Fall guys are old hat, macabre-wise. There was the terrible heat Piggy took in Lord of the Flies and the gruesome sacrifices of hot-headed teens every slasher flick, ever. But of all the unfortunate characters born to bear the brunt of bad situations, South Park masterminds Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s creation– and repeated destruction– of Kenny McCormick was a whole special brand of deadly awful.
It wasn’t enough that his trademark orange parka muffled his voice or that his alcoholic mother and trailer-trash father left his family life lacking. And it didn’t satisfy Parker and Stone just to shoot Kenny with a spaceship’s fireball, trample him with a herd of cows and run him over with a police car—all of which occurred in the show’s premiere episode. Instead, they continued to kill his tiny cut-out figure over and over again until season 5’s “Kenny Dies,” when his passing garnered some more serious attention and the murder rate eked to a near halt.
Classifying and categorizing Kenny’s deaths, which we undertook in honor of our first-ever violence issue, turned out to be a harrowing task that opened up question after question about death’s dour variables. Is getting cooked in fire different than being burned? How to factor in intent? Should we parse out vehicular accidents from cattle tramplings? Does the agent of death matter? Is sacrifice its own category or merely a subset? Do getting torn apart and cut up merit separate headings? We phoned polling experts, enrolled in data management courses, begged our business staff to help—and still the pressure of accuracy threatened to crush us like, well, any of the 17 different objects that crushed Kenny himself.
But like South Park, which is now in the middle of its twelfth season, we persevered. Amidst grotesque caveats, we now proudly present our cross-referenced, comprehensive catalog of Kenny McCormick’s South Park deaths. Moments when Kenny miraculously escapes the clutches of quietus (only to die later in an episode) are marked with a pound sign.
Kenny dies 84 unique times.
Grim Reaper: 2
1.06
Credits of seasons 2-4
Electrocuted: 1
3.01 – Struck by lightening, brought back to life when girlfriend performs CPR
Exploded: 8
2.08 – Firecracker explodes in hand
2.11 – Head explodes due to planetarium demonstration’s intensity
3.02 – Spontaneously combusts due to withheld flatulence
3.10 – Gets seizure from video game, explodes, spills over with rats
3.16 – Insides explode from pressure buildup due to an anally-inserted tampon
4.08 – Due to a gas buildup when antacid mixes with water
4.09 – Blown up while with Afghan counterpart
7.15 – Upon being zapped by Saddam Hussein
Shot: 9
1.01 – By spaceship #
1.02 – By Mr. Garrison, who was trying to shoot Kathie Lee Gifford
1.03 – By Ned after escaping volcano
1.10 – Turned into a duck-billed platypus by Damien, then shot by Jimbo
2.10 – By police while trying to surrender, in front of Marilyn Manson
4.03 – By police in Elian Gonzalez-style raid
5.11 – By airport security
9.03 – By Chinese mafia
11.14 – By Wendy Testaburger’s stray bullet
Attacked by Animal: 6
1.01 – Trampled by cattle #
1.08 – Swarmed by mutant turkeys
2.07 – Attacked by a huge, black, scary monster #
2.13 – Gored by bull’s horns
3.05 – Attacked by bear while impersonating a deer
3.13 – Beaten up by Cartman’s Phonics Monkey
Run Over: 10
1.01 – Police car
1.13 – Train
2.07 – The Fonz’s motorcycle
2.17 – Mining cart full of underpants
3.12 – Snowspeeder, while in ED-209 costume
4.06 – Ambulance
4.07 – While trying to fix Timmy’s wheelchair, a la Speed
4.17 – By car during filming of The Spirit of Chistmas
5.10 – Motorcycle
9.04 – Ice cream truck # (later died when taken off feeding tube at hospital)