Genocide. His first attempt was during "Passion of the Jew" in which he attempted to lead people into exterminating the Jewish people.
 * This episode is another occasion in which Cartman uses a class assignment in order to promote his bigotry and cruelty. Other times were during "Breast Cancer Show Ever" and "Mystery of the Urinal Deuce". He also used the school morning announcement's in a similar fashion in the episode "Dances With Smurfs".

Controversy
Although this episode aired in 2005, it has been cited in connection with a Facebook group titled "National Kick a Ginger Day, are you going to do it?", which surfaced on November 21, 2008, suggesting abuse towards red-heads. The 14-year old group administrator (Jaewon Kim) said the group (which had over 20,000 members) was only satire.

The page, which urges members to "get them steel toes ready," had garnered hundreds of messages. Many were from people claiming to have already kicked red-heads that day; others expressed outrage.

The outrage felt was parodied in South Park's 200th Episode, in which the Ginger Separatist Movement reforms (now without Cartman). Furious at being mocked, abused and bullied, the Gingers attempt to steal the Muslim Prophet Muhammad, in the hopes to gain his power of not being ridiculed.

CopperCab
On January 14th 2010, a video under the title "GINGERS DO HAVE SOULS!" was posted on YouTube by a user named CopperCab. The video, in which the ginger child passionately criticized South Park's portrayal of ginger kids and expressed his anger at being discriminated against, quickly became a massive internet sensation, garnering millions of views as well as hundreds of video responses (both critical and supportive).

In response, South Park itself later created its own parody of the video as a commercial for the show's fourteenth season. In the commercial, Cartman appeared as a ginger kid, repeating many of CopperCab's complaints verbatim.