Butters Stotch

Template:South Park character Leopold "Butters" Stotch (voiced by Matt Stone) is a fictional character in the animated series South Park. His nickname is a play on the word butterscotch. Butters has a large tuft of blonde hair on top of his head, and wears a light blue jacket with green pants. His birthday is on September 11, and his character is loosely based on South Park director of animation Eric Stough.

Butters is the sweetest, most innocent, and most gullible character on the show. He is generally much nicer and more naïve than the four main characters; unlike nearly all South Park characters, he rarely curses (the few times he did were in the of the episode "Christian Rock Hard" and was meant to be very shocking, as well as mentioning he said “nutsack” in front of his grandmother), but instead uses euphemisms that sound like curse words ("Aw, hamburgers!" or "Son of a biscuit!", for example). He has a bit of a stutter and a slight Southern accent, although where this speech pattern came from is uncertain, seeing as neither of his parents appear to be Southern. He is an only child and his parents, Chris (or Stephen; various names are used) and Lynda Stotch, are very authoritarian and strict towards their son. This has evidently affected Butters as he often tells himself off when his parents are not around to do it ("Why, I oughta learn to control my behavior! I should be ashamed of myself.") He is scared of his father, whom he is obliged to respectfully refer to as "Sir", in contrast to the other unruly children, such as Cartman, who give their parents little or no respect.

Despite always being picked on by the other boys (mostly by Cartman) and abused by his parents, Butters keeps a generally optimistic attitude toward life. This may be because he often misinterprets events around him in a naive way, possibly as a result of denial. However, Butters does have his moments of insight towards life and human behavior, most notably in the seventh season episode "Raisins", in which he has his first crush on a girl, only to end up heartbroken when he realizes that she is just using him. Later, when he runs into Stan, who likewise has had his heart broken by his first love Wendy, Butters proclaims to Stan (who has joined a local Goth clique and spends his days whining about his former love) that he "love[s] life" and would "rather be a cryin' little pussy than a faggy Goth kid."

Background

Butters has been in the show since the beginning, though initially only as a background character who never spoke (except for in the episode "Clubhouses" where he says "Pass this up") and was referred to in scripts as "Swanson." Stan refers to him by this name in the opening scene of the Season 2 episode "Conjoined Fetus Lady." He also is noted for fighting Pip in the early episode, Weight Gain 4000. Butters was renamed and properly introduced in the Season 3 episode "Two Guys Naked in a Hot Tub." He was seen sporadically from Season 3 through 5, going from social pariah ("Two Guys Naked in a Hot Tub") to mean-spirited bully in "Hooked on Monkey Phonics" (episode 313) to abused kid who was constantly being punished and emotionally abused by adults for imaginary insults they believed Butters was engaging in with "How to Eat With Your Butt" (episode 510).

In the episode "Jared Has Aides" Butters was adopted by Stan, Kyle and Cartman as their fourth friend when Kenny died permanently at the end of the fifth season. The writer 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 backstory where his father was outed as being a closet homosexual and his mother, in an act similar to murderer Susan Smith, attempting 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. Since then, none of them have mentioned it ever again, most likely choosing to pretend it never happened through denial, with Chris/Stephen repressing his homosexual tendencies, which would fit the prior psychotic behavior exhibited by the family.

Butters soon found himself, as the new fourth friend, being humiliated and tortured non-stop by his new "friends." Kyle, Stan, and Cartman all openly bullied Butters, telling him how he was good for nothing and not as good as Kenny was. Cartman in particular took perverse pleasure in making Butters suffer, to the extent that he purposely arranged for Butters's parents to physically abuse their son just so Cartman could watch, with Cartman commenting out loud that "If I was a little bit older, I would totally jack off" in celebration of Butters being physically assaulted by his parents. Butters did eventually get his revenge on Cartman in the episode AWESOM-O in which Cartman is starved, electrocuted, exploited for money, and humiliated in front of the entire town with humiliating footage of him dressed as Britney Spears.

