Changes: Butters Stotch

Revision as of 13:43, 13 July 2012

Leopold "Butters" Stotch, voiced by Matt Stone, is arguably one of the five main characters, along with Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Kenny McCormick, and Eric Cartman. Butters' role gradually began to increase after he replaced Kenny during his temporary removal in Season 6. This allowed Butters to gain more screen time and further develop his character. He is the "innocent child" in the group and Cartman's most exploited "friend". Butters is loosely based on Eric Stough, an Animation Director/Producer that works on the show. He is one of the show's most popular characters.

Background

Life and History

Butters has been referred to in scripts as "Puff Puff" and "Swanson" - Stan refers to him by this name in the opening scene of the season two episode "Conjoined Fetus Lady". When Butters spoke in the early episodes, however, his voice was dramatically different from the stuttering Southern accent he has now. Butters was renamed and properly introduced in the season three episode "Two Guys Naked in a Hot Tub" alongside Pip and Dougie stuck in a basement during a Meteor Shower Party. He was seen sporadically from season three through five, going from social pariah in "Two Guys Naked in a Hot Tub" to mean-spirited bully in "Hooked on Monkey Phonics" (which seems out of character for Butters, but is not entirely unlikely for an emotionally abused child).

In the episode "Jared Has Aides" Butters was adopted by Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, and Eric Cartman as their fourth friend when Kenny McCormick died "permanently" at the end of the fifth season. The writers had given Butters his own spotlight episode as the season five finale to prepare fans for Butters taking Kenny's place on the show. The episode, titled "Butters' Very Own Episode", gave Butters a complicated back story where his father was outed as being a closet bisexual and his mother attempted to drown her son Butters in a fit of madness. They all made up at the end of the episode and nothing came of it.

Butters found himself as the new fourth friend, being put down and treated like a total outcast by his new friends. Kyle, Stan, and Cartman all openly bullied Butters, telling him how he's not cool like Kenny. Cartman in particular took perverse pleasure in making Butters suffer, to the extent that, in "Jared Has Aides", he pretended to be Butters on the phone and bad-mouthed his parents, just so he could watch them abusing him.

Butters would remain on as the fourth member of the gang for four more episodes; two of the episodes continued the plot of Butters being abused but downplayed it and in the case of "Freak Strike", ending the episode just as Butters was about to be beaten (with Cartman being beaten up instead). Ultimately, in the sixth episode of season six, "Professor Chaos", Butters is expelled from the group for being "too lame" and adopts his super-villain alter ego "Professor Chaos" as a means to get revenge against the group and society for rejecting him. Butters would run around for several episodes as Professor Chaos, only to have no one care much about his plots since many of them had, though Butters didn't realize it, already occurred on episodes of the animated series The Simpsons. Butters would eventually reveal his secret identity of Professor Chaos to Stan, although he mistook it for Butters coming out of the closet.

Though not anymore a member of the main four's group, Butters was nevertheless kept as a prominent member of the boys' extended circle. Though he has returned, Kenny's role has declined to an extent due to lack of ideas for the character and Butters has taken on a more prominent role again. Despite their ill-treatment toward him, Butters stays loyal to his friends, perhaps in hopes that they'll accept him. In a way, this has worked as recently there seems to have been some shift in the balance of friendship. The most obvious case of this being in the episode "Tsst", where Butters is calmly playing along with Stan, Kyle and Kenny, with Cartman being much more alienated than usual, as well as in "Casa Bonita", where Kyle decides to take Butters with him on his birthday to Casa Bonita instead of Cartman, implying he likes Butters more than Cartman. It's been said that Kyle despises Cartman because of his cruel, sadistic and selfish attitudes, as well as his prejudice—especially towards the Jews.

Despite their history, Butters has recently taken on the role as Cartman's sidekick. Cartman often takes advantage of Butters' kindness and desire to be accepted in order to fulfill his schemes. Cartman hurts and betrays Butters quite often, however, Butters continues to trust him unconditionally. Despite this, Butters got even in "AWESOM-O", where he filmed Cartman dancing, dressed up as Britney Spears, later showing it to South Park Elementary's various students and faculty.

Butters is also a very famous celebrity in the nation of Mexico. In "The Last of the Meheecans", Butters is tricked into straying from Cartman's house and almost gets run over by a car. He is then "refuged" in a house by a couple who thinks that Butters is a Mexican and is given the name "Mantequilla", which is Spanish for Butter. They make him into their personal slave and then dump him into an El Pollo Loco restaurant. Butters then goes with some Mexicans and crosses into Mexico where he becomes a symbol of patriotism to the Mexicans. Butters realizes his popularity in Mexico when he comes outside naked in front of hundreds of Mexicans. He realizes that every time he raises his arms, the Mexicans cheer with joy. Butters is then made a fugitive by Cartman but the U.S Border Patrol lets Butters back in and win the game of Texans Vs. Mexicans. He is allowed back into the U.S and shows his popularity to the other boys. Plus, he didn't get grounded by his parents for becoming famous in a foreign country despite being gone for more than 2 weeks.

Grounded Moments

Butters' parents are noted for grounding their son for reasons which are illogical, ridiculous, insignificant or completely beyond his control. Also, he is sometimes grounded for no reason at all.

Season 5

For pulling a "funny face" in his school photo. ("How to Eat with Your Butt")

Season 6

The Boys performed liposuction on Butters. Also, while Stephen and Linda were at work, Cartman pretended to be Butters on the phone and called them a pussy, queer, skank and a few other names while Butters was out with Stan and Kyle, then Stephen and Linda came home from work, scolding and abusing him. ("Jared Has Aides")
Appearing on the Maury Povich Show with balls on his chin, which freaked his grandmother out so much that she suffered a stroke. ("Freak Strike")
Having locked himself (along with the boys) inside Stan's room for over 75 hours with $800 worth of Veal in protest on killing the baby calves (which then end up being worth nothing at the end). ("Fun with Veal").

