Butters Stotch

Template:South Park character Leopold "Butters" Stotch (voiced by Matt Stone) is a fictional character in the animated television series South Park; his nickname is a play on the word butterscotch. Butters has a large tuft of blond hair on top of his head, and wears an aquamarine jacket with green pants. His birthday is on September 11. Butters speaks with a distinctive Southern accent with a wholesome manner. The character is loosely based on South Park director of animation Eric Stough, who Parker and Stone regarded as a "goody-goody" because of his reluctance to offend.

The creators have said in multiple DVD commentaries that Butters is one of their "top 3 favorite characters".

Personality

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Butters having his picture taken in How to Eat with Your Butt.

Butters is described by fans as having a warm and friendly personality. Butters is rather naïve for his age, believing whatever is told to him, because of this he is often a target for abuse. Butters is very submissive and gives into peer pressure very easily. He is somewhat eccentric, and so many of his peers call him a "dweeb" or "gaywad". He is not known to swear often (the only times he has sworn are AWESOM-O, Christian Rock Hard, Hooked on Monkey Phonics, Raisins, Butters' Very Own Episode, Cartman's Silly Hate Crime 2000, Hell on Earth 2006 and Imaginationland Episode III).

In the episode "Raisins", Butters first falls in love with a girl, only to end up heartbroken when he realizes that she is just using him for money. Though Butters is terribly sad, his reaction displays maturity and he tells Stan that such immense sadness only comes after losing immense happiness, and it makes him feel alive to know he loved someone that much.

Relationship with Family and Friends

Stephen (referred to as 'Chris' in the episode "Butters' Very Own Episode") and Linda Stotch, are very authoritarian and strict Catholics. They are often psychologically abusive to Butters, constantly berating and grounding him for things that are entirely beyond his control (e.g., in "How to Eat with Your Butt" for having an "unappealing" face and for the events of the Imaginationland Trilogy), but they have also physically beaten him up in "Jared Has Aides". This has evidently affected Butters psychologically, as he often tells himself off when his parents are not around to do it. Other examples of the abuse Butters has received from his parents include his mother trying to drown him in a car when she wants to commit suicide , being physically beaten after Eric Cartman prank calls his parents , and being sold to Paris Hilton for $250 million.

Butters is scared of his dominating and threatening father, whom he refers to as "Sir". His father uses fear as his primary parenting tactic with Butters, once intentionally frightening him with threats of super-AIDS. Linda, however, has been shown to be much more tender to her son, hugging and kissing him often. She seems to go along with Stephen's harshness believing that it is for the best of her son.

Stan and Kenny are fairly apathetic in their treatment of Butters. They are usually open to letting Butters hangout with them. Kyle is usually much friendlier to Butters. In Casa Bonita, he invited him to celebrate his birthday at Casa Bonita, implying that he feels Butters is a closer friend to him than Cartman. Kyle has recently been opposed to Cartman’s abuse towards Butters, such as in “Cartman Sucks”.

The relationship in the show that has received a lot of airtime is the one between Butters and Cartman. Butters sees Cartman as a close friend whom he can play with and have sleepovers. Cartman, however, sees Butters as a loyal and competent boy who will go along with anything he says, which often leads to Butters being abused. Cartman often presents himself as a father figure to Butters, teaching him the finer points of negotiating in business , the 9/11 conspiracy and the danger of “ginger kids”. Matt and Trey have both said in their DVD commentaries that they enjoy the antics between the two characters because they “are such opposite of each other”.

Character history and Role in the Show

Butters has evolved as a character since the beginning of the show. He was initially a background character who almost never spoke or was referred to by name. Butters was properly introduced in the episode "Two Guys Naked in a Hot Tub". Since then, he played minor roles in episodes leading up to season six. He was mainly portrayed as the social outcast of his class, chosen often for tasks that his friends did not want to do themselves.

At the end of Season Five, Butters made his debut as a main character when he was given his own episode, "Butters' Very Own Episode". This was done to prepare the audience for Butters to take Kenny’s spot amongst the main four. Butters went on to be in the main group for the first half of the Season Six. During this time, he continued to be treated like an outcast by his new friends. Kyle, Stan, and Cartman all openly bullied Butters, telling him how he's not cool like Kenny. Several episodes focused on the boys exploiting Butters’ kindness for money or fame. Ultimately, in the sixth episode of season six, "Professor Chaos", Butters is expelled from the group for being "too lame" and adopts his super-villain alter ego "Professor Chaos" as a means to get revenge against the group and society for rejecting him.

Since then, Butters has continued to be a major character in the series. He has returned to his role of being the social outcast of the show, always being chosen to be the guinea pig and scapegoat for his friends. His relationship with the main four has improved considerably, as he often seen playing with them, perhaps indicating that the other boys have finally accepted Butters. Butters also continues to be Cartman’s target for both help and abuse and could be considered to be Cartman’s sidekick.

For the first time in the entire South Park series, Butters is heard using an unedited "curse" word (previously he had almost uniformly opted to vent frustration by using benevolent terms such as "oh hamburgers") when at the end of the "Imagination Land" trilogy he says "Shit" in response to being grounded. (Note, however, that at the end of the episode Christian Rock Hard, Butters says to Cartman "F**k you, Eric.")

