Mark Cotswolds

Mark and Rebecca were a pair of homeschooled siblings that took part in (and won) the 15th Annual South Park Spelling Bee in "Hooked on Monkey Phonics".

Background
The two children were very sheltered in their homeschool life, and hadn't seen the outside town until then. While Mark wanted to go to a public school and begged his father for the chance, Rebecca had no interest in the outside world and chose to stay at home.

Kyle developed a crush on Rebecca and began to pursue her, though she was oblivious to his advances. Around the same time, Mark (who had been made to go to school in a giant hamster ball) experienced bullying at the hands of the other boys and wound up duct-taped to a bench. Though his father wanted him to return to homeschooling, Mark convinced his father to let him go to the school dance.

Rebecca and Kyle, meanwhile, had finally gotten the chance to talk with each other, Rebecca finally becoming curious about the outside world. After learning of love and being kissed by Kyle, Rebecca agreed to go to the dance.

However, after having been sheltered for so long and finally experiencing "love", Rebecca instantly became over-enthusiastic and began dressing and acting in a promiscuous manner, hitting on Butters, Token, and Pip, much to her brother's horror.

Mark instantly went after Kyle for turning his sister into a slut, and began beating him up. The other boys became impressed, wanting to now hang out with Mark.

Though their father tried to intervene and take them out of the dance, Mark convinced his father to let them go to public school, as the two of them would still have to face bad things someday and it would be better to face them now.

Since the episode, Mark has reappeared in the show, making cameos in "Professor Chaos" (as a potential fourth friend), "The Death Camp of Tolerance" (in the group of kids sent to the camp), and "Imaginationland" (at Cartman's party). Rebecca, however, hasn't made any reappearance.

Appearance
Mark wears a deep green pullover sweater, with a white dress shirt and black tie underneath, and black slacks. His hair is dark brown and slightly wavy, with a part in the bangs.

Personality
He appears to be the older of the two siblings (it wasn't said whether they were twins or a year apart), and is the more outgoing one, curious of what life was like outside their home and eager to explore the public school, wanting to see what other boys were like.

Though he is incredibly intelligent, he was also naive in a few ways; seeming astonished that "friends" would call each other names and fight, that the boys seemed to "like, yet hate" Pip at the same time, and how the other boys laughed at Kyle for liking Rebecca. Though he was continuously bullied by the others and found himself duct-taped to a bench, he was unconcerned and unaffected by it each time.

Despite his parents' objections, he remained eager to explore the the outside world and ultimately gave a speech explaining why it was all right for him to stay in public school.

He seems quite protective of his sister, that side and his assertiveness kicking in when Rebecca lost her innocence and he proceeded to beat Kyle up (the other boys then considered him "badass" for it).

By the end of his debut, he was finding his way into fitting in with the other boys, having called Stan a "gaywad" in response to being called "nerdo".

Appearance
Rebecca wears a lime green jacket with a deep magenta collar, and yellow trousers. Her hair is rather curly and is held back at each side by two round, red barettes.

When she first appeared in the episode, her jacket's collar briefly changed to a white one with two red ribbons dangling from it, due to an animator's error. Her hair was depicted as being dark brown in those frames as well.

As a prostitute, her hair was feathered and teased out to a large, wild style. She wore a green-and-black spotted bra top, an ankle-length, black-and-silver skirt, and a pair of black stiletto pumps.

Personality
Though she is intelligent and studious as well, Rebecca is naive and sheltered from the ways of the world and rather introverted. Her awkward behavior and reclusive personality stems from her lack of social life.

She tends to stammer a lot, her voice almost constantly quivering and shaking in a flat tone, and seems to shy away from eye contact. One of her major quirks is her tapping and clasping of her hands together, and opening them to whisper the letters of a word into them before she says them out loud.

She had no idea of what love was, or even how to kiss, considering the idea and the outside world to be "silly". The only concept of 'love' she had was that of a "mate", and said that her provider would select one for her when it would come time to "increase the herd".

After experiencing what a 'kiss' was, she considered her newfound loose behavior as "having fun", unaware of what proper love was, having been denied knowledge of it for so long.

Rebecca was also oblivious to the double meaning of her "Doctor" game, her parents fearing that she was getting sexual with Kyle (when in reality she was pretending to be a doctor and was using him as a brain surgery patient).

Relationship
Though Kyle had a crush on Rebecca, she remained clueless to his advances, and didn't reciprocate his strong feelings for her, though she went up and kissed him when all the chaos was over at the dance. It seems as though they have drifted apart from one another.

Disappearance
Unlike her brother, Rebecca has not made another appearance in the show. It may be that she decided not to follow him to public school after all, or that she's in a different grade or class (though reference is made to Rebecca being 8 in the episode, she appears slightly younger and smaller than her brother and Mark). Recently, a girl who somewhat resembles Rebecca is present in the episode "Super Fun Time".

Trivia

 * Rebecca is loosely based off Rebecca A. Sealfon, a girl who had won a spelling championship two years before the episode. Rebecca retains her namesake's quirk of whispering the letters of a word into her hands.


 * The role of Rebecca Cotswolds (and her mother) was the last new character voiced by Mary Kay Bergman (who committed suicide shortly after the episode's airdate).

Appearances

 * "Hooked on Monkey Phonics" - Debut of Mark and the only appearance of Rebecca to date.
 * "Professor Chaos" - Mark is one of the contenders to replace Butters, but doesn't make the cut past the first elimination round.
 * "The Death Camp of Tolerance" - Mark is at the camp.
 * "Imaginationland, Episode II" - Mark appears at Cartman's party