Eric Cartman Gallery Alter Egos

For other uses, see Eric (disambiguation).

October 2007 Featured Article Winner

Eric Theodore Cartman, usually referred to as just Cartman, is one of the main characters, along with Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, and Kenny McCormick. Cartman is sometimes the main antagonist of an episode, for example "Trapper Keeper". None of the other three main children really consider Cartman their friend and do not know why they started hanging out with him in the first place, but a certain form of unstable friendship ends up being born between them. However he is usually Kyle's first choice when he breaks his friendship with Stan. In earlier episodes, Kenny was his best friend, however, in later seasons, Butters Stotch is usually depicted as such.

Cartman was the first one of the boys to be shown without his hat, as seen in "Merry Christmas Charlie Manson!". He also weighs 90 pounds, as revealed in "Weight Gain 4000".

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Background

Concept and Creation

According to the creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, they thought it would be impossible to put a character like Archie Bunker on late-20th century television. But then they came up with the idea that it might be allowed if the character were an animated nine (formerly eight) year-old boy living in the mountain town of South Park, Colorado. Thus, Cartman was born.[2]

Contrary to popular belief that Cartman's name is derived from German war-pilot Erich Hartmann (which would reflect his love of Hitler and the Nazis), Trey and Matt confirmed in an online interview that Cartman's name is based on someone with the surname "Carpman".[3] Trey Parker and Matt Stone have repeatedly stated that Cartman is their ultimate favorite of all the characters in the show.[4] Although Cartman is initially modeled after Archie Bunker, Toni Johnson-Woods, author of Blame Canada: South Park and Contemporary Culture, says that she believes Cartman also draws parallels to Jackie Gleason of The Honeymooners, and Fred Flintstone.[5]

Accomplishments

Over the course of the series, Cartman managed to accomplish a wide range of achievements more than any other character of South Park. Some of them are a success or failure:

Criminal Record

Cartman is notable for having a very large criminal record. Although he has committed many atrocities and crimes, he has only been arrested seven times. He has been arrested for his mistakenly assumed hate crime, kidnapping Butters, framing Liane for operating a meth lab, being with Stan Marsh on "Whale Whores" (The prison Cartman went to for this assumed crime was Japanese), and incarcerating hippies. In "Time To Get Cereal" he, along with Kyle, Stan and Kenny, was arrested by Harrison Yates for assumed school shootings, which have been proven to be ManBearPig's attacks. He was also arrested for the murders and terrorism of multiple people with Cthulhu, while under the disguise of the Coon, by Kyle, Kenny, Stan, Clyde, Token and Timmy, although they didn't have the authority. Even then he was released almost immediately after his arrest. The real reason why Cartman doesn't stay in prison for a very long time is likely because his Mom bails him out, dismissing the severity of the crime. Another reason why because the town is too incompetent to do anything about it. Cartman's criminal record includes but isn't limited to:

Talents

Manipulation and Leadership Ability

"You are such a manipulative asshole, Cartman!" -Kyle, upon seeing Cartman manipulate the gingers into doing the opposite of what he had previously told them to do in "Ginger Kids"

"Yes, but at least I'm not going to die!" - In which Cartman, for once, agrees with Kyle, as he admits that he is manipulative, because that's likely what he does in almost every episode.

Cartman is often shown to be a poor student, but excels in leadership and team organization which usually involves exploitation of others weaknesses. Although having his origins as a secondary role as the comic foil, Cartman has evolved into a character of stunningly articulate manipulative talents and techniques. His abilities are deeply Machiavellian in nature, and his character follows closely in the footsteps of other famous manipulators such as the character Iago from William Shakespeare's Othello. In several episodes throughout the series, he employs this skill to get what he wants. His most frequent targets are adults and Butters, though he often targets other children for more personal purposes, including convincing Butters to "take one for the team" and be anally gang-raped by men from NAMBLA in "Cartman Joins NAMBLA", and repeatedly convincing Kyle that he is doing good, only to exploit Kyle's help later on. He talked the ginger kids out of killing all non-gingers after Kyle told him that they had played a trick on him in "Ginger Kids". Earlier in that episode, he had rallied all the gingers into a genocidal frenzy, convincing them that all non-gingers are inferior in a Hitler or KKK-esque way, as well as stage violent protests and march down the streets chanting "red power!". He then made them kidnap all the children in town and hold them in a cage over a pit of lava, but managed to convince them to stop when he was told by Kyle that his case of "Gingervitus" was a prank. Along the same line, in "The Passion of the Jew", he is able to rally all the members of the Mel Gibson fan club to march through the town while yelling, "Wir müssen die Juden ausrotten!" (We must exterminate the Jews!). However, it should probably be noted that they were ignorant of the true meaning of this phrase, mistaking it for Aramaic. But given the fact that it caused a large argument in the middle of the city between his group and some Jews, and given the violent and ignorant nature of most adults in South Park, it would not be surprising if it had turned into violence if allowed to continue. Cartman was also shown smiling in the background at the argument, as if all was according to his plan. He also demonstrates great understanding of the human mind and the way to exploit it. In the episode "Tsst", Cartman was able to drive several nannies from his house with insults and insinuation (even causing one to be put in a mental hospital). In the same episode, he also made one child saw his own leg off in a reference to the movie "Saw".

Cartman's perceived stupidity by his friends can be attributed to his sometimes naive, careless behavior. However, his uncanny skill at manipulation, bilingualism, and ability to create elaborate schemes which are often effective imply a high intellect, despite his ignorance. Cartman seems to have no problem talking to people and speaking in general. He has an uncanny way with words and uses that to his advantage whenever he plots an idea. For example, in "Kenny Dies", Cartman delivers a speech to the United States House of Representatives convincing them to vote in favor of stem cell research. He also appears to be multilingual (though not very well).

He claims to be able to speak Spanish in "Rainforest Shmainforest", when he tells a Costa Rican freedom fighter that he wants burritos, and in "My Future Self n' Me", he actually speaks Spanish to the Mexican workers hired to smear Butters home with excrement. In "D-Yikes!", Cartman again demonstrates his proficiency in Spanish when hiring Mexicans to write an "essay" (which the immigrants mistake for the Spanish informal word for a friend, ese) on The Old Man and the Sea. He is the only one of the children in South Park to speak Spanish fluently, as shown when kids go to him when they can't understand people, although he is sometimes prone to grammatical errors, such as the previously mentioned example. In "The Passion of the Jew", Cartman also speaks German, but most of his words are mispronounced, leading us to assume he only knew a few Nazi slogans. However, in "Funnybot", these assumptions were proven incorrect, as it was shown that he was fluent in German, with him proclaiming Dürfen wir der Kind dort...geboten? (We can offer the child ... here.) Er ist Jud. Eh? Ein schöner safter Jud. Er ist friiisch. Und wunderhübsch, wunderhüüübsch. (He's a Jew. Eh? A handsome soft Jew. He's freeesh. And beauuutiful, beauuutiful.).

In "Cartoon Wars Part I", he exploited a controversy involving the appearance of Muhammad on Family Guy to try to get the show off the air; he pretended to be the hapless victim of an Islamic terrorist attack to try to discourage the FOX president and the Family Guy staff writers from airing the Muhammad episode. On another occasion he was able to convince the majority of the adults of South Park (as well as many people from other cities and the entire state of South Carolina) to nearly take over the U.S. via an out-of-hand re-enactment of the Civil War, as long as he kept them drunk so they wouldn't realize what they were doing.

Cartman is also a very good leader as a pirate captain, in "Fatbeard", when he convinces all the Somalian pirates to join his crew, and causes so much trouble to international shipping that the United States Navy had to track him down and kill his crew.

Cartman's shining accomplishment (according to Comedy Central's list of "Cartman's 25 Greatest Moments") came in the episode "Scott Tenorman Must Die", a testimony to Cartman's hidden ingenuity and cunning, as well as the full extent of his cruelty and mental imbalance. Scott Tenorman continually defeats Cartman's attempts at retrieving a sum of money Scott tricked him out of throughout the episode, humiliating Cartman and elevating his hatred and desire for revenge. Finally, Cartman gets the last laugh, as he indirectly coerces Scott's parents into a situation where they are trespassing, and are consequently shot and killed. Cartman then steals the bodies and makes them into chili which he promptly feeds to Scott. Cartman then coolly tells Scott how his parents died, hints at what happened to their remains, and inquires about his chili: "Do you like it? Do you like it, Scott?". Scott is traumatized and horror-stricken, and Cartman gloats and laughs hysterically at the inconsolable Tenorman, while licking Scott's "tears of unfathomable sadness" off his face with intense pleasure. However, Scott discovered that Jack Tenorman was also his father, much to his shock, but not because he killed his own dad, but because he's half-ginger, ever since Cartman vowed to get revenge on Tenorman again and get the last laugh.

