The Death of Eric Cartman

"The Death of Eric Cartman"
[[File:File:DeathofEricCartman07.jpg|250px]]
Episode no.	Season 9 Episode 6
Production no.	906
Original airdate	April 13, 2005
Episode chronology Previous Next "The Losing Edge" "Erection Day"
List of all South Park episodes

"The Death of Eric Cartman" is the sixth episode of the ninth season of South Park. The episode draws parodies from The Sixth Sense and The Ghost Whisperer.

Spoiler warning! Plot details follow.

Synopsis

Stan, Kyle and Kenny have had enough of Cartman and ignore him, which leads him to think he has died and is a ghost. Cartman "tries" to get into heaven by doing good deeds, but fails in the end.

Plot

At Stan's house, the boys wait for Sharon to return home with KFC. She arrives and asks the boys to help her take the shopping bags in. As they do so, Cartman eats all the skin off the chicken and the boys become incredibly angry at Cartman for eating the best part of the KFC (which causes Kenny to burst into tears). Realising that he thrives on the fact that they rip on him, they decide that the best way to deal with him is to completely ignore him. Cartman, however, discovering that nobody seems to see or hear him, believes that he has died and become a ghost. He believes this to be confirmed when he goes home and sees a casket-like box coming out of his house, which the men carrying it mentioning that it was filled with chicken skins, when in reality, it is the toilet that Cartman destroyed with his last use of it. He also hears his mother crying, he thinks because he is dead, though she is actually screaming and having rough sex with a plumber.

While most of the kids in South Park soon join in Stan, Kyle and Kenny's resolution to ignore Cartman, Butters is unaware of the movement, and so greets Cartman as he passes by. They then both believe that Butters is somehow psychically able to see him, and set off to try to allow Cartman to go to Heaven (Cartman claims he can't go to hell because he is not black). First, Cartman has Butters apologize to everyone on his behalf; when that fails to allow Cartman to pass over, Butters makes a list of all of Cartman's sins, and they try making amends to various people Cartman has wronged via gift baskets. When this too fails, Cartman goes berserk, destroys Butters' room with a baseball bat, and ends up getting Butters thrown in an insane asylum, where Butters is anally probed by a machine for over 14 hours.

After breaking Butters out, the two consult a psychic, who suggests that God has kept Cartman on Earth to help with some kind of crisis. When they hear of a hostage situation at a Red Cross center, the two set off and Cartman manages to stop the criminals by moving things around. The robbers are merely befuddled at the child's behavior, which provides enough of a distraction for the police to end the hostage situation. Cartman is credited with saving the day, "armed only with the weapon of confusion," as a news reporter put it. After this, Cartman's classmates arrive and tell him they're willing to be his friend again, thinking he has truly changed. When they leave, Cartman — mortified and furious that he had apologized to everybody and been fooled — again goes berserk and inexplicably blames Butters. After Cartman angrily vows revenge on Butters, he is caught by his parents and a doctor from the asylum (still carrying the anal device), who suggests Butters needs more therapy.

Trivia

• The idea of having Cartman eat the skin off of an entire tub of fried chicken came from a similar script meeting one evening when the writing staff were sitting around a table having a bucket of KFC for dinner while they discussed ideas and someone mentioned how terrible it would be if someone stole all the skins when everyone else was out of the room.
• On the graves of Mr. and Mrs. Tenorman it says that they died in 2003, however the Scott Tenorman Must Die episode aired in 2001. This could have been just a simple mistake, considering the amount of work they do in a week to get an episode out, or the fact people don't age.
• There's a gravestone that says 'A. Kutcher' on it, in the background behind Scott Tenorman when Cartman and Butters give Scott a fruit basket. This can be seen during the 'Make it Right' song.
• This episode contains cameos of Sally Struthers, Ms. Claridge and Scott Tenorman during Cartman's song 'Make it Right'.
• There is a grave near RIP that says "K.Bryant".
• Cartman gives a fruit basket to the abortion clinic, from when he convinced mothers to abort their babies so he could make a pizza place in Kenny Dies.
• The fruit basket idea further show's Cartman's inability to understand that most of his negative actions cannot be fixed by one half-assed approach. This was seen again in Casa Bonita, in which Cartman attempts to be nice to Kyle, but putting on a nice sweater. Upon seeing him in the sweater, Kyle informs him that a nice sweater is not being nice, to which Cartman responds "I don't see the difference."

"[[The Losing Edge]]"

"The Death of Eric Cartman"

"[[Erection Day]]"