Kenneth McCormickCalled Kenneth in "The Poor Kid" and signed his name as Kenneth in "Going Native" while being called Dr. Kenneth McCormick in the post-COVID pandemic TV special. is a fictional character and one of the four main protagonists in the adult animated sitcom South Park, alongside Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, and Eric Cartman. His often muffled and incomprehensible speech—the result of his parka hood covering his mouth—is provided by co-creator Matt Stone. After early appearances in The Spirit of Christmas shorts in 1992 and 1995, Kenny appeared in South Park television episodes beginning August 13, 1997, as well as the 1999 feature film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, where his uncovered face and voice were first revealed.
Kenny is a third- and later fourth-grade student who commonly has extraordinary experiences atypical of conventional small-town life in his hometown of South Park, Colorado, where he lives with his poverty-stricken family. Kenny is animated by computer to look as he did in the show's original method of cutout animation.
The character gained popularity from a running gag during the first five seasons of the series, whereby Kenny would suffer an excruciating death before returning alive and well in the next episode with little or no explanation. Stan would frequently use the catchphrase "Oh, my god! They killed Kenny!", followed by Kyle exclaiming, "You bastard(s)!". Since the sixth season in 2002, the practice of killing Kenny has been seldom used by the show's creators. Various episodes have set up the gag, sometimes presenting alternate explanations for Kenny's unacknowledged reappearances.
Role in South Park Kenny attends South Park Elementary as part of Mr. Garrison's fourth-grade class. During the first 58 episodes, Kenny and the other main child characters were in the third grade. Kenny comes from a poor, dysfunctional household, presided over by his alcoholic, unemployed father, Stuart McCormick. His mother Carol McCormick has a job washing dishes at Olive Garden. Kenny has an older brother named Kevin. He also has a younger sister who is shown with his family in the season nine episode "Best Friends Forever", but does not reappear until the 15th season episode "The Poor Kid", where her name is revealed to be Karen, whom he loves unconditionally. Kenny is friends with Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman, and Leopold "Butters" Stotch. Kenny is regularly teased for living in poverty, particularly by Cartman.
The character gained popularity from a running gag during the first five seasons of the series, whereby Kenny would suffer an excruciating and gruesome yet comical death before returning alive and well in the next with little or no explanation. Stan would frequently use the catchphrase "Oh my god! They killed Kenny!", followed by Kyle exclaiming "You bastard(s)!". Since the sixth season in 2002, the practice of killing Kenny has been seldom used by the show's creators. Various episodes have set up the gag, sometimes presenting alternate explanations for Kenny's unacknowledged reappearances.
Kenny's superhero alter ego, Mysterion, first appeared in the season 13 episode "The Coon", as a rival to Eric Cartman's eponymous supervillain alter ego. He unmasks himself at the end of the episode, but his identity is left intentionally ambiguous to the viewer. He is not revealed to be Kenny until his third appearance, in the season 14 episode "Mysterion Rises".
Deaths Prior to season six, Kenny died in almost every episode.The American Retiree, December 17, 2024 The nature of the deaths were often gruesome and portrayed in a comically absurd fashion, and usually followed by Stan Marsh or Kyle Broflovski yelling "Oh, my God! They killed Kenny!" with the other yelling "You bastard(s)!" Shortly afterward, rats would commonly appear and pick at his corpse. In a following episode, Kenny would reappear alive and well, usually without any explanation. Most characters appear oblivious or indifferent to the phenomenon, although occasionally one will acknowledge awareness of it. In "Cherokee Hair Tampons", Kenny gets irritated and offended when Stan laments Kyle's critical condition while utterly ignoring Kenny's past demises. Eric Cartman commented on Kenny's deaths in the episode "Cartmanland" when he is being sued for unsafe rides insisting to attorneys representing his family that "Kenny? He dies all the time!" In "Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo", as the episode is about to end, the kids point out that "something feels unfinished", Kenny frets that he will die again, but the text "The End" appears upon the screen and Kenny celebrates, relieved; it is the first episode in the series he survives, as well as the first episode to imply that the characters are aware of his frequent deaths.
Near the end of the production run of the show's fifth season, creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone contemplated having an episode in which Kenny was killed off permanently. The reasoning behind the idea was to genuinely surprise fans, and to allow an opportunity to provide a major role for Butters Stotch, a breakout character whose popularity was growing with the viewers and creators of the show. Mini-commentary for episode "Kenny Dies" In the episode "Kenny Dies", Kenny dies after developing terminal muscular dystrophy, while Parker and Stone claimed that Kenny would not be returning in subsequent episodes. The duo insisted they grew tired of upholding the tradition of having Kenny die in each episode. Stone stated that thinking of humorous ways to kill the character was initially fun, but became more mundane as the series progressed. When they determined that it would be too difficult to develop the character because he was too much of a "prop", Parker and Stone finally decided to kill off Kenny permanently.