Cartman has also organized several groups of boys when rallying against his enemies, including an online griefer (in "Make Love, Not Warcraft") and the girls on at least 2 occasions: Where he tries to obtain a "future telling device" in "Marjorine", and when he captures a list of what the girls declared the cutest guys in "The List", the boys following Cartman's plans. He is always the leader, and manages to lead all the boys in the group into success almost every time. Butters, Kenny, or Craig usually act as his right hand man, and recurring members of the groups include Token, Craig, Clyde, Kyle, Stan, Kenny, and Butters, but most of the time they (with the exception of Butters and sometimes Clyde) seem to realize how mentally imbalanced he is.

During the episode "T.M.I.", the psychologist started to criticize his obesity as a way to test his anger, as Cartman was suspected to have anger management problems. During the time of being yelled at, Cartman doesn't seem to demonstrate any angry response and simple allows the psychologist to curse Cartman's obesity, and even proceeds to sends a text message/e-mail on his iPhone in a non-concerned manner. Almost immediately on the psychologist receives a phone-call from his frantic wife, claiming that she moments ago received a police report about the psychologist having an affair with an under-aged girl. Confused, the horrified doctor hears her shoot herself with a gun over the phone, Looking back at his patient, Cartman says in a cold voice, "I'm not fat, I'm big boned". This cruel one-line comment along with the fact the supposed police report came from a "Mitch Conner" indicates that he was responsible for her suicide due to the doctor's remarks. This may echo the Scott Tennorman incident, stressing the importance of why it is not a good idea to provoke Cartman, as terrible consequences may ensue if you are not within his immediate "circle of friends".

Ventriloquism

Cartman has been shown to be an expert in the act of ventriloquism, as shown in "Fat Butt and Pancake Head", "200", and "201". It is also shown that Cartman sometimes uses his talent to express his delusional side, he demonstrates this through his hand, which he calls Mitch Conner. In "Fat Butt and Pancake Head", his hand has an affair with Ben Affleck, get's signed onto a record company, and almost gets him killed by Jennifer Lopez. He seemed go through all of that solely for the purpose of tricking the rest of the boys. Although, in "200", it is shown that Mitch Conner may be a real being, as he was shown to possess knowledge that Cartman did not.

Electronics

Cartman is shown in "T.M.I." to send a message to an anger management psychologist's wife in mere minutes, making it look like a police report; Cartman had to find the location / number of The Psychologist in order to send the message. Cartman is also shown to type very fast, as he wrote apparent emails about a teenage girl having a sexual affair with The Psychologist.

Multilingualism

Throughout the entire run of the South Park series, there have been a few instances where Cartman spoke languages other than English quite well and he does seem to be fluent in Spanish and speaks very good German (for the sake of South Park). For example, in "The Passion Of The Jew", when Cartman dressed as Hitler, while rallying outside the theater presenting "The Passion" with a group of Christian followers, he began chanting hateful comments to Jews in German such as "Es Ist Zeit zu säubern" ("It's time to cleanse), while the crowd replies ""Wir müssen die Juden ausrotten!" ("We must exterminate the Jews!"). Next, Cartman exclaimed "Es ist Zeit für Rache!" ("It is time for revenge") and the crowd replies "Wir müssen die Juden ausrotten!" ("We must exterminate the Jews!"). While Cartman didn't necessarily pronounce the German words correctly, it was pretty clear that he understood what they meant in English and his followers did not.

In "Pandemic", the boys decided to start their own Peruvian band to earn some spending money. When they spotted a real Peruvian band "stealing their spotlight", after the other boys first confronted them in English and the band members continued to play as if they didn't hear them (since they didn't speak English), Cartman began yelling at them in Spanish, generally telling them to stop playing in their area. The band paused for a long second in confusion, then continued to play. This then prompted Cartman to repeat what he originally told them in Spanish and out of anger he even snatched one of their instruments away and threw it off into the distance.

Also, in "My Future Self n' Me" he spoke to Mexican workers in fluent Spanish, suggesting that he is, in fact, fluent or knows a few phrases. He also speaks French to Clyde in "Make Love, Not Warcraft" as "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, Clyde?", or "Would you like to sleep with me, Clyde?". This, however, is a line from the song "Lady Marmalade", and considering the meaning of the phrase, likely means that Cartman does not actually speak French. Granted, there really hasn't been much focus on this particular talent of Cartman's (since most of the story plots don't focus on it) so there's virtually very little known as to how he learned these other languages so well at such a young age. It's possible that his mom Liane Cartman may have personally taught him the other languages, as was revealed in "Hooked on Monkey Fonics when she purchased a educational game that helped Cartman to improve his spelling skills.

In "Funnybot", Cartman speaks German to the Germans, seemingly offering them Kyle as a way to make peace with them, or just kill him.

Music

Cartman appears to be musically talented. He plays the piano quite well in the episode "Christian Rock Hard" (although the piano plays by itself whilst he is singing so it may be a player piano and Cartman can't play it), the violin in "Something Wall-Mart This Way Comes", the French horn in "Summer Sucks", the drums in "The Red Badge of Gayness", the harmonica in "Jakovasaurs" and "Whale Whores", the recorder flute in "World Wide Recorder Concert", the acoustic guitar in "Chinpokomon", and pan flute in "Pandemic". He is shown to be randomly strumming a guitar and beating the drums so he isn't too good at them.

His Christian rock group "Faith + 1" sold 1,000,000 copies of its album in the episode "Christian Rock Hard" with the intent of earning a platinum album but according to the Christian Music Association their artists only receive Myrrh for this achievement.

In the film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, Cartman is shown singing in mock versions of Chinese, French, Dutch and an unidentified African language by singing "Kyle's Mom's a Bitch".

In "Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics", Cartman sings, "O Holy Night" (despite several interruptions).

In "Chef Aid", he sings and does a German dance to raise money for Chef's legal fees.

He founded a boy band named Fingerbang in the episode "Something You Can Do with Your Finger".

Cartman's musical tastes run toward progressive and arena rock in general and maudlin power ballads in particular. "Cartman's Mom is Still a Dirty Slut" shows for the first time that Cartman has the uncontrollable urge to finish singing Styx's "Come Sail Away" whenever he hears any part of the song, which he can do, under pressure, in 27 seconds (possibly a sign that he has a very minor case of OCD based on the fact that he mentioned it was not only songs he had to finish). In "Kenny Dies", Cartman sings "Heat of the Moment" to the United States House of Representatives convincing them to vote in favor of stem cell research. Cartman also appears to enjoy teen pop, as demonstrated in his Britney Spears dance sequence in "AWESOM-O". He also quotes, "Haha charade you are" from Pink Floyd's song, Pigs (Three Different Ones). During a scene in "Whale Whores" Cartman sings the Lady Gaga song "Poker Face" while playing the video game Rock Band with Kenny as the drummer. This song was later released as a real downloadable single for the game.

Cartman frequently bursts into song spontaneously, sometimes with melodies and topical lyrics of his own devising, although his musical talent is questionable. He often uses this skill in order to persuade others by using the song to manipulate their thoughts and emotions. This penchant for ad hoc songs was specifically mentioned in "Ginger Kids". This also happened in the episode "Cherokee Hair Tampons" when Stan asks Cartman to donate a kidney to a very sickly Kyle, Cartman replies by singing "No no no no no no no no no no!" to the tune of "Comedy tonight" from "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum".

In a mean-spirited feeling, Cartman begins singing an Elvis version of "In the Ghetto" when in Kenny's neighborhood, namely, the poor part of town.

For Rush's Snakes and Arrows tour, a short animated clip was made to introduce the song "Tom Sawyer", featuring the boys from South Park as a band attempting to perform the song. Cartman is featured as the lead singer (Geddy Lee). In "Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo", he bursts into song, singing "Kyle's Mom's a Bitch" he also did this in "South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut", despite Kyle's repeated warnings.

Cartman has also been featured on several tracks on all three South Park albums.

Photography

Cartman knows a bit about Photography, as shown in a few episodes. In "Christian Rock Hard", he demonstrates his knowledge of the nature of music artist's album covers, such as how the members of a band are mostly in random places looking in other directions and never smile. Also, in "Cartman Sucks", Cartman takes up his hobby of inviting Butters over, just to take embarrassing photos of him. He is also shown presenting a slideshow in class, and comments about them skillfully. Also, in "Imaginationland, Episode II" and "Imaginationland, Episode III", he is talking about how he should take his picture of Kyle sucking his balls. He even has professional help with his photo shoot in Part III. Also he is good at Photoshop, (though his art skills are very first grade like) as we can see from "Mystery of the Urinal Deuce", when he is framing Kyle.

Sports

Cartman has been bad at sports, and sometimes good. He has been seen playing center in Football in "Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride" and on the Dodge-Ball team in the episode "Conjoined Fetus Lady". He plays Baseball, as he is seen hitting a home run and plays catcher on the Baseball team, as seen as one of the three players (Stan, Kyle, and Cartman) hitting a home run in "The Losing Edge".

