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- Professor Chaos redirects here. For the episode, see Professor Chaos (South Park episode).
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, and it may derive from his hair color, or because he is sometimes clumsy. Butters has a large tuft of blonde hair on top of his head, and wears an aquamarine jacket with green pants. In a VH1 special about the show it was revealed that the character is loosely based on South Park director of animation Eric Stough, whom Parker and Stone regarded as a "goody-goody" because he always worried about causing offense.
Character history
Butters (as everyone, including his parents, call him) is the sweetest, most innocent, and most gullible character on the show. He is generally much nicer and much more naïve than the four main characters; unlike nearly all South Park characters, he rarely curses and instead uses euphemisms that sound like curse words ("aw, hamburgers" or "son of a biscuit" for example). A few of the times he did use curse words were in the episodes "Christian Rock Hard", "Hooked on Monkey Phonics", "Butters' Very Own Episode", "Simpsons Already Did It" and each instance was meant to be very shocking. He is an only child and his parents, Stephen (occasionally Chris) and Lynda Stotch, are very authoritarian, strict and, at some points, abusive towards their son, though it is obvious that they do love him. This has evidently affected Butters psychologically, as he often tells himself off when his parents are not around to do it ("Why, I oughta learn ta control my behavior! I should be ashamed of myself".) He is scared of his dominating and threatening father, whom he is obliged to respectfully refer to as "Sir", in contrast to the unruly Cartman, who gives his elders little or no respect. Even more obscene, Butters parents realize they've forgotten him in Cartoon Wars Part 1 when everyone hides for "safety" in the community center, yet don't want to go back for him saying it's "too late".
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. 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 "loves life" and would "rather be a cryin' little pussy than some faggot 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 "Puff Puff" and "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 had a very small role in Bigger, Longer and Uncut, being the only one to touch Cartman after he saw Asses of Fire, and being the flag bearer for La Resistance. 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) (which seems out of character for Butters, but isn't entirely unlikely for an emotionally abused child), 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). This lead him to reclusion and self-loathing.
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 Stephen repressing his homosexual tendencies, which would fit the prior psychotic behavior exhibited by the family. Perhaps this explains why Butters is mentally tormented, due to his discovery of his parents' secrets and their continuous abuse.
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, in "Jared Has Aides", he purposely arranged for Butters's parents to physically punish their son by pretending to be Butters on the phone bad-mouthing them, just so he could watch, and commented out loud that, "If I was a little bit older, I would totally start jacking off right now" in celebration. Butters did eventually get his revenge on Cartman in the episode "AWESOM-O" in which Cartman, disguised as a robot, is starved, shocked, forced to administer a suppository and exploited for money, only to end up humiliated in front of the entire town with footage of him cross-dressing as Britney Spears and dancing with a cardboard cut-out of Justin Timberlake.
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 the episode has since been shown in syndication. Additionally, it has been revealed that Butters was sexually molested by his Uncle Bud in "The Return of Chef" (It has also been implied in other episodes).
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 (with Cartman being beaten up instead). 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. Butters would eventually reveal his secret identity of Professor Chaos to Stan but the reaction he received was much less than he had anticipated as, much like when he committed his acts of chaos, Stan didn't care in the least. 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 and verbally abusive figures towards him, one time intentionally frightening him with threats of super-AIDS, which Butters becomes terrified of. Nevertheless they do seem to love him as well, albeit in an irresponsible and negligent way.
Though not anymore a member of the main four's group, Butters was nevertheless kept as a prominent member of the boys' extended circle, and his background and relationship with the boys was explored further. In "Pre-School" their acquaintance is shown to date back to pre-school. In more recent episodes, Kenny's role has declined to an extent due to lack of ideas for the character and Butters has taken on a more prominent role again. Despite they're ill-treatment toward him, Butters stays loyal to his friends, perhaps in hopes that they'll accept him. In a way, this has worked as recently there seems to have been some shift in the balance of friendship. The most obvious case of this being in the latest episode "Tsst", where Butters is calmly playing along with Stan, Kyle and Kenny, with Cartman being much more alienated than usual.
In the episode "Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset", Paris Hilton offers Butters's parents US$200 million for him, because all of her pets have committed suicide. She passes out on Butters' bed while the two of them wait for his parents' decision, and Butters again shows his naïveté by touching Hilton's vulva, believing it to be an animal that lives down her pants. Eventually, His parents tell Paris that they'll sell him only for 250 million. Butters tells them that he doesn't want to go, and is eventually allowed to stay, where he is grounded by his parents for losing the money.
Fans have been waiting for the time that Butters can finally stop being a coward and defend himself once and for all. Matt Stone and Trey Parker have stated that by the time the show's run is over, Butters will finally stand up for himself and put his parents in their place.
