‘South Park’ Fans Hope No One Forgets That Today Is Butters’ Birthday

With everything going on in the world right now, comedy shows like South Park should not be used for divisive purposes, but, rather, we should look to them to help us remember what really matters on today of all days: getting Butters a birthday present.

For as long as South Park has been on the air, Trey Parker and Matt Stone have been inserting the series into the most serious and divisive current events affecting America at any given moment. Right now, however, those current events are directly affecting South Park as Comedy Central was forced to pull one of the most popular episodes of the ongoing Season 27 from the upcoming cable schedule. Yesterday afternoon, a yet-unidentified gunman murdered right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk while he was speaking at a Utah Valley University, and, almost immediately after news of the shooting hit social media, Kirk’s fans were calling for South Park to be held accountable for the attack due to how the series parodied Kirk in the episode “Got a Nut” last month.

But on a day like today, the focus of the South Park community shouldn't be on how certain bad-faith actors are placing the blame for the violence in our world on Parker and Stone. No current controversy should overshadow the fact that today is an important anniversary, and no one deserves a happy birthday more than Butters.

As South Park established in the classic Season 8 episode “Awesom-O,” Butters' birthday canonically falls on September 11, which is hilariously poor timing for the show's happy-go-lucky, unofficial fifth Bus Stop Boy – but how were Parker and Stone supposed to know that, more than 20 years after “Awesom-O” first aired, one of their parody targets would pass away in a grisly act of violence on September 10?

Thankfully, South Park fans on Twitter and in the show's subreddit aren't going to let the MAGA backlash against the show sully what should be a celebratory occasion for Butters, and in a viral Reddit thread, fans joined together to wish Butters a very special day. “Happy birthday to the best boy of South Park!” one fan commented.

“Cool, he shares a birthday with Ludacris!” another user added of the unique timing of today's special occasion.

One South Park fan commiserated with the beloved character on the tragic coincidence of his birthday. “I get it. Mine is Jan 6,” they wrote, presumably referencing how their own birthday was overshadowed by the evacuation of the evacuation of the United States Embassy to Somalia in Mogadishu the day prior in 1993.

Nevertheless, Butters isn't the type of guy who will let tragic circumstances take away his fun, and we have no doubt that the lovable, gullible goof is celebrating today's anniversary with joy in his heart – after all, it can't be worse than his parents' anniversary.