In "Grey Dawn" he is seen playing street hockey along with the rest of the boys as a goalie. In later episodes "ManBearPig" and "Guitar Queer-O", Cartman is seen to be playing basketball with the other boys, however he isn't nearly as talented as he seems to think or the others. He often cries out 'Stop cheating you black asshole!' when an opponent beats him, or 'You tricked me!' as if this was illegal. However, Cartman seems to have a grasp of cheating strategies (as seen in "Eek, A Penis!".) Cartman tries out for the wrestling team in "W.T.F.", but leaves after he is put into a "gay" move by Butters, who was told by the teacher to do so. In the same episode he formed a wrestling league along with some of the other boys. However, the wrestling in which they performed was more dramatic theater in which they created complicated in depth story lines for their wrestling personas, rather than actual athletic prowess.

Cartman is also seen as a not very good swimmer in "Summer Sucks". Cartman is upstaged by handicapped children in "Up the Down Steroid", where his elaborate plan to beat the handicapped children in athletics backfires, with him placing dead last in every sport. In "1%", he performed so poorly on the school's gym athletics test that it brought the school's average down to the worst in the country.

Weaponry

Cartman is shown carrying more weapons than any other kid in South Park, although where he obtains these weapons is never properly explained. He has been shown using a dagger when trying to stop Stan and Kyle from destroying the Wall-Mart, and a pair of sai (a Japanese short sword) in "Good Times with Weapons". He never actually struck anyone with these weapons, although it is pretty obvious he could have.

In the early episode "Chickenlover", Cartman receives a nightstick (otherwise known as a baton) due to his duty as police officer. He constantly uses it to abuse suspects and criminals, usually hitting them in the legs.

In "Imaginationland", Cartman is seen brandishing a Bowie knife.

In "Miss Teacher Bangs a Boy", he also was shown using a very potent type of mace designed for use on bears. He uses it with gusto on suspects and people evading capture, as well as on people who probably did not need it. The rest of his crew uses the same mace.

Cartman also carries around what appears to be a Glock 17 pistol that has been seen in a few episodes. He however has never fired it, and only uses it to threaten people. He used it to "persuade" Kyle into giving him his Jew Gold in "Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow." In "Cartoon Wars Part II", Cartman used it to threaten the president of FOX, however he realizes soon that he forgot to load it, causing him to throw it to the ground in frustration. In "The China Probrem" when he and Butters stormed a Chinese restaurant, and he orders Butters to use his gun to hold the crowd and fire at any intruders (although Cartman begins to regret giving Butters the firearm, as Butters keeps accidentally shoots men in the dick). His most recent use of the weapon was in "PC Principal Final Justice", where he threatens his mother at gunpoint, who soon after reciprocated the action.

Despite the fact that he has many weapons at his disposal, he does not seem to be very good with them. In "Wing", he is seen firing an unidentified assault rifle, although he never can land precise shots with it due to the recoil making Cartman flail his arms around, although this is understandable as 9 year olds are not generally intended to use firearms. He killed two Chinese but he wasn't aiming at them. He also shows an inability to use his dagger when fighting Kenny over the Wall-Mart, although it is likely he either had no interest in killing Kenny (only use the dagger for threatening people), or that he was too pre-occupied with Kenny lightly slapping him to use it.

Cartman uses bladed finger gloves similar to Freddy Krueger when dressed as The Coon. Cartman beats up several people with these weapons; Mint Berry Crunch and The Mosquito at the same time, though it was a surprise attack, a little girl in an airport; several adults in an attempt to stop "murders" and "rapes", and fights off Professor Chaos and General Disarray, though he is eventually beaten. This shows skill, though most were surprise.

Cartman gains the ability to fire electricity at people in "South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut" by way of a defective V-Chip. Cartman uses this ability by using words that are considered naughty. Cartman kills a black demon, and is shown beating Saddam Hussein in a fight, whereas the military could not even harm him with machine guns. Cartman also rises into the air after a chain of naughty words, including "Barbra Streisand". Cartmans electrokinesis is gone in the show, most likely removed as a result of Satan making everything "go back to how it used to be" as per Kenny's final request.

In "1%", Cartman successfully engineers ( Subconsciously, in a psychotic delusion. ) the "deaths" of all his stuffed animals. Cartman "kills" Clyde Frog by slicing him open in several places, and crucifying him to a tree, showing skill with a blade, and enough strength to force sewing needles into a tree; he "kills" Peter Panda by setting him on fire while sleepwalking; he "kills" Muscleman Marc by supposedly boiling him alive; he hooks a bomb collar he apparently made himself onto Wumpletumpkins, showing immense skill with traps and explosives as well as creating and inventing deadly weapons that could be used by the military; and he shoots Polly Prissypants in the head with a magnum revolver several times and using the entire load case of the gun, which was 6 shots total, showing incredible marksmanship, never missing a shot, and always hitting the head and not damaging the chair at all despite the recoil the revolver had.

Cartman, along with the ret of the town, gets addicted to guns in "PC Principal Final Justice", although he doesn't fire one.

Cooking

In the episode "Ass Burgers", Cartman is shown to be able to cook hamburgers very well, if only achievable after putting them in his underpants.

Cartman also makes something called a "Toaster Pastry Chocolate Mix Butter Bar", by taking two pop tarts and sandwiching them with a stick of butter covered in chocolate milk mix in "Fat Camp".

Facebook

Cartman has a Facebook account as seen in "You Have 0 Friends". He ran a regular podcast named Mad Friends (parody of Mad Money). The episode is based on the ever growing Facebook craze. He tried to help Kyle delete Kip Drordy and get new friends by using Chat Roulette, but the only result he got were men masturbating and pictures of penises. In the real world, he has a Facebook account which is run by someone from South Park Studios.

Address

In the episode "Jakovasaurs", Cartman's backpack is shown with a tag that reads:

E. Cartman 21208 E. Bonaza Cir. South Park, CO

Heroic Moments/Heroism

Appearance

Cartman wears a red jacket, yellow mittens, a blue hat with a yellow puff ball on top, brown pants, black shoes, and white socks (as seen in "Super Fun Time"). He sometimes wears a green t-shirt with a bear picture on under his jacket, a white tank top, and occasionally a dark red t-shirt. He has medium-brown hair and a double-chin. He also has triangular-shaped eyebrows, in contrast to the other main boys' rectangular ones. Even though Cartman is overweight, he always denies it (especially in the earlier seasons) by saying, "I'm not fat, I'm just big-boned", or some variation thereof. However, as seen in "Merry Christmas Charlie Manson!" and "Cartmanland", his weight problem may be, in truth, be genetic and runs in the family, as seen by the fact that, with the exception of his mother an aunt, and a cousin, his entire family is extremely overweight. But in "Fat Camp", when he tells his mother to talk about how he's big boned and such, she instead says, "Those were all lies, sweetie, you're just fat." In "Tsst", he is slightly thinner, although in later episodes, he was shown to have regained the lost weight. Cartman likely has blue irises, as, due to the events of "The Succubus", he has Kenny's eyes, which were shown with blue in "Starvin' Marvin". In Season Twenty, he wears a t-shirt with the words "Token's life matters".

To see images of Eric Cartman, visit Eric Cartman/Gallery.

Personality

Cartman is described in various terms, in short, he is an evil, vicious, angry, self-absorbed, immature, destructive, sarcastic, snooty, loud-mouthed, lazy, and insane child. He is the most foul-mouthed character in the show. He is also racist and stereotypes almost everyone he sees. The very dark, usually disturbing undertones to his personality often hint at an extreme mental imbalance. Apart from being portrayed as having a general lack of moral responsibility or social conscience, he also seems to take pleasure from others' misfortune and is generally unable to show empathy, although there have been exceptions, such as in "How to Eat with Your Butt." Despite the severity of his actions, it is likely that they are a type of emotional defense mechanism against his insecurity and (potential) confused sexuality. This "defense", however, does not seem to be impenetrable, as evidenced by "1%". This has been parodied as well, in the cliché of a typical villain becoming benevolent. In these episodes, he usually convinces Kyle that he has good intentions, such as in the "Cartoon Wars" two-parter, where Cartman appears to Kyle that he is concerned about people's safety at the beginning, but it is later shown to only have been doing it to get Family Guy off the air. In the "Do the Handicapped Go to Hell?" and "Probably" two-parter, Kyle and many others fall for Cartman's apparently "good intentions" for trying to prevent the children of South Park from going to hell. However, it is revealed that he only did it so he could earn money. In "Kenny Dies", he is distraught at Kenny's impending death leading Kyle to console him. Later when his supposedly real motives were revealed, knowing how Cartman typically is, Kyle promptly fights him in Kenny's defense, although Cartman was genuinely distraught over Kenny's illness before and after he learns that he can benefit from it. This clearly shows that Cartman went through Congress for Kenny and reveals that he does not have a healthy way of dealing with the death of his friend.

