Top 5 Best and Worst South Park Christmas Episodes

It’s that time of the year again. Since I want to try to endorse my own version of the holiday spirit, today we’ll be counting down the top Christmas episodes of one of my favorite shows, South Park. This is surprisingly a pretty debatable list considering how South Park is a show that made its bones on Christmas episodes. They used to have them with alarming regularity in their earlier (and better) years and some of the most famous episodes of the show are Christmas-themed. Considering how we’re talking about a show as famously debauched and dark as South Park, I guess it only makes sense. But which one’s the best? Which one’s the worst? Which one was the funniest and should be watched every year? Which one can be skipped?

First, a quick point for clarity, I will likely be spoiling most of these episode’s plots since I’m assuming that if you clicked on this, you’re as much a fan as I am and thus, just need some refreshers. If you missed any, feel free to give it a lookover and then come back later. With that in mind, let’s get started:

THE WORST

5. Red Sleigh Down

When you first clicked on this, you were probably wondering why do a top 5 best and worst instead of a top 10? Well, considering how there are only ten Christmas episodes in South Park’s history, that basically meant we’d be including the bad ones on it so, for interest’s sake, we’re doing a top 5 best and worst. Really, though, it should probably be a top 6 best and 4 worst but, unfortunately, that doesn’t quite have the same ring to it. This is basically my overly-long and convoluted way of saying that of all the ones on the bottom 5 countdown, Red Sleigh Down is by far the strongest and is actually worth a watch.

The set-up alone is pretty hysterical as Cartman realizes that he has probably won himself onto Santa’s naughty list several times over so he decides to raise his karma by convincing Santa to deliver presents to good little girls and boys in Iraq. Considering how the episode came out during the height of the Iraq War, this ends in predictable results as Santa’s sleigh is shot down over Baghdad and the boys enlist Jesus Christ to help save Santa Claus from being tortured by the Iraqi insurgents.

This is a very funny set-up. So what earns it on the worst list? Well, going back to it so many years later, you start to become aware of its length after a bit and it does start feeling like a one-trick pony. Santa getting tortured by al-Qaeda and Jesus being an action hero who resembles Arnold Schwarzenegger more than our Lord and Savior is a good bit. But it’s also the only bit. I honestly got more laughs out of the B-plot wherein Jimmy the stutterer (arduously) sings the 12 Days of Christmas for the whole town but even that joke starts to wear out its welcome after a certain point.

Red Sleigh Down isn’t a bad episode but it’s not one of the series’ highest points. Especially given the season it came out in is one of their all-time best (season 6). I might be stretching the reasoning a little bit but it’s enough to bottom out the worst list.

4. The Spirit of Christmas

Technically, this is two separate short films but they’re usually grouped together under one umbrella, especially considering how watching them combined will take less time than the average length of one episode. South Park aficionados may also know that this is actually the unofficial pilot of the series. The initial special, Jesus vs. Frosty, was made by Matt Stone and Trey Parker as a short film stop-motion project while they were in college and the sequel, Jesus vs. Santa, was commissioned as a video Christmas card short for a network executive.

With this in mind, The Spirit of Christmas is interesting to watch to see where the series’ roots come from and already what an assault on American sensibilities it is. It features 4 elementary school-aged boys swearing up a storm, several children being brutally killed and has Jesus Christ and Santa Claus getting into a bloody fistfight. It is fascinating to go back and see how this biting satire already got its roots.

Unfortunately, The Spirit of Christmas is also lacking the genuinely funny wit that even the first season of the show possessed. Literally, the gore and swearing is all that there is to it and their sense of comedic timing still hasn’t been nailed down yet. In total fairness, however, this is also where the show got its start and was being made on the cheap via actual stop-motion animation by a pair of college-aged burnouts. It’s hard to be too mean on it knowing that it’s just the impetus for more greatness to come down the line. Still, I watch a lot of old stuff that I find fascinating and this really isn’t worth going back to.

3. Christmas Snow

Christmas Snow is similar to Red Sleigh Down in that it has only one genuinely funny joke, that being the set-up. Unlike Red Sleigh Down, which still has the manic, biting satire that characterized the earlier seasons of South Park to back it up; Christmas Snow came out much later in the show’s lifespan and thus features that kind of latter-day awkwardness of a show that used to be aggressively libertarian no longer really knowing how to do satire. Maybe I’m being too grumpy here but, I digress, Christmas Snow has its amusing moments but is definitely nowhere near one of the best.

