5 Best South Park Episodes That Show Kenny's Face

For casual "South Park" fans, it's a common misconception that we never actually get to see Kenny's face. The joke with poor Kenny, the popular wisdom goes, is that he's barely a character; his voice is muffled, his face is hidden, and he dies every episode in some horrible way that everyone else just sort of shrugs off. Kenny's existence throughout the 29-year-old controversial cartoon series is just a nonstop parade of death and neglect.

But real "South Park" fans know that the treatment of Kenny is a bit more complicated than that. For most of the series, Kenny doesn't actually die in every episode, and the show isn't particularly afraid to show his face or give him a voice. They don't do it often, but Kenny's personality being shrouded by an oversized hoodie is not some sacred running gag. If an episode's storyline requires Kenny's face to be exposed, Kenny's face will be exposed.

The first time fans saw Kenny's face was in the 1999 movie, "South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut." The movie established that Kenny has the same facial structure as most "South Park" boys, but with messy blond hair. This scene broke a lot of the show's rules with Kenny, and going forward, "South Park" would start experimenting a lot more with his character. Kenny's face has been shown plenty of times in the decades since, but here are the five best episodes for Kenny fans to enjoy.

In this Season 8 episode, Kyle, Stan, Cartman, and Kenny face off against a very creepy Michael Jackson, who's going by the alias "Mr. Jefferson." To smuggle a kid out of MJ's home, they decide to disguise Kenny as the kid, with predictably terrible results. Mr. Jefferson does not molest Kenny as feared, but he does fatally throw him head-first into the ceiling. This episode ranked high on TVLine's list of most offensive "South Park" episodes, but you can't say it's not memorable.

It's an unfortunate demise for unhooded Kenny, but let's look on the bright side: This is his only death in the entirety of the Season 8. Kenny's face also gets a full twenty seconds of screentime; sure, his face is technically obscured by the mask he's wearing, but by nowhere near the same extent as his usual hoodie.

It's also one of the longest runs of uninterrupted dialogue Kenny receives in the first ten seasons, even if half of it is in service of meta jokes about how extraneous he is. "You guys owe me for this," he tells Stan at one point, to which Stan replies, "Yeah whatever, at least you finally get to do something."

"DikinBaus Hot Dogs" is a pretty fun late-series episode where Cartman tries to renovate an old hot dog stand, with disastrous results for poor Butters. Kenny is not the main focus here, but we do get a fun montage where Kenny dons some sick shades and enjoys life a little. As far as most fans are concerned, any time Kenny's enjoying life pain-free is a good time.

"DikinBaus Hot Dogs" was heavily inspired by the creators' real-life attempt to save a Coney Island Hot Dog Stand in Bailey, Colorado, as well as a nod to their (far more successful) business decision to save the Colorado-based restaurant Casa Bonita in 2021.

The episode was largely praised by critics, although not really for Kenny's expanded role. Rather, critic Brandon Zachary at Comic Book Resources praised it for its evolution of Butters and Cartman's dynamic; whereas Butters typically lets Cartman roll over him, here he stands up to Cartman and gets the win in the end. The long-suffering Butters has a lot in common with the long-suffering Kenny, so let's consider this a win for Kenny by association.

The premise of this episode doesn't sound that great due to the sheer amount of feces-related jokes, but it's saved by a masterful unexpected parody of David Lynch's 1984 "Dune" adaptation that really livens up the final act. The episode involves the gang disguising Kenny as a sick kid as part of a scheme to steal a stool sample from Tom Brady; the result is that we get to see Kenny's face again, albeit half-obscured by his Patriots hat.

The storyline is a fun twist of expectations for Kenny. Instead of dying, here Kenny only pretends to be dying as part of the scheme. The episode offers us another rare glimpse of Kenny's real voice; we hear his inner monologue wonder, "Why did I agree to this?" in the middle of the boys' scheme.

Like with "DikinBaus Hot Dogs", "Turd Burglars" is a well-received episode in what's otherwise a somewhat underwhelming period of the show's history. While the best "South Park" episodes are generally found somewhere between Seasons 5 through 14, these two episodes help prove that the show still had plenty of life left in it deep into its twenties.

Kenny doesn't do much in this classic Season 9 episode, but "The Losing Edge" makes the list anyway because it's so much fun. The episode parodies a bunch of baseball movies, with the premise being that the South Park kids actually hate Little League and keep trying to throw their games.

The problem is that all the other teams hate baseball too and have the same idea, which means the gang keeps accidentally advancing toward the national circuit. Throughout the episode, Kenny can be seen in a baseball uniform along with the rest of the gang. His face is slightly obscured, but not by much.

If you want to prove to a non-fan that the show's treatment of Kenny's face is indeed different from "Home Improvement's" treatment of Wilson's face, this is a perfect episode to show them. Not only will they get to see Kenny out of his coat, but they'll get to see one of the funniest episodes in the whole show.

In 2009 "South Park" got in on all the growing hype for superhero movies, partly through its introduction of the town's mysterious new superhero Mysterion. This cryptic, stone-faced crusader partially unmasks himself at the end of "The Coon" to reveal his true identity.

Kyle recognizes him, but (because the eyes of the "South Park" boys are so undetailed and interchangeable) the audience didn't immediately know for sure who this was supposed to be. Nevertheless, later Mysterion-focused episodes would confirm that the masked vigilante is indeed Kenny, and that (unlike the other kids running around in costumes) Kenny has a real superpower: He can't die.

Mysterion appears in six episodes throughout Seasons 13 through 21, and all of them show a fun new side to Kenny's character. There's a particularly heartwarming storyline in Season 15 where Kenny uses his Mysterion alter-ego to protect his little sister from bullies. Technically speaking, however, it is only in Mysterion's first episode that Kenny unmasks himself.