Cartman can, on rare occasions, show compassion towards cats, as in "Major Boobage" in which he hides cats in his attic from the authorities. This compassion hints that he has not progressed to be a full sociopath.

In "The Death of Eric Cartman", Kyle sums up Cartman's character as a "fat, racist, self-centered, intolerant, manipulative sociopath".

He has been shown to harass and bully people at his school, and, as a result, many people in the show despise him. Cartman, however, does not consider himself to be a bully who likes to pick on other people to pleasure himself; in fact, he seems to disregard good or bad altogether (or perhaps simply does not have a concept of it) and does whatever he feels necessary for him to get ahead. Cartman seems to be motivated not so much by personal gain as by asserting superiority over others. In "Red Hot Catholic Love", he won $20 in a bet with Kyle, but, instead of using the money, he simply kept flaunting it in front of Kyle until Kyle conceded that Cartman was right, ruining his sense of victory and causing him to throw a tantrum (and apparently even abandon the money and having it given back to Kyle). The same thing happens in "Christian Rock Hard": Kyle makes a $10 bet that he can get a platinum album before Cartman, Cartman makes a successful album and makes millions of dollars and earning the album. But, when Cartman wins a myrrh album and discovers that the Christian companies do not give out platinum albums (Christ did not believe in such things, the albums stem from the gifts of the three wise men; they give out gold, frankincense, and myrrh albums), thus meaning he cannot win the bet, he angrily destroys the myrrh album, showing that he did not care how he just made millions of dollars, he just wanted to beat Kyle in a bet.

Cartman's much quoted line, "Respect my authority" (or as Cartman pronounces it, "respect mah authori-tah") highlights his power hungry and dictatorial characteristics. Despite these traits, Cartman rarely commands respect from his peers. Cartman's friendships with the other kids are clearly existent, but just not shown as much because of his personality.

Ironically, despite (or perhaps because of) these qualities, Cartman also seems to be a natural leader, able to utilize overwhelming charisma and rhetoric to gain the obedience of large groups on a moment's notice (as in "The Passion of the Jew"), appearing to be innately aware of how to take advantage of "mob mentality" and direct it toward accomplishing his personal goals, as has been evidenced in countless episodes throughout the series' history. In situations where the other boys share his goals, Cartman is often the de facto leader (e.g. "Make Love, Not Warcraft", "The List", and "Marjorine"). Indeed, the others consistently show a willingness to follow him and trust in his leadership when he's using his abilities for "good."

Cartman also seems to share many of the shows creators' (Trey Parker and Matt Stone) more controversial opinions, despite both of them modeling Stan and Kyle after themselves. Examples of this include an extremely strong dislike for Family Guy for its lack of character development, plot, or smart humor. Other examples include Cartman's strong distaste of hippies, to the point that he has personally kept them out of South Park since he was 4 years old, and his belittlement of the Catholic Church as extremist, homophobic, and a supporter of pedophiles (in "Medicinal Fried Chicken"). He also considers John Lennon to be the "king of hippies".

Discrimination

Even though Cartman is a child, he discriminates against a lot of people. In fact, he is a racist, sexist, and specialist. He hates African Americans, Mexicans, Native Americans, Aborigines, and Asians. He is a racist because he thinks that "minorities" would take over the world someday as revealed in "The China Probrem" and in "Pee". In first three seasons, Cartman did not show any racism but it soon developed after the events of "Cartman's Silly Hate Crime". His discrimination lead to him becoming a bully on Token Black as he was African American. His sexism is also seen in the series as he hates girls too but that is because he is sexually confused. He actually believes that girls and women are weaker than men and stupider too. However he was proven wrong about that after he got beat up by Wendy Testaburger in "Breast Cancer Show Ever". His sexism also made him turn his own mom into a personal slave who spoils Eric with anything he wanted, however, she started to resist him in "Tsst". Cartman's speciesism is also seen in the show and started to show it against his cat, Mr. Kitty. Cartman also has bigotry towards extraterrestrials and is extremely xenophobic but that is simply because some visitors placed an anal probe into him twice, thus starting his speciesism. However this kind of speciesism against alien races is very rarely seen in the show.

Antisemitism and Other Forms of Bigotry

If you had a chance to go back in time right now and stop Hitler, wouldn't you do it? I mean, I personally wouldn't stop him, because I think he was awesome, but you would, right?" - Cartman in "Make Love, Not Warcraft"

Cartman is extremely anti-Semitic, and a great many of his bigoted actions are directed towards all Jews and especially toward his Jewish friend Kyle, whom he openly hates and considers sub-human because of his faith. In the episode ."The Passion of the Jew", after seeing The Passion of the Christ, he believes the film was Mel Gibson's way of rallying people against the Jews, and idolizes him for it. He then dresses up as Hitler and manipulates a group of people, who think that they are simply raising awareness for the movie and Christianity, to join him in an anti-Jew march while chanting in mispronounced German: "Es ist Zeit für Rache" (It is time for revenge) and "Wir müssen die Juden ausrotten" (We must exterminate the Jews).

When he tried to win the Special Olympics by feigning a disability in "Up the Down Steroid" , Kyle attempts to talk him out of it by telling him, regardless of their differences, that Cartman will surely go to Hell for such an act; Cartman replies that Kyle does not understand that Hell is reserved for the Jews, indicating once again his self-righteousness. He also has been shown to consider Judaism to be a disability and the title "Jew" to be an insult. He also believes Jews to be incapable of many professions, such as basketball player, singing/rhythm, fireman, pirate or even so much as someone tough, however on some occasions his accusations have been proven true (particularly rhythm).

In the episode "Pinkeye", Cartman dresses up as Hitler for Halloween (A costume made by his mother even though Cartman himself did not know who Hitler was, showing that his antisemitism may come from his mother in some part). When shown a documentary to demonstrate why dressing like him isn't cool, Cartman is enthralled and imagines himself being the one commanding the Nazi troops in the video. Cartman's admiration for Hitler is further emphasized in "The Entity", after being offered $40 by Kyle not to tease Kyle's cousin, Kyle Schwartz. Since Cartman has trouble restraining himself from teasing Kyle Schwartz about his Jewish heritage (since he is the stereotypical Jew that Kyle Broflovski had been trying to avoid being for five years), when Ms. Choksondik later tells Kyle Schwartz to concentrate, Cartman impulsively blurts out: "Maybe we should send him to concentration camp!"

A contradiction of his idolization of Adolf Hitler is seen in "I'm a Little Bit Country" where in this episode Cartman is incapable of pronouncing "Nazi" correctly (pronouncing it "Nay-zee") upon seeing it written, as though he had never come upon the word before. Another contradiction occurs in "Tsst", when Cartman compares his mother who had been instructed how to treat her rampantly egocentric son by the Dog Whisperer, with Hitler, as a reason why she should be killed (although this is probably because Cartman is not being allowed to indulge in his personal desires).

In addition to taking regular jabs at racial, ethnic and religious minorities, as well as people of lower income like Kenny, Cartman is also prejudicial against red-haired, light skinned and freckled people, which means that he is anti ginger. This particular prejudice most probably originated from the notorious incident with Scott Tenorman, who had red hair and freckles, although it may also be partially due to the fact that Kyle has red hair and Liane Cartman's presumed prejudice against red haired people. He believes that ginger kids are the most evil people in the world and that they have no souls, which is clearly false. During the episode "Ginger Kids", when the other three boys lead him to believe he has become a Ginger himself in order to teach him a lesson, he is horrified. Later, he organizes a cult of homicidal Ginger children bent on world conquest known as the "Ginger Separatist Movement", remarking: "I'm not going to live my life as a Goddamn minority!" Ironically, Cartman has an aunt who is red-haired. An even bigger irony however, would be when he later discover that he was indeed half-Ginger, as his biological father, Jack Tenorman (who was also father of Scott Tenorman) was a Ginger football player for the Denver Broncos. This would technically make him a "Daywalker"; he does have the Ginger gene. Cartman hates ginger kids a lot because he thinks that they would take over the world someday and are soulless. Cartman seems to ignore his half ginger heritage in later episodes simply because he is ashamed of it.

Cartman also may harbor some bigotry towards African-Americans. He is never shown out right hating black people (although he does believe in several stereotypes), and is shown several times playing with Token and seeking advice from Chef (one of the few characters on the show Cartman generally respected). Although Cartman was in jail for his "hate crime" on Token, even though it is quite obvious he did not bash Token's head with a rock because he is black, but because he thought Token had insulted him (it was in fact Kyle who did this). Even though he usually rips on Token for being black, and he said he is gonna kill Token someday - ("Christian Rock Hard"), he does not seem to harbor negative feelings for black people, and Cartman always says he is going to kill people, so saying he was going to kill Token might not be personal. In "The Death of Eric Cartman", when Butters asks him what if he's not supposed to go to Heaven, but to "heck", Cartman responds "I'm not going to Heck, Butters! I'm not black, all right?!". This is strange because in Up the Down Steroid when Kyle informs that Cartman is going to cheat, Cartman responds to this by saying that hell is only reserved for Jews, but he did not include African Americans into the mix.