Season 8

For running away from Paris Hilton when she tried to buy him for $250,000,000. ("Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset")
He was threatened, and later kicked out the house by his father; he was attempting to hide in the house to avoid Trent Boyett. ("Pre-School")

Season 9

For having his room wrecked by Cartman. ("The Death of Eric Cartman")

Season 11

Saving Imaginationland when he was supposed to be helping his mother clean out the basement. ("Imaginationland, Episode III")
His parents would ground him if it turned out he was the ugliest kid in class, which resulted in him being almost grounded. (The List)

Season 12

Grounded for supposedly causing his father to pour Rice a Roni in his coffee. (Note: He didn't do this, It was merely a test by his parents to see if he was "groundable" again). ("The Ungroundable")

Season 14

"Writing" (At least taking credit for) an explicit novel. ("The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs")

Season 15

Grounded for starting an Asian Turf war between Lu Kim and Junichi Takiyama owner of City Sushi. ("City Sushi")
Gets framed for a bank heist by one of Dr. Janus' multiple personalities and is then "grounded the shit out of" by his father. ("City Sushi")

Criminal Record

Despite being sweet and naive, Butters does have a criminal record. Most of his crimes and misdeeds were, however, due to Cartman's manipulation and therefore most of these crimes should be branded as "unintentional" or "crime due to manipulation". For the other crimes that were not under Cartman's manipulation, it is caused by Butters naivety. However as his alter-ego "Professor Chaos", he will attempt to commit crimes, but his plans usually fail miserably. The crimes Butters committed are included but not limited to: Fraud: In "The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs" , he took credit for The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs, in reality the boys wrote it. This may not be entirely Butters' fault though, as the boys originally told him he wrote the book. He may have believed they were trying to mooch off of his success when they revealed that they had actually written the book.

Pimping: Butters paid a stripper in "Sexual Healing" and started a kissing company in "Butters' Bottom Bitch" which later had real prostitutes involved. However, these crimes were committed on plain stupidity and were unintentional. It is normal for people to pay strippers and that the purpose for the kissing company Butters made was to have women get paid for kissing men, which is a kids game and is not branded on Butters.

Terrorism: As Professor Chaos, he, along with General Disarray (Dougie) and The Coon (Cartman), threatened to blow up a hospital if Mysterion didn't unmask himself, albeit it was due to Cartman's manipulation. He joins the anti-China group with Cartman and holds up a restaurant, which results in him shooting three people in the crotch by accident.

Blackmail: In "AWESOM-O" Butters tells his AWESOM-O robot (Cartman) that he caught Cartman dressing up as Britney Spears and then dances with a Justin Timberlake cardboard standee and videotaped it. He told Cartman that if he bullied, pranked, double crossed, or got Butters grounded once more, then Butters would show the videotape to all of South Park. The motive Butters had for blackmailing Cartman was that Butters wanted revenge on Cartman for everything he did to Butters in the past.

Car Theft: In "Poor and Stupid", he helps Cartman steal a Nascar and crash it, injuring Cartman and killing 11 others. However this crime was committed on Cartman's manipulation.

Breaking and Entering: He breaks into Cartman's house to try and bite him, when he thinks he's a vampire. He breaks into Denkins' ranch, with Stan, Kyle, and Cartman, to get the baby cows.

Manslaughter: He helps Cartman freeze himself which kills Cartman but Cartman comes back in the future and goes back in time so to Butters it technically never happens, so it's not a crime. He accidentally kills sixteen people on two separate occasions while tap-dancing due to his shoe flying off and causes a chain reaction of events which kill people and lead people to kill themselves, but the second time he does it everyone cheers and congratulates him. As a result of this, this crime is not branded on Butters and his criminal record. In "The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs" he writes a book called "The Poop That Took A Pee" which inspires someone to kill the Kardashians with a shotgun.

Piracy: He joins Cartman's Somalian pirate crew along with Clyde, Kevin, and Ike in "Fatbeard" in which they steal a lot of money and weapons. However, the United States government ignores this crime and blames the Somalian pirates completely.

War Crimes: In "The Red Badge of Gayness", he joins Cartman's army of drunken Southerners as a messenger, although he didn't ransack, rape, murder, or loot.

Attempted Armageddon: In "Professor Chaos", Butters hosted a video and informed the citizens of South Park, that he's going to flood the entire world with a garden hose. Obviously, this attempt fails miserably.

Assault With A Deadly Weapon: Shoots a patron of PF Changs and a Police Officer in the crotch while holding the patrons hostage with Cartman in "The China Problem". They did not get in trouble and walked away after the Police were too happy that George Lucas and Steven Spielberg were convicted of the rape of Indiana Jones.

Date"rape": In "Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset" he "poked" at Paris Hilton's vagina while she was passed out drunk. He did seem to know what he was doing was wrong, as evidenced by his shocked face when his parents walked in; however, he did not seem to realize what he was doing was sexual or illegal.

Health

Butters has not shown signs of being very prone to illness (unlike Kyle, for example), but he does have a history of occasional health-related problems on the show.

In "AWESOM-O", he said that he had a flesh eating colon, a condition that made it hard to control his sphincter, and because of this, he sometimes defecates in his pants and has to wear a diaper to school. Logically, this would be considered Butters' biggest health problem, but it has never been even remotely mentioned anywhere else in the show, except for one scene later on in the same episode. He has also said that he kept his sphincter problem (and the fact that he wears diapers to school) a secret from everyone, except his parents, his doctor(s) and Cartman, who he told without knowing it was him. In "Erection Day", Butters is singing his "apple song" at the South Park Elementary Talent Show, but when he forgets the words, he becomes very nervous and wets himself before running offstage; his accident is very obvious and visible when it happens. Of course, this would probably mean that his sphincter problem has been cured and he is wearing normal underwear. It is most likely, however, that the writers on the show either forgot about it or decided to ignore it outside of the one episode where it was mentioned.