Talents and interests

Dance

As revealed in the episode "You Got F'd in the A", Butters is a very talented tap dancer, but his fondness for dancing was cut short at the National Tap Dancing Championship when a freak accident caused by Butters' tap dancing set off a chain reaction leading to the death of eight people (nine including the unborn child within a pregnant victim, and eleven including the two relations of the deceased who committed suicide after the incident). Despite this, he has been seen to dance in the episodes "Asspen", "Marjorine" and "Hell on Earth 2006".

Television

It is implied in the episode "4th Grade" that Butters knows a surprising amount of Star Trek information, and he may be a "Trekkie". He also watches BET, according to the episode "Hell on Earth 2006". As stated in "My Future Self n' Me", Butters is not a fan of Becker. "Butters' future self" is constantly watching the show, which "present" Butters calls "stupid."

Music

Butters is often seen singing, usually a song: "Loo loo loo, I've got some apples, loo loo loo, you've got some too," before he is cut off. When he does finish, the ending is "Loo loo loo, let's make some apple sauce, take off our clothes and loo loo loo" (as heard on "Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset"), or "Loo loo loo, let's get together, I know what we can do loo loo", which, either way, could be a strange euphemism for sexual intercourse. He also sings to himself when brushing his teeth or using the toilet: "Hey there Mr. Weiner, whaddaya know? Do you need to tinkle tinkle? Yes, I do think so".

In "Something You Can Do with Your Finger", Butters auditions for Fingerbang by singing "Little Bunny Foo-Foo". In "AWESOM-O" he sings about his robot friend in a song that resembles the theme song of "The Courtship of Eddie's Father", and he seems fond of the Chicago ballad "If You Leave Me Now". Apparently, Butters can also 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". And more recently, in the episode "Cartman Sucks," Butters sings Joni Mitchell's song "Help Me" while playing with his army figurines.

General intelligence and memory

Butters is shown in "Christian Rock Hard" to be highly talented in mental calculation, instantly supplying the correct answer to 180,000,000 × 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.) In the episode "Proper Condom Use" he is quite a good negotiator and is surprisingly skilled at psychological warfare (while wearing a voice-changer hockey mask).

In "Cartman's Incredible Gift," he reveals that he knows the Icarus myth.

In "Professor Chaos," Butters manages to override the imaging at a baseball stadium and broadcast a doomsday threat to the audience, reflecting a high degree of intelligence, or at least developed hacking abilities.

Sexual knowledge and sexual interests

Butters, due to his perceived innocence, is a target for sexual related jokes in the show. He has some knowledge of sex, as seen in "Erection Day", where he explains to Jimmy about the concept of putting his penis in a girl's vagina, and also in "Casa Bonita" where he tells the lady at the dump that they can repopulate the Earth.

He is seen getting an erection in "The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers", whilst watching a pornographic film (Backdoor Sluts 9). He is the first to put on a condom in "Proper Condom Use", and the first to masturbate to ejaculation in "Lil' Crime Stoppers". He is also sent to a Christian camp when Butters’ father falsely suspects the boy of having bi-curious tendencies which turn to be untrue.

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. Butters also shows his artistic talents in "AWESOM-O" drawing a picture of himself and his robot friend (Cartman). In "Kenny Dies", he sends a letter to Kenny in the hospital and it contains a drawing of them both in an aircraft with the words "ME AND MY FRIEND KENNY" written above. As well, in the episode "Toilet Paper" where the four boys get into trouble with their teacher, Stan claims that "art is for gaywads" when Butters is seen in the background stating that he loves art class. Briefly in the episode "It Hits the Fan" Kyle interrupts Butters tagging a building with chalk with his name in the style of a well-practiced graffiti artist.

Professor Chaos

Butters' alter ego is Professor Chaos, a supervillain/mad scientist that appears to be inspired by Marvel super-villains Doctor Doom and Magneto. He adopted this personality after the boys kick him out of their group in the episode "Professor Chaos". His costume consists of a dark green cape, braces, and a helmet: all self-made. His braces and helmet are constructed of lightly crumpled aluminum foil with a red jewel in the helmet.

Butters seems to use Professor Chaos to express his repressed rage about being socially isolated as well as his desire for attention and respect. He spreads chaos with his sidekick General Disarray (a younger, perhaps even geekier character named Dougie) and his "minions" (his pet hamsters). However, their "mayhem" is initially very minor: sabotaging soup orders at Bennigan's and hiding chalkboard erasers from a classroom, for example. Although they develop more sinister plans, such as flooding the Earth with a garden hose, the group has yet to succeed in exacting revenge upon society.

In the episode "Good Times with Weapons", he turns into an anime version of Professor Chaos, demonstrating he sees his alter-ego as much more intimidating and powerful than he actually is. While participating in the "ninja" game the boys are playing, anime Professor Chaos gets a shuriken (thrown by an anime Kenny) stuck in his eye - at which point the game instantly ends to show the real Butters in horrible pain. Professor Chaos doesn't appear next until a brief sighting in "My Future Self n' Me", where Stan mistakes Butters' revealing of his identity for him revealing his homosexuality. In "Krazy Kripples", Professor Chaos shortly appears as a member of the new Legion of Doom. Professor Chaos disappears later until "Go God Go!" in season ten.