Cartman's most passionate abhorrence is aimed at hippies, though he seems to use this term for liberals in general. In "Die Hippie, Die", he believes that hippies will destroy the town, and while the rest of the townspeople are initially skeptical, his fears are eventually borne out. When too close to liberals, he suffers what could be called an allergic reaction. He also wore a bio-suit upon entering San Francisco in Smug Alert!. His primary goal of that was because he needed someone to pick on (he had started to pick on Butters, but Butters just wasn't feeling it.). Cartman's hatred of hippies and allergic reaction to liberals could mean that Cartman is a conservative. This means that Cartman does support the republican party but he did not tantrum over any losses in presidential elections, unlike Ike Broflovski. Instead of throwing tantrums, Cartman burglarizes houses and steals property from liberals and conservatives as revealed in About Last Night... when he broke into peoples houses and stole their T.V.'s in order to make some cash while they were out getting drunk on the streets or had killed themselves. He seems to have some liberal beliefs, he never openly states that he's a Republican but does say that Democrats piss him off, although he doesn't to have any objection to them protesting in "I'm a Little Bit Country".

Cartman's bigotry and antisemitism seem to come in second next to his personal needs, however; despite his hate for the Jews, Cartman saves Kyle in the episode "Smug Alert!" because he can find no one else to pick on. In "Le Petit Tourette", he is not above thanking Kyle for stopping him from humiliating himself on national television. Also, he saved the life of Kyle, (who had been killed by Manbearpig) in "Imaginationland, Episode II"; while this was seemingly because Kyle would not be able to suck his balls if he died, he was shown to cry, and showed concern even before the military leader reminded him that "at least now he doesn't have to suck anyone's balls." Enraged, Cartman yells in despair, "No, he has a strong heart, he wants to live!!!" and began performing CPR on his dying "friend".

Alignment

Cartman is usually an orderly individual, while his goals are chaotic in nature, he obeys rules when they suit him, even using order to manipulate other people. He often idolizes people whom he feels share his various bigotries and aims. By this reasoning, he falls under "Neutral Evil", with no particular preference towards law or chaos, as either one can be used to his advantage. Cartman is usually cold-hearted and selfish, but can be warm-hearted and caring on a whim. This sensitive and selfless side of Cartman is often a superficial cover up for a selfish scheme he has in mind.

Eccentricities

It has been repeatedly shown that Cartman has serious behavioral and emotional problems. He has extremely exaggerated anger issues and violent tendencies when upset. Perhaps the best example of this is seen in "Scott Tenorman Must Die", when he had two people shot, ground into chili and then fed to their distraught son, causing a horrified Kyle to say that he and Stan should never piss off Cartman again. This has since been regarded as Cartman's defining moment and has been brought up again countless times during the series.

He also has displayed traits of gender confusion; he occasionally has tea parties with stuffed dolls (pretending they are talking about how cool he is), owns a (supposed) female cat named "Mr. Kitty", and in "Bebe's Boobs Destroy Society", he was seen re-enacting a scene from The Silence of the Lambs as Buffalo Bill with a rag doll he named Polly Prissy-Pants trapped down a well. In "Freak Strike", Cartman goes on the Maury Povich Show to be a panelist during a discussion on out-of-control kids. In an attempt to win the assumed prize, he dresses up as a promiscuous teenage girl. In the episode "AWESOM-O", Butters reveals to the residents of South Park a video of Cartman dressed as Britney Spears, while dancing around a cardboard cut-out of Justin Timberlake, which he apparently later made out with.

Cartman's confused sexuality is most apparent in the episode "Cartman Sucks", in which Cartman takes pictures of himself with Butters' penis in his mouth to make Butters look gay. However, Kyle, Stan and Kenny explain that such actions actually make Cartman look gay, which results in Cartman trying to get a picture taken of his own penis in Butters' mouth. Another moment of this apparent confusion can be seen during the events of the "Imaginationland" trilogy, where he bet Kyle that leprechauns were real, and if he won, Kyle would have to suck his balls. Although Cartman was proven to be right, Kyle refused, causing Cartman to become obsessed, and began going to extreme lengths to force Kyle to suck on his balls. When Jimmy later questions his motive behind pursuing Kyle to get him to suck his balls as being "a little faggy", he explains that it was all to humiliate Kyle. In Le Petit Tourette he unconsciously blurts out that he touched penises with his cousin.

Mispronunciations

Ever since Cartman's voice has changed, he has a peculiar, geographically indeterminable accent, or possibly speech impediment, with odd pronunciations of certain words and names which has shown to be a dominant trait in the extended Cartman family. Aside from the sheer volume of expletives in his dialog, he also uses words in different (and often grammatically incorrect) context. Some examples of this are: instead of saying 'I'm serious" he will say "I'm seriously", instead of saying "here" he will say "heahre" (sometimes in the earlier episodes, he would even pronounce "here" as "myah"), apologized to Wendy by saying he was very "remoursefulness" for his actions ("Breast Cancer Show Ever"), and instead of saying "respect my authority", he'll say "respect mah authoritah." This became a well-known catchphrase of the show.

Kyle - Kahl / Keh-al / Kel / Kyel

Kenny - Keeny / Kinny

Wendy - Weendy / Windy

Clyde - Clay / Clayed

Mom - Meom / Meem / Mium

Cool - Kewl

School - Schewl

Coon - Cyoon / Cyune

My- Mah / Miah / Mio

Authority - Authoritah

Here - Hyah

In the episode, "The Poor Kid", Cartman was finally confronted by other characters about his mispronounciations. When Cartman says "I beat you to it, Kyel," Kyle retorts, "My name is not Kyel." Later on in the episode, after Cartman screamed for his new foster mother, Mrs. Weatherhead walked into the room, replying with "My name is not Meem."

Greed

A defining arc during the show's fourth season was Cartman's single-minded quest to make 10 million dollars. The schemes he has tried include; becoming a part of the Denver "tooth racket"; and stealing Tooth Fairy money from kids, starting a boy band called Fingerbang, and forming his own church and embezzling it's collection money These all failed miserably for several reasons. He also tried at it in the episode "Cherokee Hair Tampons" when Kyle's kidneys were failing and Cartman, being the only one with Kyle's blood type, demanded a payment of 10 million dollars when Stan begged him to let Kyle have his kidney. He has also tried to sell a crashed truck-load of aborted fetuses to the highest-bidding stem cell research center, and even to a restaurant as food. In "Up the Down Steroid", Cartman had also pretended he was retarded to compete in the Special Olympics and win $1000. The reasons for this are never fully explained, although in one episode "Cartmanland", after inheriting a million dollars from his grandmother, he reveals that he wishes to buy his own amusement park so he won't have to wait in lines for the rides. He also stated that it has been his dream to own a million dollars since he was two years old. In "Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow", he threatens Kyle with a gun for his "Jew Gold". In "ManBearPig" Cartman stumbles upon a pile of treasure while the boys are trapped in a system of caves. Afraid that the others might find the treasure and demand a share, Cartman decides to swallow as many of the coins and jewels as he can, causing him to become extremely bloated and unable to walk or swim on his own. Later in the episode it is revealed, during the process of painfully crapping it out, that the treasure is fake and used for photographs for tourists at the caves. He is miserably and completely scrooged, determined not to give up the slightest amount of money, such as refusing to give a dollar to Afghan children in "Osama bin Laden Has Farty Pants", "I'm not giving a dollar to those towel-heads!" Craig Tucker observed in "Fishsticks" that Jimmy was lucky Cartman was only asking for half the money that would be made from patenting a joke that Jimmy had come up with, and Cartman was intent on taking credit for (he had actually lied on the couch eating chips, offering no input).

Ignorance

Although Cartman can at times be worldly, he is often wildly misinformed; he once believed that dolphins lived in igloos and mistook a canned food drive for 'when you cut open a chick's stomach and pull out the baby from inside,' and mistakes sexual harassment when 'you're having intercourse with a lady friend and someone tickles your balls from behind.'

Cartman appears to know very little about the female anatomy. In "The Return of Chef" he threatened a woman with, "Bitch, I'll twist your nuts off". Also, in the episode "Chickenpox", when he was told that his mom sent him to Kenny's house so he would catch chickenpox, he claimed that he would "kick her square in the nuts". In "Raisins", he agreed with Butters when he said to Bebe "Oh yeah? Well, at least we have assholes."