Injuries

In the episode "Good Times with Weapons, Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny bought authentic Japanese weapons from a fair. Butters wants to play with them, but they don't allow him. Butters then transforms into Professor Chaos and has a "ninja fight" with the gang. This ends when Kenny accidentally throws a shuriken into Butters' eye, which causes him extreme pain, shocking the other boys. Luckily, Butters receives medical attention after the whole town sees him in shock. In later episodes his eye appears to be fine as if it never happened.

In "Pre-School" he finds out that a bully from pre-school got out of jail, and then tries to hide. His dad later kicks him out of the house in an effort to make him have fun, but he simply gets nervous and starts singing to himself. The bully arrives and gives him several stereotypical "bully" injuries, including a severe Indian burn.

In "The List", he hits Nelly between her legs in order to obtain the list she keeps away from the boys. He apparently gets beaten up for it afterwards, as in the next scene he is seen with a black eye and an arm in a sling

In "The Coon" he is punched in the face during his fight with Mysterion as The Coon intervenes. He leaves the frame with a bloodied nose, also claiming a tooth is broken.

In "Butterballs" he shows up in the cafeteria at lunchtime sporting a black eye. The kids think a school bully is responsible and suggest that he talk to his grandmother about it. However, it transpires that she is the one who has been inflicting this pain on him.

Talents and Interests

Intelligence and Memory

Butters openly joins and helps with some of Cartman's schemes, and is usually shown doing well at it. Butters is often depicted as being innocent, gullible, easily-manipulated and stupid.

Butters is shown to be smart in "Christian Rock Hard" and highly talented, instantly supplying the correct answer to a complicated math problem as well as playing the drums. The context suggests this is a talent of Butters' that is well known to the others. (He also tutors Stan, at his request, in "My Future Self n' Me" — although it isn't clear in which subject, possibly more than one).

However, in "Go God Go", he did not realize that Cartman may die if frozen in snow for several weeks - he had to get Dougie to inform him of these facts. Although, this may reflect his innocence; Butters may have thought that a person can survive being frozen due to Steve, real name Larry, from "Prehistoric Ice Man" being frozen in ice for thirty-two months and being revived completely healthy; this would give him good reason to believe that Cartman could survive being frozen for three weeks. In the episode "Professor Chaos", Butters was able to hack into The JumboTron in Coors Field which shows he is proficient in I.T. In the episode "Proper Condom Use", Butters was shown with good negotiation skills.

Dance

As revealed in the episode "You Got F'd in the A", Butters is a very talented tap dancer, but his fondness for dancing was cut short at the National Tap Dancing Championship when a freak accident (caused by Butters' tap shoe flying off his foot) set off a chain reaction leading to the deaths of eleven people. This has left Butters quite scarred, although this isn't immediately apparent. In the same episode he was further terrified as his tap shoe again started another fatal chain of events, leading to the death of five rival dancers (and their instructor) who Butters and Stan were set to face in a dance contest.

He also seems to have some break-dancing ability, as seen in the episode "Asspen". Additionally, Butters exhibits some impressive free-style dancing ability, dancing to Justin Timberlake's "Rock Your Body" in the episode "Marjorine". He showed off more dance moves at the end of "Hell on Earth 2006" during Satan's party, imitating Michael Jackson.

Singing and Music

Butters is often seen singing to himself, usually "Lu Lu Lu", a song that goes, "Lu lu lu, I've got some apples / Lu lu lu, you've got some too." He is often cut off at that point. When he does finish, the ending is, "Lu lu lu, let's make some applesauce / Take off our clothes and lu lu lu." or, "Lu lu lu, let's get together / I know what we can do lu lu.", which, either way, could be a strange euphemism for sexual intercourse. In the episode "The China Probrem" Butters sings, "Lu lu lu I've got some splish splash/ Lu lu lu splish splashing more". Making it seem that his song has changed, but this may be only because he was taking a bath while singing it. In "The Losing Edge", Butters is in the outfield in baseball and is seen singing a song that goes, "I see a ladybug, hello little ladybug!", he may have been watching a ladybug in the grass while singing. In "Something You Can Do With Your Finger", Butters auditions for "Fingerbang" by singing "Little Bunny Foo-Foo". In "AWESOM-O" he sings "My Robot Friend" about his robot friend that resembles the theme song of The Courtship of 'Eddie's Father, and he seems fond of the Chicago ballad "If You Leave Me Now". Apparently, Butters can also play the drums quite proficiently; he is seen doing so for Cartman's Christian rock band "Faith + 1", featured in the episode "Christian Rock Hard".

In "You Got F'd in the A", in the flashback of the horrible accident Butters caused during the championship competition, the song Butters dances to is an upbeat, yet obviously risqué song entitled "I've Got Something In My Front Pocket", which features the lyrics, "Won't you reach into my pocket and see what it is / Then grab onto it, just for you / Give it a little squeeze and say 'How do you do'."

More recently, in the episode "Miss Teacher Bangs a Boy", Butters is heard singing a song while using the urinal in the boy's bathroom: "Hey there Mr. Weiner, whaddaya know / Do you need to tinkle tinkle? / Yes, I do think so".

In "Canada on Strike", Butters preforms "What, What In the Butt", by Maxwell. The end result is him being called a homo. In the episode "Cartman Sucks", Butters sings Joni Mitchell's song "Help Me" while playing with his army figurines. We hear Butters singing from a tape recorder "Happy Trails To You" in character as a big Texas singer in "The Ungroundable". Butters frequently sings the line from Chicago's "If You Leave Me Now" in the episode "Casa Bonita. "

Art

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Butters standing next to his graffitied name.

