Cartman Hates Redheads but Becomes One Himself and Tries to Kill the Other Kids in “Ginger Kids” South Park Episode 911

This wasn’t an episode that I saw when it initially came out. For some reason, I didn’t catch it or know that it existed until I got the 9th season of South Park on DVD and watched the last disk. Fortunately, it was a hilarious episode.

Cartman gives the class a racist presentation on the danger of Ginger Kids, including a mention about Daywalkers, like Kyle, who can stand the sun enough to be out during the daytime. Kyle is pissed at this hateful tirade and insists on trying to stop Cartman from making hateful speeches. Why? Because other kids, now scared of gingers, are kicking the redheaded kids out of the lunchroom.

In order to convince Cartman that what he’s doing is wrong, Kyle has Cartman’s hair dyed red and gives him freckles while he’s sleeping, making him believe, when he wakes up, that he’s a ginger kid.

Cartman refuses to see the irony behind the fact that he hates gingers and has become one himself, and instead of recognizing the difficulty of being a ginger and reforming his ways, Cartman begins a Ginger Pride club and gathers together all of the Ginger Kids to convince them that they can no longer accept being oppressed by society. “Red Power! Red Power!” they march and chant. Cartman then begins rounding up all of the non-ginger kids in town in order to kill them in a huge ceremony.

At the last minute, before Kyle is killed, Kyle whispers to Cartman what he’s done, and Cartman stops the insane ritual of non-ginger kid killing to tell everybody to wait – that hate and killing are wrong and that they should all love one another. He gets the rest of the Ginger Kids to disregard whatever Kyle whispered to him and then gets them singing a song about loving everybody.

“You’re such a manipulative asshole,” Kyle says.

Hilarious episode. I especially love the manager of the hotel who comes in the banquet room to make sure they have enough dip and lava and Cartman’s polite impatience. The song at the end is great as is the back and forth between Cartman and the gingers.

What did you think about this episode? What was your favorite part?

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