In "The List", he made a plan to steal a list the girls made of who the cutest boys in the class were. The plan involved Butters kicking one of the girls in the balls, which failed of course, forcing Cartman and the rest of the boys to conclude that "Our mission failed, but we've learned a lot; primarily that girls do not have balls". Despite this, in "Member Berries" he was shown to still not have learned this. In "Fort Collins", having seen Heidi Turner's vagina, it is implied he still does not realize women don't have balls.

In "Are You There God? It's Me, Jesus", Cartman claimed he had hit puberty because he had his period, when really he had an infection that made him bleed out his butt (he didn't realize that only girls got periods until God told him at the end of the episode.)

In "Miss Teacher Bangs a Boy", it is shown that Cartman's idea of sexual intercourse is to "Stick it inside her and pee. If you don't want to get her pregnant you pull it out and pee on her leg." In the first episode. Cartman complains "Mom! Kitty's being a dildo!" showing ignorance of the context in which "dildo" is used and, possibly, what a dildo is. However, it is possible he is using it as a generic insult, such as calling someone a "dick".

Also in Pee, his ignorance is again displayed when he thinks all the minorities in "his" water park are what the Mayans predicted and by 2012, the apocalypse will be when the whole world is minorities.

Cartman also confuses English people with French people. In the early seasons, he often teased Pip and called him a "French piece of crap". On the other extreme, in the movie, he called The Mole a "'British piece of' shit", despite The Mole being supposedly French. Additionally, in "The Jeffersons", he alludes to despising Austrians, apparently failing to note the irony of the fact that he admires Hitler, who was Austrian.

It is also worth noting that Cartman is completely oblivious to the fact the other kids hate him, and often assumes they're joking when they imply or even openly declare it.

In the episode "201" Cartman completely ignores the fact that he got his own father killed and fed to his half-brother and is more concerned about being half-ginger.

In "Bass to Mouth", Cartman is oblivious to the fact that his making another student crap herself is useless when trying to prevent the suicide of another student.

Impatience

Cartman shows a pathological degree of impatience when forced to do something he doesn't want to do or when he has to wait for something he wants. An example of the former is seen in "I'm a Little Bit Country", in which Cartman electrocutes himself in an attempt to create a flashback and avoid studying. In the episode "Go God Go", where Cartman freezes himself so that he won't have to wait three weeks for the Nintendo Wii console to be released, which shows irony in the end; Butters cannot find where Cartman was frozen due to an avalanche, and Eric is thawed out almost 500 years in the future, the people there zap him back to his own time where it turns out that he got sent back three months before the Wii's release. In Medicinal Fried Chicken, Cartman is shown to be extremely agitated when he has waited to have KFC for too long and blurts out obscenities and shouting horrible things to his friends and to his mom Liane Cartman and when the KFCs get replaced with medicinal marijuana stores, he goes to an addiction clinic to be prescribed with KFC gravy.

Physical Confrontations

Although Cartman frequently insults and taunts his friends, he sometimes appears to be more cowardly than they are when it comes to physical confrontation. In "It's Christmas in Canada", after Cartman repeatedly threatens to beat Kyle up if they don't get home in time for Christmas, Kyle punches Cartman and he immediately bursts into tears. A similar instance can be seen during "Cartman Sucks", although Kyle only punches Cartman in the arm. Cartman may react like this to gain sympathy from other boys so he may turn the other boys against Kyle (showcased in "It's a Jersey Thing", where he turned Butters and a few other boys against Kyle by exaggerating how Kyle pushed him against a tree) or he could just be cowardly, it is unknown which (It is likely the latter).

At the end of "Kenny Dies", after Cartman revealed his true motives for fighting to lift the ban on stem cell research, to replicate a "Shakey's Pizza" and not to save Kenny's life, Kyle, enraged about this, brutally begins to beat up Cartman, delivering several blows to his chest and a good roundhouse right. The beating continued on until the end of the episode and hasn't been mentioned at all since, although it shows Kyle was able to beat Cartman easily when angry.

In "Goobacks", Cartman threatens Kyle and it leads to Kyle giving Cartman a bloody nose. In "Christian Rock Hard", Cartman is beaten up by Token after provoking him with racial jibes. In several episodes, he is seen able to overpower Kenny, but in some episodes he isn't capable of doing so. However, in earlier episodes like "Damien" he is able to beat up Kyle. Despite this, Kyle beat up Cartman in the more recent "Tonsil Trouble" without hesitation.

In "Tweek vs. Craig", Cartman has no problem with fighting the other boys back physically (and it is revealed that Sumo is his martial art of choice). In "I'm a Little Bit Country" he smiles and sings the Dawson's Creek theme while he kills the Official Messenger Boy with a piece of wood then drags the body off-screen, although this happens in what was essentially a fantasy of Cartman's and may, therefore, due to Cartman's inflated ego, not be representative of his actual abilities. Also in the episode "Cartoon Wars Part II", he and Kyle have a slap fight, which he won (though this was more through deceit than skill), and in the episode "With Apologies to Jesse Jackson", he was dominant in a physical fight against a midget (who supposedly had a black belt in karate). Also in "Cartman's Silly Hate Crime 2000" he threw a rock at Token, giving him a black eye.

In "Miss Teacher Bangs a Boy", Cartman is shown being physically abusive to innocent kids in the hallways. He once pushes an unnamed kid up against a wall, until the kid showed him his hall pass, after which Cartman acts as if nothing happened. The kid questions Cartman about his abuse of power, and Cartman promptly kicks him across the room in a somewhat cartoonish way, although he is never shown pulling off a feat like that again.

In "Breast Cancer Show Ever", Cartman is shown to be quite nervous over fighting Wendy and is shown going to great lengths to avoid the confrontation. However, when Wendy decides to fight him regardless, he is quite spectacularly defeated.

Overall, Cartman is a decent fighter, although he can be a wuss and particularly enraged opponents can beat him with ease. His specialty lies more with weapons than his fists.

Throughout all of these scenes, it is heavily suggested that Cartman indeed has a high tolerance for pain, however will often feign pain to gain sympathy from those around him. This shown especially in It's a Jersey Thing, where it wasn't until after Kyle left did he start crying from being attacked by him, and then later used it to convince other boys to lock him in a meat locker. In "Coon 2: Hindsight", Cartman, as The Coon, beat up Bradley and Clyde after questioning his method of running Coon and Friends. He also gives Clyde a nasty cut after kicking him in the face, showing his jumping abilities and the amount of force he can kick with.

Miscellaneous Mannerisms

Cartman has a disturbing habit of appearing in other people's homes in the middle of the night. He has a preoccupation with becoming mature, or at least more so than his friends, which frequently ends in him doing something that is anything but mature. Cartman also appears to be driven by a desire to surpass Kyle (especially), Stan, and Kenny. Knowing that his satisfaction chiefly comes with seeing other people unhappy, Kyle once deliberately congratulated Cartman on winning a bet. This, of course, ruined Cartman's egotistical satisfaction at having humiliated him.

Cartman also carries around what appears to be a Glock 17 pistol that has been seen in several episodes. He has actually never fired it, and only uses it to threaten people. He used it to "persuade" Kyle into giving him his Jew Gold in "Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow." In "Cartoon Wars Part II", Cartman used it to threaten the president of FOX, however he realizes soon that he forgot to load it, causing him to throw it to the ground in frustration. His most recent use of it was when he and Butters stormed a Chinese restaurant, and he orders Butters to use his gun to hold the crowd and fire at any intruders (although Cartman begins to regret giving Butters the firearm because he keeps accidentally shooting men in the genitals).

Cartman apparently sees scenes of sickening and/or disturbing imagery every time he closes his eyes, but thinks nothing of it. He also occasionally has milk come out of his nose when he laughs, even when he was not drinking any. This milk-sneezing problem is due to a malfunctioning kidney, which Cartman is tricked into donating for transplant, benefiting his friend Kyle, who receives the malfunctioning organ as seen in the episode "Cherokee Hair Tampons". Many of Cartman's mannerisms were revealed to be inherited in "Merry Christmas Charlie Manson!", in which most of the Cartman family were depicted in a similar manner.

Health

Eric is quite possibly morbidly obese. In "1%", it is revealed that he is so unhealthy that he single handedly made the school's average on the Presidential Fitness Test the lowest in the entire country, despite the fact that all of the other students scored average on the test.