Butters is extremely adept in art and the show often makes examples of his abilities. In "A Very Crappy Christmas", Butters makes construction paper versions of the four boys for their animated Christmas short (this may be a reference to South Park's director of animation Eric Stough, whom Butters is loosely based on). Butters also shows his artistic talents in the episode "AWESOM-O", when he draws a picture of himself and his robot friend. In "Kenny Dies", he sends a letter to Kenny in the hospital which contains a drawing of them both in an airplane with the words "ME AND MY FRIEND KENNY" written above. As well, in the episode "Toilet Paper" where the four boys get into trouble by their teacher, Stan claims that, "Art class is for gaywads." Butters then prominently states that he loves art class. Briefly in the episode "It Hits the Fan" Kyle interrupts Butters tagging a building with his name in the style of a well practiced graffiti artist, which is strange because he could be charged with vandalism; Butters is always seen worrying about following rules. In "Casa Bonita" Butters shows the garbage dump worker a very accurate statue he made of Cartman out of garbage. In "Professor Chaos", Butters is shown using a sewing machine quite handily to make his cape for his alter ego.

Sports

He played with the rest of the boys as the left fielder, on their baseball team in "The Losing Edge". He was number 99 on the dodgeball team in "Conjoined Fetus Lady". He is also seen playing football with the others in "Raisins". He has been shown several times to be somewhat weak physically, especially in fights. This might impact whatever sport skills he has.

Writing

In "The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs", the boys shift the blame of writing a vulgar book on Butters, in the hopes to avoid punishment for creating something so disgusting. However, when the book becomes a success, Butters takes credit (believing he did create it after having assorted blackouts after reading The Catcher in the Rye) and goes on to write a second book entitled "The Poop That Took a Pee". Butters' style however is much more childish than that of the boys; the extent of his vulgar language involves repeated use of the words "Pee-pee" and "Poop". However, due to people constantly over-analyzing things for what's not really there, the book becomes an instant success, at least until the book supposedly causes a man to kill the Kardashians. Butters is actually a poor writer or at least a lot worse then Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny.

Languages

Aside from speaking English, Butters is shown to understand at least one other language. In "Fatbeard", when Cartman asks residents of Somalia the location of the pirates, he asks Butters to ask them something, using a book to see how he would say the question in Somalian. When someone replies, Butters, while taking a quick glance at the book, can understand what the man is saying.

Weaponry

In "The China Problem", Butters was shown wielding an semi-automatic handgun (Glock), given to him by Cartman. Due to the fact Butters was still a kid, his hands flailed wildly, and he was only able to shoot guys in their penis.

Appearance

Butters has a small tuft of bright blond hair on the top of his head. He wears a turquoise jacket and dark green pants.

To see more images of Butters Stotch, visit Butters Stotch/Gallery.

Images of Butters Stotch

Personality

Innocent Butters — Butters in "Super Fun Time".

Butters has a warm personality that everyone finds comforting. Fans consider him one of the sweetest, most innocent, and most gullible characters on the show. He is unique because he has the personality of a child, in contrast to the other more cynical, adult-like kids. He is generally much nicer and much more naive than the four main characters, although he and Craig are shown bullying Mark, a home-schooled boy, in "Hooked on Monkey Phonics", while it is worth noting that it was before the major character development of Butters in the show. The kids are often annoyed with Butters because he's not cruel, cold, gross, confident enough "like a normal little boy," as well as the fact that he is a "pussy". He is also vulnerable to being taken advantage of, and the boys often use him to protect themselves when they are in sticky situations.

Unlike nearly all South Park characters, he rarely curses and instead uses euphemisms such as "Aw, hamburgers" or "Son of a biscuit." He has cursed a few times, however, with each instance meant to be very shocking. In "Christian Rock Hard", for example, Butters solemnly says "Fuck you, Eric" to Cartman and farts on his face after his mental breakdown; in "Raisins", Butters says "I'd rather be a crying little pussy than a faggy goth kid", much to Stan's surprise; and "At least we have assholes" to Bebe. He is also noted for swearing a lot more heavily in "Butters' Bottom Bitch". More recently he has also said "You're poor as shit!" and "That's fuckin' gay!" (which he said quite a lot) during "Poor and Stupid". In the earlier seasons, Butters seemed much more intelligent, and he also seemed to use inappropriate words more often, even saying when the girls challenged them to a sledding race "Us men will show those skanky hos who is who!"

Butters refines himself in self-improvement in almost everything, to perfection, studying regularly and often commenting on how he "needs to learn to behave himself". Other skills include tap dancing but he vowed to not do that talent anymore because he accidentally caused a very horrible tragedy in the tap dancing championships. Unfortunately, he also has extremely low self-esteem and therefore has no judgment as to when or how to use his skills, and perceives everyone around him as knowing much more than he does. Another side effect of this is that he is almost constantly worried about being grounded. Butters is a good student and considered to be a dork by his associates. Butters seems to be constantly seeking a role model, as evidenced when he takes to Cartman (unbeknownst to him) pretending to be a robot in "AWESOM-O". He constantly struggles to find acceptance among his associates, hence why he often does menial tasks in hopes that this will earn him favor and respect. In the same episode he reveals to Cartman (dressed as AWESOM-O) all of his darkest secrets, including the fact that he suffers from a herniated colon, which means he can't always control his bowels and requires him to take a suppository through his anus regularly. In "Casa Bonita", it is revealed that Butters enjoys going to Stark's Pond and he always hangs out there. In "Cartman Sucks" Butters is mistakenly accused of being bi-curious, and although he agrees, it's obvious he does not know what this means. Butters also unwittingly gave a very thoughtful speech in the same episode, regarding the treatment of bisexual children. He also admits to be "bike-curious" in "The F Word".

