Kenny McCormick is everyone’s favorite unintelligible cartoon character out there!
As one of the four main kids in South Park, we’ve been watching Kenny not grow up since 1997 – that’s right, Kenny McCormick is 10 years old and he’s still older than you!
But how much do you know about the little orange parka-clad kid?
Do you know why he’s immortal? Or that he was based on a real kid?
Well, you will do once you’ve read these 30 facts about Kenny McCormick from South Park!
Kenny has died over 100 times!
When considering the various seasons of the show, the film, video games, canon parodies, the original animated shorts, and the show’s intro (where he’s died nine times), Kenny has died 126 times in total as of 2020!
Wow. That’s a lot of hilarious deaths.
Kenny is based on a real person.
Trey Parker had a childhood friend growing up called Kenny who was the poorest kid at his school and wore an orange parka that made it hard for the other kids to understand what he was saying.
The real Kenny would also skip school, so Trey and his friends would joke that Kenny had died, and then a couple days later he’d just mysteriously rejoin his classmates.
Kenny has been arrested four times!
That’s an impressive record for a kid to rack up between the ages of 8 – 10.
His rap sheet has some pretty big and impressive crimes on there, including (but certainly not limited to): murder by proxy, attempted murder, assault, vandalism, kidnapping, cannibalism, arson, framing/blackmailing, civil unrest/rioting, fraud, and vigilantism – and that’s just to name a few!
Kenny is the poorest kid in South Park.
This is something Cartman often picks on Kenny for, even after he becomes the poor kid in “skewl” he still bullies Kenny for it when Kenny comes back.
In the episode Starvin’ Marvin we see Kenny win a can of green beans for his family, but they can’t even afford a can opener to eat it!
Kenny originally looked like Cartman.
In the first original animated short The Spirit of Christmas (1992), the character that resembles Kenny is not actually Kenny, whereas the character resembling Cartman is called “Kenny” by the other kids and even dies!
Kenny is… Mysterion!
Shocker!
In the first of the superhero episodes, The Coon, we’re introduced to Mysterion and everyone wants to know who he is – the audience especially after the reveal!
However, in the following Coon and Friends episodes we learn that Kenny is Mysterion – being the only kid with a genuine superpower: immortality.
But why is Kenny immortal…?
Kenny is immortal because of his parents dabbling in the Cult of Cthulhu.
Every time Kenny dies, he wakes up the next morning in his bed wearing his orange parka as if nothing happened.
He’s fully aware of this always happening and he retains the memories of all his past lives even if nobody else really seems to remember all his deaths.
In the Season 5 episode, Cartman Joins NAMBLA, we see Kenny get run-over by an ambulance, and then his mother gives birth to a parka-clad kid.
Kenny, as Mysterion, later reveals that his parents used to go to Cult of Cthulhu meetings which is why he is reborn as a fetus in his mother’s womb every time he dies.
Then again, his parents only went for the free drinks so you can’t blame them for his immortality!
Kenny has had four different haircuts.
Five, if you count his Princess Kenny wig/hair!
We first see Kenny’s hair in the film, and then we see him with a new hairstyle in The Jefferson’s, a slightly shorter haircut in The Losing Edge, and then an updated hairstyle in Lice Capades.
That makes him the character with the most different hairstyles out of all the kids in South Park!
We’ve seen Kenny’s full face on several occasions.
The first time was in the South Park movie, right at the end when he fully removes his hood and says goodbye to the other boys.
After that, we see Kenny’s face when he’s part of South Park’s little league team in The Losing Edge, in You’re Getting Old.
We see Kenny without his hood on from the side at Stan’s birthday party, and in Broadway Bro Down we see him in the swimming pool with his face uncovered.
Kenny was a famous Opera singer!
In the episode Quintuplets 2000, Kenny becomes a famous Opera singer in Romania – becoming so famous that the Romanian people refuse to let him leave and the US Army has to mount a mission to extract him.
However, in true Kenny fashion, the US Army accidentally kills him instead of rescuing him.
Kenny is multi-lingual.
Also, in the episode Quintuplets 2000, we see Kenny speaking fluent Romanian, and in the episode W.T.F. Kenny’s wrestling alter ego, El Pollo Loco (Spanish for ‘The Crazy Chicken’) speaks fluent Spanish.
An opera singer and multi-lingual – that’s one hell of a well-cultured trailer trash kid!
Kenny’s popped up all over the place outside of South Park.
Kenny has appeared in all manner of pop culture over the years; from anime to cartoons, manga and comic books, to stand-up comedy bits from Jeff Dunham, several references to Kenny in a couple different Fallout games, and several references in music through the years.
However, my favorite of all the Kenny references in pop culture has to be the golden Spacesuits in Danny Boyle’s 2007 film Sunshine, which were inspired by Kenny’s trademark parka.
