Paranoid ‘South Park’ Fans Question Who Voiced Cartman in This Week’s Episode

South Park fans don’t seem to know what to believe anymore.

After last week’s unexpected delay, the internet was promptly flooded with conspiracy theories alleging that Trey Parker and Matt Stone had been silenced by their corporate owners and/or the lizard people who secretly rule Hollywood. When Parker and Stone issued a statement, some people were still suspicious, questioning its authenticity. 

Stone later tried to clear up the confusion during an interview with The Denver Post, stating that the duo had really just missed their deadline. “That’s the price of being a procrastinator,” he reasoned. 

Despite this explanation, some fans are clearly still skeptical about certain aspects of the episode. When “Conflict of Interest” aired, a number of viewers took notice of Cartman’s voice which sounded slightly different. 

Over on Reddit, one fan suggested that another actor may have stealthily been brought in to record certain lines. “Cartman does not sound at all like himself in this episode,” the post reads. “Did Trey not voice Cartman in S27E5? Did they need to add extra lines that they weren’t able to have him record? Particularly at 1:51-2:01, the voice sounds totally off.”

It’s true, Cartman’s voice does sound distinctly lower than normal in the opening minutes of the episode. Several users agreed that there was something unusual about the performance, speculating that it could be the work of a “soundalike.” One person theorized that it was possibly an A.I.-generated “synthetic voice.”

But a number of others suggested far more plausible reasons for why Cartman may have sounded weird, including that the show may have forgotten “to pitch up his voice in production.” Others floated the possibility that the Cartman voice was simply changing because Parker is getting older. But the most common theory was that Parker was suffering from a “bad cold,” which could also explain why the episode was delayed.

This isn’t the first time that fans have clocked variations in South Park voices that may or may not have been caused by illnesses. After the Season 26 premiere, “Cupid Ye,” back in 2023, Redditors questioned whether Parker was sick owing to Randy’s unusually gravelly voice.

And in response to the recent mystery, some folks pointed to Season 25’s “The Big Fix,” in which Parker’s Stan sounded less like a 10-year-old boy and more like a middle-aged Harvey Fierstein.

So Parker likely just caught another cold, meaning that he wasn’t secretly replaced with an A.I. simulation after being locked away in Paramount’s dungeon.