The basic gist is that the denizens of South Park decide to engage in their favorite holiday pastime of drinking and driving. However, the Colorado state legislature gets enough flack from a special interest group (the twist of who it is being extremely obvious and not remotely funny) to ban alcohol sales until after the holiday season. So Randy steps in and fills the void by selling the parents pot so they can drive under the influence high instead. Once that gets banned, he then sells pot spiked with cocaine. Finally it culminates with Randy just cutting out the middleman and selling people pure, uncut (but still organic!) cocaine.

This is a great set-up and the commercial about halfway through the episode featuring people being wired out the ass is one of the funniest moments the show has had in a long time. The problem is all the other jokes that just swing and miss like Randy constantly lampshading how he’s trying to sell people “a Christmas special.” I also get the feeling they’re trying to do satire about how liberal Colorado’s drug laws have gotten since the 2010s but, again, it just feels like a complete miss. The scene where Randy calls an assemblyman and gets cocaine legalized practically overnight seems like something that should’ve gotten a big laugh but something about it just doesn’t seem to click.

The more I write it out, the more I realize that this episode really doesn’t work. It gets redeeming points for the genuinely funny setup but, once you get past that, most of this is just kind of a snoozefest and lame.

2. Mr. Hankey’s Christmas Classics

This is the first genuine stinker on this countdown which is even more impressive considering how this came out during the early years when the show was on fire. This was back when the Christmas specials were pretty ubiquitous and done almost annually. I guess for one year, Matt and Trey decided to try something new by hosting an anthology of various characters singing various Christmas songs. I’ll give ‘em points for trying something new to see if it would work but, man, is this one a dud.

This isn’t like Bob Rivers’ Twisted Christmas wherein the songs are hilarious parodies of great Christmas classics; most of them are just South Park characters singing Christmas songs without anything new or interesting to say. You have Mr. Mackey singing Carol of the Bells, the boys singing the Dreidle Song, Cartman singing O Holy Night. Not with jokes or anything, it’s just the characters singing the songs. Any jokes that are made are just stock jokes that the characters have made several times before without any wit added.

Speaking of which, one of the most bizarre meta moments is during the Christmastime in Hell number wherein Satan decides to celebrate Christmas with numerous members of the damned. Longtime South Park fans may remember that it’s part of the lore that Mormonism is the correct religion and everyone else is doomed to burn in Hell forevermore when they die. However, this joke wouldn’t be made until much, much later after this episode came out. Thus, when you see people who aren’t evil showing up in Hell during this (admittedly funny) number such as James Stewart, Gene Siskel and Princess Diana (the latter two of whom had died pretty recently when this episode came out) it’s a weird meta moment of bad taste that would be funnier if this was a later release but, as is, doesn’t seem to hit. This bit is so much funnier when Satan is singing carols with genuinely evil people that mentioning Princess Diana and Gene Siskel feels out-of-place.

The only thing that saves this episode is Mr. Garrison’s rendition of “Merry Fucking Christmas” which is just so hilariously, gloriously offensive in its bad taste that it’s the standout scene. This moment helps salvage the episode at a nice runner-up spot behind…

1. #REHASH/#HappyHolograms

The finale of the 18th season is such a dud and easily the worst Christmas episode South Park has produced. Yet, even at its worst, this one still has some moments that are worth salvaging.

This two-parter details the boys providing their meta commentary on the rise of YouTubers and how that has displaced more classic forms of entertainment. Specifically, how Kyle’s baby brother, Ike, and all his kindergartener friends are addicted to watching YouTubers like PewDiePie on their phone and the older kids are stuck trying to figure out how to stop their screen addiction and come to terms with this new phenomenon. This clumsy satire is, of course, ignoring the fact that the age group that Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny reside in would be the one more likely to get suckered into the rise of the YouTuber and this bit would be better if they were butting heads with their parents but that’s the least of the problems here.

Cartman, of course, decides to hop onto the bandwagon and become a YouTuber while the other boys try to get families to get off their phones while there’s also a concert about celebrity holograms while police try to track down Michael Jackson’s hologram and they somehow shoehorn in a Christmas special into all this. This is one Hell of a clusterfuck of writing which the show normally does well but there really aren’t any laughs until the last five minutes. This two-parter is so preoccupied with trying to get all these parts into their proper place for the climax that they forget to make any jokes. And that should probably tell you enough: the fact that 30 minutes out of 40 are bereft of laughs in an animated sitcom is inexcusable.