In "Super Fun Time," Butters is shown to be more assertive and less willing to go along with Cartman's plans and rule-breaking. In "Butters' Bottom Bitch", he took the fact that he kissed Sally Darson as a sign that he was now a man and began thinking on how he needs a job to pay for bills, even though he is only a fourth-grader. In "Raisins", he is shown to be somewhat wise, in the end when he basically tells Stan you can't be upset forever. Butters' biggest problem seems to be self-confidence, the will to stand up for himself. He gets taken advantage of by nearly everyone he comes across. In "The Ungroundable", once he believes he has actually become a vampire, he's not so easily pushed around anymore as he thinks he is immortal. In "Cartman Sucks", Butters finally stands up for himself by stating to the camp counselors that his confusion is nothing more than a result of the counselors telling several boys, that are assumed to be 'bicurious', that they are confused without explanation. Butters also showed some self-confidence in "The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs", where he told the the boys that he wouldn't be tricked, and told them off by saying that they can "Suck on his wiener." This outburst stunned the boys, leaving Cartman to ironically call Butters an inconsiderate jerk. Sometimes when Butters is very happy, his smile appears to have risen almost far up to his eyes while the bottom part of his face is almost all skin and nothing more as seen in "Butters' Bottom Bitch", "The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs", "You have 0 Friends", "Poor and Stupid", "T.M.I." and "City Sushi" (mostly). Although he is ten years old, Butters still pees like a pre-school boy by pulling his pants right down and pulling his shirt up as he stands in front of the urinal. In the episode "The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs", it appears that Butters may have an attraction to fat women, as he fell for one of the Kardashians because she was "so big and squishy." In "City Sushi", he is mistakenly diagnosed with multiple personality disorder, as he impersonates various characters while playing like many normal kids do.

Psychological Trauma

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Butters (presumably) subconscious view of his father.

Butters shows obvious signs of mental trauma, most likely due to his father's psychologically and physically abusive "parenting". As revealed in "Super Best Friends", this trauma extends to such an extent that he falls asleep and wakes up to the sound of his own screams. Further evidence of psychological trauma due to his father can be seen in "Imaginationland, Episode III", where he was told to imagine "the most prominent thing in his mind", which happened to be his father, screaming that he was grounded; the imaginary version of his father later morphed into a monster-like being.

However, his father is likely not his only source of psychological trauma. Butters' social isolation and constant ridicule at the hands of some of his classmates likely traumatizes him as well. Furthermore, in "The Return of Chef", Butters was revealed to have been molested by his uncle, although he did not seem to realize it was molestation, this is likely another source of trauma. As a result of these events, Butters has very low self-esteem, constantly putting himself down as well believing he is a bad child who deserves punishment. Butters also has a nervous stutter - it is likely this can be attributed to psychological trauma.

Professor Chaos

Main Article: Professor Chaos

Butters' alter ego is Professor Chaos, a supervillain/mad scientist he became when the boys dumped him. He spreads chaos with his sidekick, General Disarray, and his hamsters (or "minions"). In "The Coon", the police and citizens watching his fight against Mysterion seemed aware of his name. The police decided not to even try to shoot him, believing (as a villain) he had unknown superhuman abilities, and the bullets would not affect him and believed he could not die.

In "The Coon", it was revealed that Professor Chaos uses General Disarray's grandmother's Public Storage as his base of operations. There are cardboard computers and a board of possible suspects for the Coon and Mysterion.

In "Coon 2: Hindsight" it is revealed he was captured by Coon and Friends and has been held captive in Cartman's basement for several days without food or water. He is still there in "Coon vs. Coon and Friends" and later, is joined by Eric Cartman (The Coon).

In "City Sushi", as he is burning all of his alter-ego costumes, he attempts to burn his Professor Chaos mask as well, but is abruptly interrupted by Dr. Janus. As a result, his costume remains unharmed.

In "Butterballs", after a moment of hesitation, Butters decides to confront his abusive grandmother with his Professor Chaos identity. His plan backfires, as his grandmother who has also adopted a supervillain alter ego easily overpowers him.

Chaos

Early in his career as Professor Chaos, Butters was successful at bringing chaos to his fourth grade classroom when he stole the erasers from the chalkboard. During the process of changing into his Professor Chaos costume Butters was discovered by Dougie, who chose to join him as his sidekick, General Disarray after being eliminated in the boys' quest to find a new fourth member. Together, Professor Chaos and General Disarray hatched out evil plots that included trying to flood the world with his garden hose and destroying the ozone layer with aerosol spray. In "The Coon", Cartman convinces him to threaten to blow up a hospital if Mysterion doesn't reveal who he really is. Mysterion (Who may be either Kenny or Kyle depending on whether the deleted ending is canon) then beats him up and Cartman betrays Butters and beats him up.

Plans

In the episode "The Simpsons Already Did It", Butters devises a series of supposedly original evil plots, only to abandon each of them after General Disarray informs him that they have already been used on The Simpsons. He nearly goes insane after a while of this, but gets consoled later by the reassurance that this is only because the show has run so long, not his own lack of creativity. This itself was inspired by the real-life frustration that creator's Trey Parker and Matt Stone coming up with ideas and plots only to find out the that The Simpsons had already beaten them to the punch. Parker and Stone themselves literally went through every episode to find something that had never been done. And eventually they did: boy bands. They conceived an episode only to find out the Simpsons did and released such an episode right before theirs was set to air.

Family

Stephen and Linda Stotch

Butters is an only child. His parents, Stephen (Chris in some appearances) and Linda Stotch, are very authoritarian, strict and, at some points, abusive towards their son — often severely scolding him for circumstances that are entirely beyond his control. This has evidently affected Butters psychologically; he often tells himself off in the absence of his parents. It is also hinted that the justification for this abuse lacks rationality. As additional evidence of psychological problems, he has stated in "Super Best Friends" that he wakes up to the sound of his own screams. However, it is clear that Linda cares deeply for him; she becomes hysterical when he faked his death in "Marjorine", and becomes extremely distressed when he is missing in "Imaginationland" and "Casa Bonita". Also, before his father ever appeared in the show, an adult man who is very similar to Butters was seen as a background in early seasons.

