‘South Park’ Fans Compare Cartman’s Charlie Kirk Look to His Other Worst-Ever Haircuts

Charlie Kirk may have stolen Eric Cartman’s shtick by being the most obstinate, bigoted and preposterously popular right-wing troll on the internet, but Kirk's campaign to turn impressionable young men toward chauvinism is nothing compared to Cartman’s ability to reach these keeds.

Last week, South Park continued its rampage against the conservative establishment propping up President Donald “Saddam Hussein” Trump’s regime with “Got a Nut,” an episode that satirized the Immigration and Customs Enforcement forces and the right-wing masterdebation content industry in the A and B plots respectively. While Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem raged against her portrayal, calling South Park “lazy” and “petty” before trying to use a screenshot of the episode to advertise the ICE recruiting site for the second time, Turning Point USA cofounder and masterdebater Kirk has leaned into his parody in an attempt to convince consumers of his deceptively edited content that Trey Parker and Matt Stone are on his side, actually.

However, real South Park fans understand that, not only is it a bad look for any public figure to be played by Cartman for an entire episode, but that Kirk’s signature 1950s segregationist haircut was a historically bad style for the original masterdebater. In a recent viral post on the South Park subreddit, fans of the series weighed up Cartman’s Kirk cut against his other iconic makeovers, concluding that, for as bad as the hairdo appears on Cartman, it looks even worse on Kirk.

“Don’t insult Mr. Cartmanez like that,” one of the top commenters wrote in defense of Cartman’s Stand and Deliver parody persona in the style of Edward James Olmos from the classic 2008 episode, “Eek, a Penis!”

Many others objected to how the original poster lumped in Kirk with Cartman’s character from when he worked as a devoted inner city public school teacher who inspires children to cheat their way into college with the story of former New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick. While Cartman’s combover may not have been his best look, at least it changed lives. “Yeah, you take that back, he reeched those keeds,” one user added.

Another South Park fan argued that, for as bad as Cartman’s hair looked in “Got a Nut,” it’s still not nearly as nasty as the real thing. “Hot take: Cartman looks better with Charlie Kirk’s hair than Charlie Kirk does,” they suggested.

Others still disagreed that many of the choices for “Cartman’s Worst Haircuts” weren’t all that bad from a character design perspective, and some classic episodes wouldn’t be the same without the weird hairstyles. Speaking on the 2005 episode “Ginger Kids,” one user posited, “Ginger Cartman was peak. Led an insurrection against normies because of make up.”

But while the South Park fandom may defend some of Cartman’s more outlandish looks throughout the show’s 27 seasons, nobody is arguing that the desperate, protruding tuft covering a receding hairline was anything less than unsettling in the most recent episode, even if Cartman pulls off the Kirk cut even better than his imposter.