Kenny has had the most absences out of the four main characters.
This one actually makes sense though, given that he did die in Season 5 and didn’t come back for quite some time!
Kenny is the most skilled kid when it comes to wielding weapons.
We see Kenny use ranged weapons with great accuracy a few times, and in the episode Good Times with Weapons we see he has a mean shuriken game when he manages to take out Professor Chaos’s eye.
Kenny has been voiced by several different people.
Kenny’s regular muffled voice is done by Matt Stone speaking into his hand when reading the lines.
However, Kenny’s speaking voice from the movie was done by Beavis and Butt-head and King of the Hill creator Matt Judge.
South Park producer Eric Stough also voiced the unmuffled Kenny in the episodes The Jefferson’s and Lice Capades.
Kenny absolutely loves NASCAR.
In the episode Poor and Stupid, Cartman starts to ruin NASCAR’s reputation, and Kenny tries to kill Cartman with a sniper rifle just to make him stop.
That’s a lotta love for NASCAR!
Kenny saved the world from Saddam Hussein.
During the South Park movie, Kenny is the one who convinces Satan that Saddam Hussein is using him, causing Satan to throw Saddam back down into hell – saving the whole world from Saddam’s sinister plans.
Thanks Kenny!
Kenny doesn’t wear a great deal underneath his parka.
In a few different episodes, as well as the film, we see Kenny without his trademark-parka on, and the only thing he’s usually wearing underneath it is a white t-shirt.
Maybe he’s too poor to afford any other clothes to go under it.
Kenny has blue eyes.
Although he has the same eyes as all the other characters in South Park, in the episode Starvin’ Marvin a mutant turkey pulls Kenny’s eye out.
We then get to see a close-up of the eye and his blue iris is on-screen for a quick second.
Kenny likes to lay down.
Whenever we see Kenny doing things with the other kids, like playing video games or playing with toys, he lays on his front rather than sitting up.
Kenny swears the most.
Out of all the dialogue in the show, Kenny’s is usually filled with the most expletives.
Maybe it’s a good job we can’t hear him all too well…
Kenny loves Kentucky Fried Chicken.
In the episode The Death of Eric Cartman, the boys are all helping Sharon get the shopping from the car and Cartman peels all the chicken skin off the KFC and eats it.
When the boys find out Kenny immediately breaks down into tears. Poor Kenny!
Kenny is right-handed.
Every time we see Kenny writing at class, or using weapons, he is always right-handed.
Kenny is Roman Catholic.
Although, let’s face it, he’s not the most devoutly religious kid.
Then again, as somebody who has actually been to heaven and hell, met Satan and Jesus, it makes sense he’d be Catholic!
Kenny is rapper Eminem’s favorite South Park character.
The rapper extraordinaire is quite well-known for his pop culture references, and he has name-dropped Kenny in the lyrics for several of his songs.
Eminem made reference to Kenny dying in his song The Kids from The Marshall Mathers LP, as well as saying on Untitled from Recovery that people are “Looking at me like I killed Kenny.”
In W.T.P., also from Recovery, he says “But when it comes to them trailers in them South Parks / Muffle it, ‘cause homie that hood’s tighter than Kenny’s”.
Kenny is a boss at gaming.
Over and over again we see that Kenny is the true master of gaming amongst the kids in South Park.
In the episode Best Friends Forever, Kenny is the only kid who is able to reach Level 60 in the Heaven vs Hell PSP game, becoming the angels’ very own Keanu Reeves.
We also see Kenny playing a plethora of other video games in the series, all of which he totally rocks at, as well as being the most skilled human player of Magic the Gathering in Season 18.
Kenny is an awesome musician.
Throughout the course of South Park, the boys have more than a few ventures into the world of music.
We see Kenny playing the drums in the episodes Christian Rock Hard, playing drums on Rock Band in Episode 11 of Season 13, and playing both the drums and the flute in The Red Badge.
Kenny is related to Stan’s family.
Sort of.
In the Season 1 episode Volcano, Stan’s uncle Jimbo calls Kenny his “honorary nephew”.
Kenny has gotten the least amount of people killed.
The only two people Kenny has directly gotten killed are himself (ten times) and Sarah Jessica Parker.
The rest of the gang all have a long list of folks they’ve gotten killed – Kenny included!
When he’s wearing his parka, Kenny never just says “yes” or “no”.
Instead of saying “yes” he usually says things like “yeah” or “yuh-uh”, and instead of saying just “no” he’ll say things like “nuh-uh” or “nope”.
No matter if you like South Park or not, everyone knows who he is, and what to respond with when somebody says “Oh my God, you killed Kenny!”
We hope you enjoyed these facts, let us know your favorite one in the comments, or if you know a fact about Kenny that we didn’t mention here, let us know!