For much of season six, Kenny remained dead, though he still appears to possess Cartman's body, and both Stone and Parker entertained the idea of eventually bringing the character back. According to Stone, only a small minority of fans were significantly angered by Kenny's absence to threaten a boycott of the cable channel Comedy Central, on which South Park is aired. For most of the season, Stan, Kyle, and Cartman fill the void left by Kenny by allowing Butters and Tweek Tweak into their group, leading to these characters receiving more focus on the show; nevertheless, Kenny returned from the year-long absence in the season six finale "Red Sleigh Down", has remained a main character since, and has been given larger roles in episodes.Semigram, Aly. "'South Park' tries to go for laughs with the Penn State scandal" . Entertainment Weekly. November 17, 2011
The first explanation given for Kenny's deaths and reappearances was given in the 53rd episode "Cartman Joins NAMBLA", wherein the McCormicks have a baby exactly like Kenny, including the characteristic orange parka, shortly after the former Kenny dies. Mr. McCormick exclaims, "God, this must be the fiftieth time this has happened", to which Mrs. McCormick quickly replies, "Fifty-second". This explanation is expanded upon in the season 14 episodes "Coon 2: Hindsight", "Mysterion Rises" and "Coon vs. Coon and Friends", in which Kenny, while playing superheroes with his friends, claims his "superpower" is immortality. He actually dies several times during these episodes—even committing suicide more than once—reawakening alive and unharmed in his bed each time. He is frustrated and angry that no one can remember him dying every time he regenerates and longs to know the source of his power, which he views as a curse. Unbeknownst to him, his parents were previously connected to a Cthulhu-worshipping death cult. After Kenny shoots himself the second time, Mrs. McCormick awakes with a scream, shrieks "It's happening again!", and minutes later, is shown gently placing a newborn Kenny in his bed. "We should never have gone to that stupid cult meeting," she grouses as she and her husband return to bed.
In "Put It Down", he is killed off-screen by a driver on his phone, as his picture is shown among those of kids killed by a driver on phone texting tribute. In "Bike Parade", Jeff Bezos tells Alexa to kill Kenny, and Cartman hauls his coffin while riding his bike in the parade. "The Pandemic Special" sees Kenny being gunned down by the police when they are equipped with military weaponry to deal with the children breaking free from COVID-19 quarantine.
In South Park: Post Covid, as a millionaire scientist in the future finding the cause of COVID-19, Kenny dies due to a time travel experiment that got him a variant named COVID Delta+ Rewards. This death is undone in South Park: Post Covid: The Return of Covid after Stan, Kyle, and Cartman time travel to the past. In the Season 29 episode titled "South American Biker Gangs", Kenny was killed by an exploding bomb strapped onto his electric bicycle.
Season 1 Episode How?101 - Cartman Gets an Anal ProbeKenny survives a UFO gunshot and a panicked herd of cows, only to be run over by Officer Barbrady's police car as it chases the cows.102 - Weight Gain 4000Mr. Garrison attempts to kill Kathie Lee Gifford with a sniper rifle, but Cartman's weight collapses the stage that he, Kenny, and Kathie Lee are standing on, launching Kathie Lee out of the bullet’s path; the bullet hits Kenny, who goes flying and gets impaled through the head on a flagpole.103 - VolcanoAlmost crushed by a volcanic rock launched from the erupting volcano. Later, Ned drops his rifle, which accidentally fires and kills Kenny.104 - Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat RideDuring the elementary school football match between South Park and Middle Park, players on the Middle Park team rip Kenny’s arms off and subsequently decapitate him.105 - An Elephant Makes Love to a PigThrown into the microwave by a botched clone of Stan. Somehow, the microwave turns on by itself, cooking Kenny to death.106 - DeathTouched by Death.107 - PinkeyeCrushed by Mir in the beginning. He later comes back as a zombie and is sawed in half by Kyle. At the end he comes out of his grave, but is immediately crushed by a statue and a crashing plane. 108 - DamienDamien turns Kenny into a platypus, who is later shot dead by Jimbo after the fight between Jesus and Satan.109 - Starvin' MarvinMutant turkeys maul Kenny and pull out his eye.111 - Tom's RhinoplastyImpaled through the face and pinned to the classroom wall by a sword that slipped out of substitute teacher Miss Ellen's hand.112 - Mecha-StreisandKenny starts playing tetherball, but the rope scoops him up, ties him to the pole, and asphyxiates him. 113 - Cartman's Mom is a Dirty SlutThrown onto railroad tracks by a go-kart, where a train runs him over.
Season 2