He is intimidated of his dominating father, who he is obliged to respectfully refer to as "Sir". His father uses fear as his primary parenting tactic with Butters, once intentionally frightening him with threats of 'Super-AIDS'. It is shown on a number occasions that he really does care about Butters, but he believes his methods are the best way in which to raise him. Linda, however, has been shown to be much more tender to her son, hugging and kissing him often. She seems to go along with Stephen's harshness only because she believes that its the best of her son.

It was revealed in the episode "AWESOM-O" that his family includes an aunt and uncle who live in Los Angeles, Butters' claims in "The Return of Chef" that his Uncle Budd molested him. There was a mention of a grandmother in "Freak Strike" who had a stroke shortly after she saw Butters on television with testicles on his chin and then his parents went to visit her in the hospital. Ten seasons later, Butters mentions his grandma again in "Reverse Cowgirl", stating she is from Virginia. In "Butterballs", Grandma Stotch gets a prominent role, constantly bullying her grandson, which makes her another member of the Stotch family that abuses Butters. It is unknown if that grandma was his maternal or paternal grandmother, or the same one that is mentioned in the episodes before that. Also, while Butters and all members of his family shown appear to be entirely Caucasian, Cartman's repeated insult to Butters is "Butters you black asshole". Instead of suggesting that Butters has some African or Afro-American descent, it is more likely that this is simply a childish insult out of Cartman's stupidity, ironic due to Butters showing no stereotypical African-American traits, and often exhibiting stereotypical Caucasian-American traits.

Abuse and Neglect

Butters barbies — Butters playing with his Barbie and his cut out doll of himself.

Stephen and Linda are very strict with Butters and have both abused and neglected him in one way or another or after his friends get him in serious trouble. He is usually grounded after he gets involved with something, because they usually conclude that it was either Butters all on his own or that he at least played a major role, and don't believe that he is being bullied. They have also threatened to ground Butters for things he can't control, such as in "The Death of Eric Cartman", Stephen orders him to stop having nightmares or else he'll be grounded. Also in "How to Eat with Your Butt", Butters' parents ground him for making a silly face in his school photo, believe he is wearing make-up at one point (he isn't at all) in and are convinced that his normal face is "silly" and has "made himself look like a girl." It is assumed that Linda and Stephen actually have some sort of compulsive need to punish Butters, as demonstrated in "The Ungroundable", during which they threaten to ground him for minor mistakes such as misplacing the chocolate Quick mix. When Butters, under the belief that he is a vampire, refuses to listen to their threats, they become unnerved and afraid that they will never be able to ground Butters again. After Butters returns to his normal behavior, his parents become immensely relieved that they again have dominion over their son, and immediately proceed to ground him again.

In "The List", it is shown that Butters parents were planning to ground him if the girls at school thought he was the ugliest in the class. Stephen also physically beats Butters in "Jared Has Aides" - Cartman pretended to be Butters on the phone and insulted his parents, really goading them. Then he sat outside to hear Stephen and Linda tear through him. Considering Stephen and Linda's possible problems controlling their anger, it is likely that "Jared Has Aides" was not the only time he was beaten.

The most distinguishing abuse was in the season five episode "Butters' Very Own Episode" which centered on how Linda sent Butters to spy on his father to find out what he was getting Linda for their wedding anniversary, and, among other things, Butters saw Stephen go into a Men's Bathhouse. Butters didn't understand what it was and told his mother, who then, in a spot of insanity, attempted to kill Butters by pushing a car with Butters inside off a dock. Linda then wrote a suicide note and was about to kill herself just when Stephen stepped in; the resulting confrontation changed her mind about suicide. Stephen and Linda tried to keep Butters' murder a secret and blamed it on "some Puerto Rican guy". Butters meanwhile found a way home and his parents came clean. When he found out that his mother had tried to kill him and his father was gay (or rather bisexual), he was horrified, but tried to pass it off. When asked if he was really going to be okay after discovering all that he admitted "No, I'm lying."

At the end of the sixth season, in the episode "My Future Self n' Me", Butters gets revenge on his parents for their abuse of him (culminating in them hiring an actor to pretend to be Butters' future self so as to scare him out of doing drugs) by paying Cartman to smear feces all over his house. The act ironically leads the Stotches to realize how badly they've treated their son and they apologize, an act that is contrasted by Stan Marsh's parents refusing to apologize for them hiring an actor to be Stan's future self, to the extent that they mutilate their actor when Stan tricks them into thinking he chopped off his own hand. Since then, the Stotches have not been shown hurting their son physically and in the episode "About Last Night", Stephen tells Butters that he loves him. However, he did believe that the world was soon going to end as Obama won the presidential election so one could think this was because Stephen was going hysterical or he wanted to make peace with his son.

Despite all the abuse Butters has received, his parents have been shown to really care deeply about their son, this can be seen in "Marjorine" where they go as far as to even promise him not to ground him "for more than a couple weeks" if he doesn't kill himself. As shown in "Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset" they sell a reluctant Butters to Paris Hilton for $250 million. Butters realises that many of Paris' pets have killed themselves and gets away, and Paris is swallowed anally by Mr. Slave. As a result, his parents ground him. In "The Return of Chef", Butters briefly mentions that his Uncle Budd has committed sexual acts on him, but has not realized that it is sexual molestation.

Relationships

Butters (Facebook) — Butters' profile picture on Facebook which can be found on his official Facebook page. It can also been seen in the background of "You have 0 Friends".