The episodes with Butters as a main character were controversial to say the least; fans who wanted Kenny back hated them while many fans felt a great deal of sympathy towards Butters and his plight. Comedy Central even felt that Parker and Stone had gone too far with their treatment of Butters. In a rare bit of creative interference, the network told Parker and Stone that they were not allowed to do any episodes where Butters was physically abused by his parents and banned "Jared Has Aides" from being shown on the network ever again, though since being syndicated, the episode has shown on The WB.

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. Ultimately, in the sixth episode of season six, "Professor Chaos", Butters is expelled from the group 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 were inspired by episodes of the animated series The Simpsons. This caused Butters to have a mental breakdown, before Chef was able to bring him back from the brink. 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's future self so as to scare him from doing drugs) by paying Cartman to smear feces all over his house. The act ironically leads to 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 actually injuring their son, but do nevertheless seem to be somewhat terrifying figures towards him. Nevertheless they do seem to love him as well, albeit in an irresponsible and borderline-negligent way.

In the episode "Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset", Paris Hilton offers Butters's parents $200 million for him, because all of her pets have committed suicide. She passes out on Butter's bed while the two of them wait for Butters' parents' decision and Butters again shows his naïveté by touching Hilton's vulva, believing it to be an animal that lives down her pants.

In "The Return of Chef", Butters reveals that he was once sexually molested by his uncle.

Butters and Cartman

The South Park creators have been quoted as enjoying the subtle interactions between Butters and Cartman as their favorite part of the show in recent seasons and some of the best and most controversial episodes are indeed built on the dynamics between these two characters. Some fans believe this comes from the fact that the two are almost mirror opposites of one another, as Cartman is manipulative and mean-spirited and Butters is gullible and kind-hearted. For example, in the "Casa Bonita" episode Cartman convinces Butters that a meteor is about to hit the Earth just so he can replace Butters among the group of friends Kyle is taking out to dinner on his birthday; in "AWESOM-O" Cartman pretends to be a robot sent to Butters from Japan in order to scam Butters and have him open up on his most embarrassing secrets, until the tables are turned on Cartman who's got a few secrets of his own; in "The Death of Eric Cartman", Cartman is tricked into believing he's dead, and that Butters is the only one who can see or hear him. The two bond while working to undo all of the damage Cartman has done to the people in town, thinking that's the reason why Cartman's spirit is still Earth-bound - until they both find out that he isn't really dead, but the other kids had just decided to ignore him. Butters' parents, oblivious to Butters' confusion during Cartman's "death", decide that he needs psychiatric treatment. Butters is subjected to tests in which robot arms hold him steady while he is anally penetrated by a vibrating instrument; the doctor assures the Stotches that the invasive, humiliating and painful testing may give them some clue as to the source of Butters' repressed trauma.

In "Marjorine," Butters is sent undercover to a girls' slumber party after faking his own death. His parents are visited by a farmer, who also appeared in "Butters' Very Own Episode," who gives them explicit instructions about NOT moving Butters' remains to the Indian burial ground. The body in the ground is that of a dead pig, and there is no indication that prior to the farmer's visit, Butters' parents were thinking of doing this. After his dad moves his "body," Butters returns upon completing his mission of obtaining a "future telling device" from the girls. Believing him to be a "walking abomination," Butters' parents chain him up, in just his underwear, in the basement with what appears to be S&M paraphernalia chaining his arms, waist, and neck to the wall. A saleswoman is lured to the basement, and Butters greets her very warmly. His dad then kills the woman and offers her to Butters so "it" can "feed." Butters asks to have SpaghettiO's instead. After a brief one episode absence, Butters was shown to be freed from his basement and back at school with no mention made of his faked death and his parents thinking he was a zombie. In the episode "Ginger Kids", Butters was reduced to hysterical laughter and tears upon seeing Cartman, who had his hair dyed red and freckles painted onto his face by Kyle while he was asleep the previous night.

