Butters Stotch - Role in South Park

Role in South Park

Butters attends South Park Elementary as part of Mr. Garrison's 4th grade class. In "AWESOM-O", he says his birthday is on September 11. During the show's first 58 episodes (1997 through the season four episode "4th Grade" in 2000), Butters and the other main child characters were in the third grade. He lives in South Park as the only child of Stephen and Linda Stotch, from whom he perpetually faces the looming prospect of getting grounded. When the character of Kenny McCormick was temporarily written off the show near the end of the fifth season (2001), Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, and Cartman allow Butters into their group as the "fourth friend", a role he continued to fill until midway through season six. During this period, the boys would often take advantage of Butters' mild temperament by making him a stooge in their own personal schemes. The three eventually ousted him in favor of Tweek Tweak.

As a result, Butters vengefully adopted the alter ego of Professor Chaos, a character that references Captain Chaos, the alter "super" ego of Dom DeLuise's Victor Prinzim in Cannonball Run. Intending to be a supervillain, Professor Chaos wears a green cape, and a helmet and gauntlets constructed out of cardboard and aluminum foil (a parody of Marvel Comic's Dr. Doom). Butters as Professor Chaos received much focus during the back-to-back episodes "Professor Chaos" and "Simpsons Already Did It", where he took on his younger friend Dougie as his sidekick General Disarray and ultimately failed at their several ill-prepared attempts to create "worldwide chaos". Professor Chaos has occasionally made a few appearances since, appearing to be a known supervillain to South Park's police force. Despite being displaced from both his role as the "fourth friend" and from the eventual return of Kenny, Butters has continued to be a major character in recent seasons. Still the social outcast, he has nevertheless been seen spending considerable amount of time with the other children, and continues to be a frequent source of help to Cartman, while also being the main victim of Cartman's pranks and manipulation (for instance in the season 11 episode "Cartman Sucks" Cartman goes on numerous sleepovers with Butters so he can pull pranks on him while he sleeps). Though the act is customarily performed by Stan or Kyle, Butters will occasionally reflect on the lessons he has attained during the course of an episode with a brief speech, and will sometimes muster up enough courage to act as the voice of reason when his parents or other adults in town engage in irrational behavior.