HIV

In the first episode of the twelfth season, "Tonsil Trouble", it is revealed that Cartman has in the past needed a routine tonsil checkup. In this episode, however, he was diagnosed with tonsillitis and his tonsils had to be removed. In doing so, they accidentally gave him HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. He was angered by this and his anger worsened when Kyle laughed - out of irony, disbelief and thrill that something so horrible has happened to his worst enemy. Cartman, with the help of Butters, then snuck into Kyle's room and intentionally gave Kyle AIDS. Kyle figured it out and hunted Cartman down and beat him up in the schoolyard and broke many of his toys (including Clyde Frog). Cartman, in the meantime, researched the virus and found out that Magic Johnson had AIDS for decades and is still alive. Cartman and Kyle then found out, along with Mr. Johnson, that the actual cure for AIDS was heavy doses of cash, the point being the solution to any problem is to throw lots and lots of cold-hard cash at it. Cartman and Kyle have both since recovered from the disease. Kyle still made it a point to break his Xbox after they come back from New York and LA curing AIDS.

Kyle's mockery of Cartman's infection with HIV is ironic, since Cartman has wished on many occasions in past episodes for Kyle to have AIDS: In "Casa Bonita", Cartman, Kenny, and Stan are all playing video games when Kyle enters and says that he has good news, to which Cartman hopefully replies "You have AIDS?" In "Woodland Critter Christmas", Cartman ends his fictional Christmas story with the line, "And everyone lived happily ever after...except for Kyle who died of AIDS two weeks later." This similar closing line also used in the episode "Pip". In "Red Man's Greed", Cartman suggests giving Kyle AIDS as a potential way to raise money. In "Cartman Joins NAMBLA", while playing a board game Cartman gives Kyle an AIDS card, giving him AIDS in the game. Stan then remarks to Cartman, "Dude, that's not cool. Don't give Kyle AIDS."



Eyesight

In the episode "The Succubus" it is revealed that Cartman's eyesight is very bad. After several unsuccessful attempts by the optician to cure them, including a pupil dilation that resulted in him walking into several walls and a botched laser eye surgery that ended up with Cartman having to wear bandages over his eyes for three days, he managed to get a transplant from a "donor" who's head he had preserved in ice - the donor being Kenny, who Cartman says had perfect sight.

Mental Health

However, obesity, HIV, poor eyesight, and bad tonsils may be the least of Cartman's health concerns; Cartman seems to have a very poor mental health. He shows signs of not only anti-social behavior, but also sadism, identity issues, sexual confusion, psychosis, psychopathic nature, and narcissism. He apparently dreams of humiliating, beating, emotionally destroying or even killing Kyle. For example in "Fat Butt and Pancake Head", Cartman dreams of taunting Kyle ("I told ya so!") so much that the latter starts crying. In "South Park is Gay!", he seems to hope to kill Kyle without any reason. However, it was not until the Season Five episode "Scott Tenorman Must Die" incident that we see how deep his insanity goes, when he creates a highly elaborate and sociopathy scheme, resulting in murder and cannibalism. In "Tsst", he beats up a kid, handcuffs him to the flagpole, gives him a hacksaw, poisons him, and tells him the only way to get to the antidote was to saw off his leg. This is similar to the Saw movies.

Cartman also seems incapable to admit his own errors and history, and instead alters past events in his own mind to show himself in a better light, as seen in "City on the Edge of Forever (Flashbacks)" (though so did everyone else) and "Fishsticks". Cartman's mind even once backfired against him during "Le Petit Tourette", during which he made everyone believe he was suffering from Tourette's Syndrome, so as to be able to go around saying whatever horrible hateful thing he wanted without consequences. Unfortunate, this resulted in him being completely unable to control what he said, and began revealing assorted secrets such as him and his cousin touching penises. Cartman's sanity is called in to question with the existence of Mitch Conner/Jennifer Lopez, who is Cartman's hand given a personality/backstory. In "Fat Butt and Pancake Head" Cartman did ventriloquism with his hand, claiming it thought itself to be a real person, named Mitch Conner, who was a con-man posing as Jennifer Lopez. Cartman would often argue with the hand at length, and the hand would apparently work independently of Cartman, such as masturbating Ben Affleck. Cartman would later claim it was just a prank on Kyle and the others. However in "200", Cartman brings back Mitch Conner to swindle a group of celebrities, and again proceeds to argue with his hand and disagreeing with it, despite the fact there is no one around him to trick, leading one to believe that Cartman really believes the hand is a person. The hand also claims to have knowledge that Cartman does not, such as who Cartman's father really is. In "201" it is revealed that Cartman is Scott Tenorman's half-brother, meaning that he killed his own father; Jack Tenorman and fed it to Scott Tenorman in a bowl of chili. However, he was more concerned about being half-ginger than the fact that he murdered his own father.

In "T.M.I.", it is revealed that Cartman has an exceptionally tiny penis (even for a boy of 9 years old), and the insecurity of that seems to a leading or at least additional factor driving Cartman's psychotic rages. When the schools posts height measurements in the hallway for the boys, Cartman assumes it to be penis sizes and demands all the boys measure their sizes to disprove the original measurements. His rage in this particularly incident leads him to getting Anger Management, during which his doctor attempts to insult him to produce an angry reaction. Cartman oddly enough does not demonstrate his rage vocally, in a coldly sadistic manner by manipulating the doctor's wife into killing herself through a simple set of text messages. Cartman is then put in a group anger management session, during which he several like-minded individuals with small penises go on a rage driven rampage.

In "1%", it appears that Cartman has multiple identity disorder, as he appears to have "murdered" his stuffed animals while having no memory of destroying them. However, it is implied that ventriloquism is used only when the toys speak, and that they do indeed have a mind of their own. For example, Cartman couldn't possibly have killed his stuffed animals while heading downstairs with Token. Additionally, it's also possible that Peter Panda was killed by the 5th graders. Cartman could be best described as having sadistic personality disorder with passive-aggressive traits, also known as a "Tyrannical Sadist".

Sexuality

Cartman often shows less interest in sexuality than the other boys. This seems intentional on the writer's parts, and fits with his self-absorption, immaturity, and gender confusion. An example for this would be seen in the episode "Raisins", where the boys end up in an eponymous Hooters-like restaurant, and Cartman only shows interest in the food, rather than all the skimpily-dressed waitresses. The other boys, however, do show interest in them, except Stan, who was too depressed at the time because Wendy Testaburger broke up with him.

In "Chef Goes Nanners", Wendy kisses Cartman on the lips at the flag debate, due to the fact she had a weird dream about him and started feeling attracted to him in the middle of the episode. However, as soon as she was done kisses him, she had no more feelings for him. Although at the end Cartman walked away sad, when she said they were friends again.

Cartman also displays a lack of knowledge about sex, despite the fact that his mom is frequently having sexual relations with other people in South Park; when Kyle says that Ike is too young to understand sex in the episode "Miss Teacher Bangs a Boy", Cartman replies, "What's there to understand? You get a boner, slap her titties around some, then stick it inside her and pee". Cartman's lack of knowledge is also displayed in the episode "Sexual Harassment Panda", when he tells Mr. Garrison that sexual harassment is "trying to have intercourse with a lady friend, and some other guy comes up and tickles your balls from behind." However, the other children, except for Kenny, Butters (who explains sex in great depth to Jimmy "Erection Day" but in a childlike sort of way) and possibly Clyde, do not seem to have more knowledge of sex than Cartman, which is probably because they are only 9 years old.

In "Imaginationland", Cartman makes a bet with Kyle, stating that if he can prove that leprechauns are real, then Kyle will suck his balls. Cartman wins the bet, and his single-minded quest to force Kyle to suck his balls subsequently becomes a significant subplot of the trilogy. Although he doesn't get Kyle to suck his balls in reality, he does imagine Kyle sucking the balls of an imaginary Cartman with much enthusiasm at the end of "Imaginationland, Episode III". It is quite plausible, however, to assume that Cartman's obsession with his quest stems significantly from his desire to humiliate Kyle, rather than from any homosexual attraction to him.

In "Jared Has Aides", after listening to Butters get beaten by his parents, as Cartman was responsible for it by pretending to be Butters on the phone and insulting them, Cartman says, "If I were older I would totally start jacking off right now", hinting at sexual sadism.

In 'Make Love, Not Warcraft", when Clyde Donovan tells Cartman he's going to stop playing World of Warcraft, Cartman says that the French also stopped playing when Hitler rose to power. He then taunts Clyde by asking him if he's French, and then says, "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, Clyde?", meaning "Do you want to sleep with me, Clyde?" in French, although he could just be quoting the French lyric from the song "Lady Marmalade" without understanding the meaning, but he could have been taunting him by saying he's French and using the French stereotype as a way to taunt him.

In "Cartman Sucks", Cartman seeks to humiliate and degrade Butters by taking a picture of himself with Butters' penis in his mouth. After being told by Kyle and Stan that being photographed that way is humiliating him rather than Butters (in other words, being photographed in such a way makes him gay), Cartman then seeks out Butters to make him put his penis in Butters' mouth, but this fails, as the both of them are caught by Butters' father.

In "Proper Condom Use", Butters is putting on a condom, when Cartman is caught by Kyle looking at Butters' penis; Cartman dismissively claims he was trying to see how to put on a condom, which Kyle doesn't believe.