Butters has been in the show since "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe", though initially only as a background character, in fact, his first role as more than a background character was in "Damien", when Damien burns down some playground equipment that Butters is playing on, causing him to fall off and scream. His first speaking role was in Season 2 episode "Clubhouses", where he passed along a note from Bebe, saying "pass this up". He was later chosen by Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, and Eric Cartman as their fourth friend when Kenny McCormick died (semi-permanently). Later, Kyle, Stan, and Cartman decided that they didn't like Butters and chose Tweek to "fill the void" instead. However, he seems to be friends with classmate Pip (despite repeatedly punching him in the face during "Weight Gain 4000"), and second grader Dougie in earlier episodes, as seen in "Two Guys Naked in a Hot Tub" and "Professor Chaos". Butters is often referred to as "a little pussy," "wuss," "lame", "gaywad", and "faggot" by the boys. The boys got him to take the fall for everything they did - often getting Butters grounded in the process. Despite all these occurrences, Butters still seems to consider the boys "friends". Butters is the friend the boys hang out with the most. In "Toilet Paper", Butters mentioned he had a girlfriend named Carrie in Michigan. Aside from this instance, she is never mentioned again. In the episode "Raisins", Butters developed a crush on Lexus, a waitress at the Raisins. However, his strong feelings for her were one-sided; she had only been using him for his money, as all Raisins employees do. Lexus would eventually cause Butters to become depressed, although he quickly got over it. In the episode "Fatbeard" it was revealed that Cartman is the only person who still picks on him (it is likely that the rest of the boys consider him a friend, for example, Kyle seems genuinely concerned about Butters' "pimping" and personality change in "Butters' Bottom Bitch").

Eric Cartman

Butters has become Cartman's most frequent bullying victim. Butters sees Cartman sometimes as a friend and treats him as so. However, Cartman takes advantage of this and finds Butters extremely easy to manipulate and convert to his point of view, or get him to do what he wants. He is often extremely cruel to him, and uses him as a scapegoat whenever he needs someone to blame (Stan and Kyle also occasionally do this). He constantly makes fun of him for his effeminate tendencies and his naive, innocent, nature, often calling him "gay". Butters does not even take a stand on Cartman and that somehow, Butters is the only main character who does not hate Cartman despite all the cruelty he receives from Cartman. In "Douche and Turd" Cartman easily gets Butters to vote for his idea of a "turd sandwich" simply by describing the candidates in a certain way. In "Go God Go", he gets Butters to bury him in snow so that he can be unfrozen three weeks later in time for the release of the Wii video game console. Butters is in heart hurt by all of Cartman's bullying and when Cartman goes too far with it, it gives Butters the opportunity to make Cartman pay for his bullying and cruelty. However in " The Death Of Eric Cartman", Butters helps Cartman apologize to everyone he offended and after this, Cartman personally apologizes to Butters for all the things he did Butters wrong at and Butters seems to forgive Eric without hesitation.

In many episodes entire plots are centered on Cartman's antics against Butters. In "Jared has Aides" Cartman gets Butters grounded and makes several prank calls to Butters's parents. Cartman then frames Butters for making the prank calls by imitating his voice, which leads to both parents beating and abusing Butters. In "Casa Bonita", Cartman faked an apocalypse so Butters would hide in a bomb shelter for three days, so Cartman could go with Kyle, Stan, and Kenny to Casa Bonita instead of Butters. However the other boys found out about this and Cartman gets arrested for causing Butters' disappearance and was sentenced to a week in juvey. In "AWESOM-O" he dressed as a robot to trick Butters, but in the end this failed miserably and Butters happily got his revenge on Cartman for all of his bullying and misdeeds he committed on Butters by showing a tape of Cartman dressing like Britney Spears and trying to woo over a cardboard standee of Justin Timberlake in front of everyone, seeing how much Butters wanted to get back at Cartman. In the episode "Christian Rock Hard", Butters also gets revenge at Cartman by farting on his face and giving him the finger for swearing Jesus' name in front of everybody and ruining their band. He also taunts Cartman for being the real 'ugliest' kid in their class and mocks his neo-Nazism in a deleted scene in the episode "The List". In "Pee", Butters remarks "Aw, you lived?" when he sees Cartman.

In "The Death of Eric Cartman" all of the people in South Park decide to ignore Cartman because they feel he is a "son of a bitch". Unlike the other boys, Butters isn't aware of the plan and Cartman believes that Butters is the only one who can see him now that he is dead. In "Cartman Sucks" he repeatedly invited Butters over to spend the night to play pranks on him, which included putting cat poop on his face, and mooning over Butters, until it backfired on Cartman and he made an inappropriate picture which featured him putting Butter's penis in his mouth, and which ended up being showed to the entire fourth grade class, humiliating and degrading Cartman instead of Butters. In the episode "Breast Cancer Show Ever", after Cartman gets brutalized by Wendy, Butters agreed with Craig that he always hated Cartman with everyone else, which made it clear that Butters was finally standing up to Cartman, even though we initially seemed to be on Cartman's side as he said "I wanna see Eric kick the crap out of her." at the lunchtable. This has not seemed to stick; he goes right back to Cartman's side in "The China Probrem", acting as Cartman's sidekick, and holding Cartman's gun on the hostages. This implies that Butters is scared of Cartman because of his bullying and threats; he never shows any signs of disrespect or disobedience unless Cartman is not around or is rendered harmless (except in deleted scenes). However, "Eat, Pray, Queef", Cartman shows as much compassion as the other boys towards Butters after he is queefed upon, and even gives him a present, as well as participating in a state-wide attempt to ban queefing with Butters as a mascot, suggesting some liking for Butters although he, also like the others, refuses to go near Butters after he was queefed on. Cartman also "punishes" Butters with the tetherball for not kissing another girl during fourth grade in "Butters' Bottom Bitch". In "The Last of the Meheecans" Cartman posted wanted signs of Butters that authorized the U.S border patrol to shoot and kill Butters on sight. When Cartman joined the border patrol, he tried to murder Butters but failed.