Talents

Tap dancing

As revealed in the episode "You Got Fucked in the Ass", Butters is, or at least was, quite a talented tap dancer, but his fondness for dancing was cut short at the State Tap Dancing Championship when Butters' tap dancing set off a chain reaction leading to the death of eight people (nine, if you included the unborn child within a pregnant victim, and eleven if you include the suicides that resulted). This freak accident has left Butters quite scarred, although this isn't immediately apparent. In the same episode he was further terrified as his tap shoe was once again shot, 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 breakdancing ability, as seen in the episode "Asspen".

Drummer

Apparently, Butters also is a proficient drummer, providing the drumming section on the album "Faith+1" of the Cartman-initiated "Christian Rock Band".

Mathematical genius

In the same episode, Butters is shown to be highly talented in mental calculation, instantly supplying the correct answer to an 11-digit multiplication question that Cartman asks him. 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.)

Artist

In the episode where the guys wanted to make a new "original Christmas cartoon", Butters was the one who drew the characters. This is perhaps a reference to Eric Stough, Butters' real-life counterpart (though Stough wasn't involved in the making of The Spirit of Christmas). Butters also shows his artistic talents in AWESOM-O drawing a picture of himself and his robot friend. In Kenny Dies he sends a letter to Kenny in the hospital and it contains a drawing of them both in an aeroplane with the words "ME AND MY FRIEND KENNY" written above.

Sewing

Butters can be seen running an item from his closet through a sewing machine, turning it into his Professor Chaos cape, in that episode.

Professor Chaos

File:ProfessorChaos.jpg

Professor Chaos and General Disarray.

Butters' alter ego is Professor Chaos, a Doctor Doom style supervillain/mad scientist he became when the boys dumped him. He spreads chaos with his sidekick General Disarray (a younger, perhaps even geekier character named Dougie) and his minions (his pet hamsters). Butters' Professor Chaos costume consists of a dark green cape, bracers and a helmet. His bracers and helmet are constructed of lightly crumpled aluminum foil. In "Good Times with Weapons", we can see that he visualizes the costume as being much more impressive and more like the Street Fighter character M. Bison. His supposed super powers include levitation, immunity to fire, super strength, and more.

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. Dougie chose to join Butters 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 evil plots that included trying to flood the world with a garden hose and destroying the ozone layer with aerosol spray. However, soon Butters began coming up with schemes similar to plots from episodes of The Simpsons, which led to Butters having a complete mental breakdown, seeing the characters of the show as if they were on The Simpsons. In an episode of the sixth season Butters reveals his alter-ego to Stan who, seeing Butters dressed in a silver costume, assumes Butters' big revelation is that he is gay.

In Krazy Kripples, Professor Chaos and General Disarray join the Legion of Doom.

The Apple song and Chicago

A common running joke is the song Butters sings, "Loo loo loo, I've got some apples, loo loo loo, You've got some too." Butters is usually interrupted before he can continue the song, but when he does get the opportunity to finish the song, he continues with either, "Loo loo loo, Let's make some applesauce, Take off our clothes and loo loo loo," or alternatively, "Loo loo loo, Let's get together, I know what we can do, loo loo." He also seems inordinately fond of the Chicago ballad "If You Leave Me Now."

Trivia

Butters' theme song, "Everyone Knows It's Butters" (as featured in Butters' Very Own Episode), is loosely based on The Association's 1967 song "Windy," which ends each stanza (except for the chorus) with "Everyone knows it's Windy."

In the same episode, Butters pops through a hole under the title in a way very reminiscent of Porky Pig, an awkwardly comical character who comes from the same tradition as Butters and who originally started out as a school-aged child.

In the second season premiere episode of Veronica Mars, the show introduced a new character named Vincent "Butters" Clemmons, as an homage to the South Park character.

Butters also sang a song about his robot best friend "AWESOM-O" (who is really Cartman in disguise) that goes "Let me tell you about my robot friend, he's metal and small and doesn't judge me at all".