5. ‘Oh, God, that was soo funny! Oh, man, somebody stop my guts from bursting out of my sides!’
Context: Cartman says this in ‘Quintuplets 2000’ after a clown fails to amuse him.
Why it’s my favorite: I love it. I love it when the writers make fun of other comedians, because the implication is that South Park is a viable alternative. It’s a subtle way for the showrunners to tell theirselves and their other hardcore fans that they’re so much smarter than they actually are.

4. ‘That made the most sense of any presentation I’ve heard in the last three years.’
Context: A governor says this in ‘Cartman’s Silly Hate Crime 2000’ after Kyle and Stan give a presentation explaining why hate crime legislation is unnecessary.
Why it’s my favourite: It is hard enough to believe that a couple of elementary schoolers could persuade a politician to adopt any of their viewpoints, but the argument against hate crime legislation is so ill conceived that it would never work in an actual conversation. Much like how the judges and other characters reacted to the boys’ arguments in ‘The F-Word’, all that this line does is demonstrate how out of touch the showrunners are with reality through their risible arrogance.

3. ‘Hanukkah is nice, but why is it…’
Context: Kyle sings this line in the season 1 holiday special. The next line is, ‘…that Santa passes over my house every year?’
Why it’s my favorite: This was the only time that season 1 made me laugh, and it was completely unintentional. Singingly asking why Chanukah is nice actually would have been a funny joke to include, because it questions a conclusion that most of us have but never really pause to understand either. My laughter ceased when Kyle sung the next line. This told me a couple of things: that the writers are incompetent lyricists, and that they spoil their own opportunities to tell a good joke.

2. ‘Yup, nice and boring. Just the way I like it.’
Context: In ‘Pandemic 2: The Startling’, after one of the main characters said, ‘Dude, this is boring. This is just a bunch of walking around,’ Craig replied with this line.
Why it’s my favourite: The showrunners almost never exhibit a capacity for autocriticism, so this line was intended for one particular scene rather than the show in general; they were blissfully unaware that that perfectly sums up the approach that they take to their own programme. South Park has long followed a painfully predictable formula of either saying something that is already facilely agreeable, saying something toxic, or simply saying nothing of importance either way. There is very little character development and it hardly ever takes long for the writers to hit the reset button, which is acceptable for a competent comedy like The Simpsons but less so for South Park: cracking umpteen lousy jokes is pardonable if you at least have an interesting setting or intriguing story, but if your comedy can’t offer either of those…

1. ‘[Y]ou’ve made a distinction what is okay to poke fun at, and what isn’t. Either it’s all okay, or none of it is.’
Context: Kyle says this in ‘Cartoon Wars Part II’ as he tries to persuade somebody to air an episode of Family Guy that depicts an Islamic prophet.
Why it’s my favorite: I remember seeing a paraphrased version of this quote several years ago from the South Park subreddit. It was the first time that—as a grown-up—the show made me laugh out loud, and it was one of the rare occasions when the show was being dead serious. The problem is that Kyle’s argument unravels with minimal scrutiny—just by thinking about it! The conclusion that you have to follow either one extreme or the other is baseless and absolutely illogical. What is to stop us from drawing the line at, say, offending innocent people? The answer is nothing. And yet not only did this line pass quality control, thousands of bipeds heard it and seriously believed that it was a good point! That is what makes this the funniest line from South Park.