To their credit, though, the climax does get some pretty good laughs, particularly from Cartman and the jokes about police brutality. However the thing that really solidifies this as the worst Christmas episode in the show’s history, and one of its worst episodes period, is an eleventh-hour cameo from PewDiePie who then rallies all of the zoomers watching the show to save the day. This isn’t quite “Lady Gaga in The Simpsons” level of bad celebrity cameos but it’s pretty close. And it’s completely out-of-touch with the rest of the show. This is a show that’s known for going for the jugular when it comes to making fun of celebrities. I think of Barbara Streisand turning into a kaiju or Al Gore wanting people to pay attention to him with ManBearPig (or, for that matter, all of the other celebrities lampooned in this special with the holograms). PewDiePie (playing himself, I might add, not a South Parkified caricature) saving all of existence from being annihilated is just totally cringe-inducing and almost seems sellout-worthy.

It’s weird, he’s only in it for thirty seconds, but seeming this heroic without any searing indictments against him or his brand is just so antithetical to how this show normally treats celebrities and the very idea of self-important celebrities thinking so highly of themselves (and PewDiePie definitely fits this mode). It really does a lot to leave a sour taste in your mouth and does earn this (already mediocre) two-parter the title of the worst Christmas episode in South Park’s history.

But now that we got the worst out of the way, which ones are the best?

THE BEST

5. Merry Christmas, Charlie Manson

Oh, you know it’s going to be a strong list when this classic is barely in the top 5. This is the type of episode you read the title alone and you know you’re in for a treat. Cartman invites his “friends” (a word I must always put in quotes when describing the relationship between Cartman and the other 3 main characters) to join him in visiting his relatives in Nebraska for the holidays. This alone already leads to two great bits from the word go. First off, is one of my favorite sight gags in the show where they portray the stark difference between the states of Colorado and Nebraska.

Second, is just the idea of hanging out with Cartman’s extended family is a funny one and they take full advantage of it. Almost every other person on Cartman’s family tree is a foul-mouthed, right-wing, overweight piece of white trash that speaks with a fatty worble. This, of course, includes Cartman’s Uncle Howard in the Nebraska State Penitentiary who has broken out of prison and brought along his cellmate, Charles Manson, to the family get-together. Yes, that Charles Manson. The episode naturally climaxes in the same way that all white trash family Christmas gatherings do: with the riot police.

This is all a very funny send-up but the show takes it to a weird piece of meta anti-humor wherein Charles Manson ends up being the kindly moral rock of the episode and it’s all the other characters who are depraved assholes that need to be taught the true meaning of Christmas. This is part of what keeps it down in this ranking as I can’t help but wonder if it’d be funnier if they did show the true horror of a depraved serial killing hippie. But, on the other hand, it’s still pretty funny that someone as famously fucked up as Charles Manson ends up being a kindly and sweet individual so, eh.

4. Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo

This is one of the essential episodes of South Park in the first season and sets the tone for pretty much all the Christmas episodes to follow. It introduced us to the wonderful character of Mr. Hankey the Christmas Poo, an anthropomorphic piece of human waste that talks and sings like a Rankin/Bass holiday character. This is already a pretty funny idea for a character but it’s made even funnier by the fact that Kyle (the sole Jewish kid in another layer of hilarious irony) is the only one who can see him making everyone think he’s delusional.

This is a funny set-up to begin with but the episode goes a few steps further with some very smart commentary on late 90s America which is still pretty timeless today. This is one of the very first episodes, if not the first episode, to really go after the parents of America who always find a new crusade to prove how good people they are. In this case, Kyle’s parents complain that the school is putting on a Christmas pageant as it’s offensive to Kyle as the only Jewish kid and demand that it be changed to a holiday pageant. But why stop there? Aren’t Christmas trees also considered a Christian symbol? What about mentioning Jesus or singing Christmas carols? Can’t be singing those lest you run in danger of offending somebody. The final logical conclusion of this way of thinking shown at the episode’s climax is hysterical.

If there’s any thesis to exemplify what South Park is about, it’s the above paragraph. It’s such pointed and biting satire that it’s easy to forget all of the other mainstays that began here such as Mr. Hankey, the “Kyle’s Mom’s a Bitch” song and generally taking the idea of a Christmas special and turning it on its head. For the one that started it all, it’s surprising that this one still holds up so many years later.

3. It’s Christmas in Canada

Unlike some other episodes listed here where the set-up alone guarantees a good time, here it’s a pretty blasé set-up that then has so many memorable twists and turns. The Broflovski family is given a sudden shock when Ike’s birth parents return and whisk him away home to Canada. So Kyle and the boys travel to the Land of the North to try to rescue him before Christmas. Not the funniest of set-ups but the jokes in this one come a mile a minute and most of them hit.