Kyle Broflovski

His friendship with Kyle is fairly decent; Kyle treats Butters more kindly than the other boys, seen when he decided to take Butters along to Casa Bonita for his birthday instead of Cartman because of the fact that Cartman was selfish, bullied Kyle, and was always being antisemitic towards him. This was not the only reason why Butters was invited to Kyle's birthday as Kyle was invited to Butters' birthday the previous month. Kyle attempted to tell Butters how Cartman was taking advantage of him whilst he slept over at his house. However, Kyle is not against using Butters as a "guinea pig" when it comes to experiments or undercover jobs. Kyle also occasionally makes fun of Butters, swears at him or calls him names, as well as using Butters as a scapegoat (along with Stan, Cartman and Kenny) whenever he needs someone else to take blame. He also agreed with Cartman's plan to kill him when Kenny got a shurikan stuck in his eye in "Good Times with Weapons" so that his mom won't get him in trouble. Butters has been shown to harass Kyle, as shown in "The List", and he has also "bullied" him for being Jewish, usually under Cartman's influence and manipulation, but he sees Butters as a close friend and Butters sees him as a close friend too. He also defended Butters for not kissing a girl in "Butters' Bottom Bitch".

Kenny McCormick

Butters took Kenny's place after he died, leading to more interaction between the two in later episodes. Butters friendship to Kenny seems to be stronger than Cartman, since Cartman usually makes fun of both Butters and Kenny. In "Kenny Dies", Butters draws a picture of him and Kenny (as best friends) together in an airplane, which Kyle delivers to Kenny at the hospital. Kenny plays the "good cop" and comforts Butters in "Lil Crime Stoppers" and Butters tries to help Kenny with his cat-pee addiction during "Major Boobage". The two are also playing together in a sandbox in the episode, "Eek, A Penis!". In "Guitar Queer-o", Kenny and Butters can be seen hugging when Stan and Kyle break 100,000 points on Guitar Hero. Also, in "The Ring", Butters seems quite alarmed when he discovered Kenny has a "whore" girlfriend. Butters is also often sharing things with Kenny like in "Fat Camp" when he shares his cup to scoop up Kenny's puke when he is dared to eat it.

Token Black

Token and Butters are often seen together in many episodes, most notably in "Do the Handicapped Go to Hell?", in which they are seen together throughout the whole episode. When they were at Sunday School, Token is seen next to Butters when he goes to tell the boys about Timmy. When Kenny gets run over, they are next to each other crossing the street, and when they sneak into the church they are seen together again. In the episode "Cartman's Silly Hate Crime 2000" they are seen on the same sled. In the class room they sit next to each other. They also both join Cartman's Band "Faith+1" in "Christian Rock Hard". In the beginning of "The List", when Butters tells the boys that the girls in their classroom have a list rating every boy from cutest to ugliest, Token asks him which one of the boys is the ugliest, to which Butters says he doesn't know yet, saying that the girls won't let anyone else but themselves see the list. Although Token and Butters are known to be on good terms with each other, in the end of "W.T.F.", they are seen fighting with each other, blaming each other for the loss of stardom of the W.T.F. while Cartman and Kyle fight each other for the same reason, as well as Stan and Jimmy fighting each other for the same reason.

Stan Marsh

Stan's friendship with Butters is similar to that of Kyle's: he can be friendly to Butters, hanging out with him in "My Future Self n' Me" when the two of them learned the dumb acts and lies their parents did to keep their children off drugs, and be less friendly, using Butters as a scapegoat whenever Stan thinks he will get in trouble (along with Cartman, Kyle, and Kenny) or to be used as a "guinea pig" for the boys' antics. Butters has never been shown insulting Stan directly or standing up for himself to Stan alone; whenever Butters stands up to Stan, he does so towards all the boys. In "Guitar Queer-o", at the end of the episode when Butters and Cartman take Stan and Kyle's place at playing the game, Butters wants to take Stan's place, betraying Cartman when he reaches a celebrity-like status. Butters also revealed to Stan alone that he was Professor Chaos, although Stan took it to mean that he was coming out of the closet but Stan was okay with that.

Trivia

Butters was originally named Puff Puff and Swanson.^[2]
In "Damien" he was shown as a bully who tortured Pip with the other children.
Butters last name was Swanson in "Two Guys Naked In A Hot Tub" and is friends Pip and Dougie.
According to "Cartman Sucks", Butters' blood type is O.
Butters is shown as left-handed in "AWESOM-O", but in "My Future Self n' Me" and "Quest for Ratings" as well as most of the recent episodes he is shown as right-handed. This is either a continuity error or Butters is ambidextrous.
During some DVD commentaries, Matt Stone and Trey Parker mention that Butters is one of their "top 3 favorite characters".
Butters, Towelie, and Pip Pirrup are the only characters to have their own personal episodes.
In the South Park season 6 intro until he was kicked out as the fourth friend, Butters is seen holding a sign saying "The Butters Show" over the South Park sign. After being kicked out, he is shown as Professor Chaos, knocking the sign down before laughing inaudibly.
Butters has a phenomenal imagination and it was put to use to re-imagine "Imaginationland" back to the way it was before the terrorists invaded.
He plays left field on the South Park little league baseball team. His dad is also the coach/manager.
Butters seems to be competent with firearms, as shown in "Fun With Veal" using a G36 Rifle, but in "The China Probrem" he can't he even handle a Glock 17 and isn't as competent.
In "Summer Sucks" and "Gnomes", an adult man was seen who looks just like Butters and could be assumed to be his father. However, the creators decided to make Stephen Stotch his father.
Butters' moniker evolved from "little buddy", Matt Stone and Trey Parker's nickname for South Park's animation director and producer Eric Stough.
Butters first spoken line was "Me too!" in "Roger Ebert Should Lay Off the Fatty Foods", however, his voice sounded more like Stan's voice.
Butters is shown to be very fair when it comes to business, as seen in "Butters' Bottom Bitch", where he shares the earnings with the girls in the "kissing company".
Butters and Jimmy are the only two fourth graders that normally refer to Eric Cartman by his first name, however, they has refereed to him by his surname on several occasions.