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, selfish, and mean-spirited and Butters is gullible, innocent, 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 (failing to let Butters in on the plan, which is why he is the only kid to acknowledge Cartman). 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 the end of the episode, after Butters and Cartman stop a hostage situation, they show up furious that he broke out of the mental hospital, and it implies that he is to be going back there. They save the hostages and Cartman notes that they've become best friends, but when the boys tell Cartman that he's not dead, Cartman vows revenge.
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" and "Asspen", who gives them explicit instructions about NOT moving Butters' remains to the Indian burial ground (a reference to Pet Sematary). 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. As a girl, Butters enters the party but naturally doesn't do a good job and the girls tell him off. He runs into the bathroom and finally breaks down, sobbing "You don't know how hard it is too be me". The girls apologize and Butters, rather astounded, speculates on extending his time as a "girl" so he wouldn't have to deal with his abusive friends or parents. Nonetheless, 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", even though all Butters wants is some SpaghettiOs. 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. In "Smug Alert!" Butters briefly replaces Kyle as being the person who Cartman makes all of his anti-Semitic remarks to, however, since Butters is not Jewish, he does not take offense, even replying to Cartman's insults with a jovial, "Yeah, I'm a dumb Jew". Later in the episode, Butters helps Cartman go into San Francisco in order bring Kyle and his family back to South Park.
Talents and Interests
Dance
As revealed in the episode "You Got F'd in the A", 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 again started another fatal chain of events, 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 break-dancing ability, as seen in the episode "Asspen". Additionally, Butters exhibits some impressive free-style dancing ability, dancing to Justin Timberlake's "Rock Your Body" on a table in the episode "Marjorine".In the episode "Asspen", Butters is seen dancing in a fashion identical to that of several Peanuts characters.
Music
Apparently, Butters can play the drums quite proficiently, as he is seen doing so for Cartman's Christian rock group "Faith+1", featured in the episode "Christian Rock Hard".Mathematics
Butters is also shown in "Christian Rock Hard" to be highly talented in mental calculation, instantly supplying the correct answer to 180,000,000 X 12.95, "2,331,000,000". 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.)General intelligence and memory
Butters is often roped into Cartman's schemes, and is usually shown doing well at it.Art
In episode 417 "A Very Crappy Christmas" where the boys 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 airplane with the words "ME AND MY FRIEND KENNY" written above. As well, in the episode "Toilet Paper" where the four boys get into trouble by their teacher, Stan claims that "art is for gaywads" when Butters is seen in the background stating that he loves art class.Professor Chaos
Butters' alter ego is Professor Chaos, a Doctor Doom style supervillain/mad scientist he became when the boys dumped him. Butters seems to use Professor Chaos to express his repressed bitterness in much the same way as Mr. Garrisson used Mr. Hat to express his homosexuality. He spreads chaos with his sidekick General Disarray (a younger, perhaps even geekier character named Dougie) and his minions (his pet hamsters). However, at first, his so-called "mayhem" is very minor: switching soups at a restaurant, and hiding erasers from a classroom. 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 making him resemble a cross between Doctor Doom & the Street Fighter character Sagat. His supposed super powers include levitation, immunity to fire, super strength, and more. Although Professor Chaos is supposed to be a secret identity, his cover is somewhat rumbled after Kenny throws a shuriken into his left eye, knocking his mask off. At this point, Butters breaks down crying and screaming in agony.
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 "My Future Self n' Me", 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, but decide not to get too deeply involved. Professor Chaos has not appeared in more than two seasons (though normal-Butters has), and General Disarray (in evil or Dougie form) for even longer.
Trivia
- Butters sometimes remarks on the consistency of objects that he comes into contact with, usually with dismay. Some examples are as follows:
- "Oh, it's all gooey" - after taking a condom out of the wrapper, episode 507, "Proper Condom Use".
- "Ah, it's all g-gooey" - after touching the 'lava' from his class volcano project, episode 512, "Here Comes the Neighborhood".
- "Oh, it's all sticky" - after sticking his finger into a cow patty, episode 513, "Kenny Dies".
- "Ew...they're all hard and oogy" - while poking Wendy's breast after she gets silicone implants, episode 610, "Bebe's Boobs Destroy Society".
- "Oh, it's all thick and gooey" - after drinking too much cough medicine, episode 811, "Quest for Ratings".
- 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".
- 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 ya about my robot friend, he's metal and small and doesn't judge me at all".
- Butters' birthday is September 11.
- Butters and Professor Chaos are also referenced in the song "Peeranoia" by rapper Cage, on his album Hell's Winter.
- Butters was molested by his uncle, having received annilingus from him.
- In "Erection Day" it is revealed that Butters goes to the toilet by pulling his pants down to his knees and lifting his shirt by his chest which we can guess is a childhood habit that he is still to grow out of.
- Butters has also made several appearances in Bigger, Longer, and Uncut, but he does not play any kind of significant role. He is simply an extra.
- In the episode Casa Bonita, director of animation Eric Stough's name is credited as Eric Leopold Stotch.
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