For starters, why do the rest of the kids agree to help Kyle on his journey and why must it be done before Christmas? Because all the parents in South Park agree to give up their money to buy their children Christmas gifts to help out their community, completely oblivious to the fact that the children of South Park are furious at this idea. Or how about the way they get to Canada, by flying Air City Wok? Or the fact that Canada ends up being a parody of the Wizard of Oz, wherein they must travel to the Prime Minister of Canada while encountering a Mountie who wants a horse, a mime who wants wine and a Newfoundlander who wants to fuck his neighbor in the asshole? And then of course there’s the final twist of why the Prime Minister of Canada is being so evil to everyone.

All this combined makes for a great episode but I’m saving the best reason for last. It was really hard deciding which was better between this and Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo. I chose It’s Christmas in Canada for the # 3 spot because it has one of my favorite jokes in the series that just so perfectly encompasses the character of Cartman. At the end, Cartman is furious that he’ll be spending Christmas Day in Canada instead of back home in South Park and threatens to beat up Kyle in retribution. From there, the below clip happens:

2. A Very Crappy Christmas

This is another episode where the jokes come fast and they come hard and it takes so many twists and turns. This also makes it hard to talk about because the plot is a bit hard to describe. The boys are disappointed that Mr. Hankey has not shown up for Hanukkah so they venture into the South Park sewers to find out why. There, they meet Mr. Hankey and his family, who say that no one is enjoying the Christmas spirit, so both groups try to find a way to bring the Christmas spirit to South Park, each in their own ways.

In Mr. Hankey’s case, he tries to bring the meaning of Christmas by reconnecting with his family. The idea of a Rankin/Bass-esque smiley character with a chipper voice being a talking turd is already pretty funny but they one-up it this go around by introducing his dysfunctional family. In particular, Mr. Hankey’s wife is hilarious despite the fact that I can barely understand what the Hell she’s saying. Making this kind of sing-songy character a low-functioning, abusive alcoholic is a great bit. Even funnier given that Mr. Hankey alludes to one of his children being intellectually disabled.

On the boy’s side of the story is a great piece of meta humor as they try to make their own Christmas special using stop-motion animation (the final piece being footage from the aforementioned Spirit of Christmas). This leads to a lot of great meta bits as the boys complain about how Godawfully exhausting working with stop-motion is, which is a plight that anyone who has ever done stop-motion can sympathize with (myself included).

Despite these being two very disparate plotlines, and a lot of other weird non sequiturs such as Mr. Hankey singing about the Circle of Life, it’s surprisingly well-paced and manages to tie all of these plotlines together in a very easy fashion. And, of course, it all ends with the town finally realizing what the true meaning of Christmas is all about: raw, unencumbered capitalism.

1. Woodland Critter Christmas

Not only is Woodland Critter Christmas the best Christmas episode of South Park, it’s a possible contender for the best episode of South Park, period. At the very least, it has to be somewhere in the top 5. I had a much harder time trying to rank 2-5 on this list than I did figuring out what number 1 would be. This episode is literally 21 minutes of some of the funniest shit Matt and Trey have ever put out and, if you haven’t seen it yet, I strongly advise you to do so because experiencing it firsthand is going to be so much funnier than reading it secondhand on some loser’s Internet blog. Go watch it. Right now.

Now that you’ve done so, let us reflect on the Woodland Critter Christmas. Once more, this episode comes off as a mean-spirited parody of those classic Rankin/Bass TV specials. This time, however, instead of being a talking turd, they’re all still a bunch of cutesy animals… who happen to worship Satan and are planning on giving birth to the Antichrist. They manipulate Stan into killing an overly-animated mountain lion to ensure their ritual goes off without a hitch. Upon realizing his mistake, Stan then realizes he must correct this wrong and teaches the dead mountain lion’s newly-orphaned cubs on how to perform abortions so they can perform one on the Woodland Critters.

Saying this out loud really does not do this episode justice with how fucking funny it is. I haven’t even mentioned some of the other jokes like the hilariously stupid Christmas songs (which plays over the lion cubs’ abortion training montage), Stan arguing with the narrator of the story and the funny reveal of who actually is telling the story. Or some of the deadpan lines that offset how in unbelievably poor taste a lot of the jokes are. Or just how many jokes there are and how perfectly they tie into the story. It feels like almost every 30 seconds there’s a new joke told and almost every single one of them is hysterical. And the way it all climaxes with one final anti-joke is the perfect capstone to one of the funniest Christmas specials ever made.