In "Cancelled", Cartman once again finds himself the victim of getting an anal probe from aliens. When Chef and the boys take him to see a proctologist, the doctor sticks his finger and his entire hand in Cartman's rectum. Although initially surprised, Cartman lets out moans of pleasure, just before a fifty foot satellite dish shoots out of his rectum. Although when the satellite retreats back into his rectum, he experiences severe pain.

However, during the events of "Chef Goes Nanners", Cartman briefly became an object of affection for Stan's girlfriend Wendy Testaburger. After being passionately kissed by Wendy at the end of the episode, he is disappointed at the end when she says that she no longer has any feelings for him. In "Tom's Rhinoplasty", Cartman, along with Stan, Kyle, Kenny, and the entire third grade class, were all attracted to the substitute teacher, Ms. Ellen. Although she was a lesbian, and the boys did not understand what it meant, they tried to become lesbians in order to try to win her. Additionally in "Le Petit Tourette" he accidentally admitted to having a crush on a girl named Patty Nelson and also said that he and his cousin "touched wieners".

In "W.T.F.", he cross dresses as "Bad Irene", a woman who is addicted to abortions.

In "Fat Butt and Pancake Head" Cartman's uses his hand as a ventriloquist dummy, who claims his hand is a con-artist named Mitch Conner, who is claiming to be Jennifer Lopez. In order to try and trick the other boys into thinking that his hand might be truly sentient, Mitch/Jennifer (and thus Cartman) pursues a relationship with Ben Affleck during which Cartman proceeds to give Ben multiple hand jobs, one time even waking up in bed with a naked Affleck, his hand covered in "Affleck splooge". While Cartman claims this to be an act in the end, these sexual actions seems to be unconsciously executed, due to the fact that during or after, Cartman is both shocked and disgusted. The fact Cartman does this could indicate an unconscious sexual desire towards men (Ben Affleck in-particular in this case), Cartman's extreme lengths to trick his friend (despite them not being present to witness the hand jobs, making the actions pointless in the grand scheme of things), or that Cartman's Mitch Conner is part of a psychological break resulting in a multiple personality.

In "T.M.I." when the schools posts a list indicating the amount of height that the male students have grown over the past year, Cartman mistakenly assumes it to mean penis size, and goes on a rampage decreeing the "results" to be incorrect due to the tiny size of his own. He then proceeds to demand all the boys submit to new penis measurements, which he personally administers with the exception of his own (due to the fact he falsely claimed to have 13 inch penis). During the process he compliments Butters on his size.

In "Cartman Finds Love", Cartman's imaginary friend, Cupid Me, debuts. He can only be seen by Cartman himself, which makes the other boys get confused. In "Tweek x Craig", he reappears and attempts to flirt with Cartman, but Cartman denies he is gay. Cartman ends up on a date with him, ending in anal sex, which is mistaken by Liane for masturbating.

The episode "The Damned" ends with Cartman asking Heidi what's at the bottom of a vagina, and she responds by saying "want me to show you?", to which he responds "holy shit", as the end credits begin.

Sexual Abuse

Cartman has also had encounters with sexual abuse. In "An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig", Cartman mentions that his mom subjected him to humiliation in a sexual way. He goes on about what he would do if a girl ever threatened to fight him, but instead recounts one such incident.

In "Fun with Veal", Cartman is awoken by Kyle, Stan and Butters to help save some baby cows from slaughter. As the other boy's knock on his window Cartman gives a scream of "NO UNCLE JESSE, NO!" implying that one of his relatives may have abused him. It could also mean he has a sexual fear of Uncle Jesse from the TV show Full House.

In "Cow Days", he receives a concussion that makes him think he is a Vietnamese prostitute named Ming Li, who frequently says "fucky sucky, five dolla" (a reference to Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket), to passing male carnival goers. He then "services" Leonardo DiCaprio, much to his disgust after he reverts back to his normal self.

In "Cartman Joins NAMBLA", his attempt to find older friends winds up with him almost being molested by members of the NAMBLA.

In "The Simpsons Already Did It", after discovering that semen will fertilize his sea-people, he goes to a sperm bank to collect "sea-men". At the sperm bank, he pretends to test a semen sample by smearing it on his fingers. When Cartman later empties a bowl of semen into the tank. He then tells Stan and Kyle that he got some of it from a man named Ralph in an alley, who told him to "close his eyes and suck it out of a hose".

In "AWESOM-O", a movie producer asks Cartman, who is disguised as a robot, if he is a pleasure model. Cartman does not understand him until he takes his pants off, at which point, he runs out yelling in monotone fashion "Lame!" Also, in the episode "Fat Butt and Pancake Head", Cartman convinces Ben Affleck, among others, that his left hand is an actual woman named Jennifer Lopez; Affleck later has a sexual encounter with "Miss Lopez", leaving Cartman's hand covered with his semen.

In "It's a Jersey Thing", Cartman was one of the various victims of Snooki, others being DogPoo Petuski and Stephen Stotch. Ironically, after having attacked Kyle throughout most of the episode due to his being conceived in New Jersey (as well as being ginger and Jewish), Kyle is the one who saves Cartman from this encounter.

Family

The most active family member in Cartman's life is his mother, Liane Cartman. A recurring joke throughout the series is that, despite his mother's sweetness and wholesome demeanor, she is in fact a promiscuous, oversexed, crack-smoking, scheiße-porn queen, prostitute, and nymphomaniac. Many of these aspects of Liane's personal life are a constant source of annoyance for Cartman, whose friends often mock him over, and which he attempts to fruitlessly deny. An example being when Stan and Kyle continuously stated she was on the cover of "Crack-Whore" magazine in "Pinkeye". Cartman, attempted to deny this fact, until presented with the magazine itself. He then stated that she had been "young and needed the money", which unfortunately did not work, as Stan and Kyle pointed out that the pictures had been taken just a month ago. Liane constantly dotes over Cartman, doing almost anything he asks and at times even agreeing to his most horrible ideas and plans, such as signing him up for the Special Olympics in "Up the Down Steroid." The fact Liane allows Cartman to bully and control her is apparently due to extreme loneliness brought up by not have a serious romantic partner and also apparently not having any close friends. She thus desires that Cartman be her 'friend', and will do anything to keep him happy. This unfortunately could explain much of his behavior. It has been implied (at least in earlier episodes) that Liane may be responsible for much of Cartman's racism, anti-semitism and homophobia, as he often was to quote disparaging things that he had supposedly heard her say. For the most part, it seemed that Cartman was perhaps lying or misquoting his mother, except for in "Pinkeye", in which Liane made Cartman an Adolf Hitler Halloween costume, despite Cartman not knowing who that was at the time.

For over twelve seasons since " Cartman's Mom is Still a Dirty Slut ", Cartman lived under the belief that his mother was a hermaphrodite and also his biological father. In " 200 " however, Cartman's hand/puppet Mitch Conner reveals that what Cartman was told was a lie and that Liane was not Cartman's father. After demanding answers out of Mr. Garrison and Mr. Hat , it is revealed that the paternity tests were altered and one of the people in the room at the time of revelation was indeed Cartman's father. In " 201 " it is revealed that Cartman's father is actually Jack Tenorman , a ginger haired member ofthe Denver Broncos and father of Cartman's arch-rival Scott Tenorman . Apparently during the night of the Drunk Barn Dance, Liane proceeded to have sex with assorted men and women; however Jack was the one who impregnated her. Cartman unfortunately never got to meet his father properly, due to the fact that during his war against his half-brother Scott (in which Scott sold Eric his pubes, stating it would allow him to reach maturity), Cartman killed both Jack and his wife, ground their bodies up into ground meat, cooked it in chili and proceeded to feed it to Scott. Cartman does not regret killing his father however, instead is horrified to know that he is half-ginger and thus carries the ginger gene in his body. He was, however, happy when reminded that his father was actually a Denver Bronco.

Cartman's extended family is shown in the episode "Merry Christmas Charlie Manson!", where he and the others go on a trip to Nebraska to visit them for Christmas. Most of his relatives appear to be similar in manner to him; all fat, with the same speech accent and catchphrases. The family is seen again in the episode "Cartmanland", at his grandmother's funeral. Where she leaves her estate (valued at $1,000,000) to Eric, citing that all the other family members would have spent it all on crack.

In the "The Unaired Pilot" episode, Cartman was shown to have a father and sister, but these characters were cut out in the official pilot. In "Le Petit Tourette", he accidentally revealed that he cries at night because he does not have a real father.

He has some Dutch and Irish descent, as in "Tom's Rhinoplasty", he mentions that his grandmother (Mabel) is Dutch-Irish.

Liane dotes on her son endlessly, beyond simply spoiling him. Cartman usually gets whatever he wants simply by whining in his signature style. He also frequently insults her in her presence, which she accepts without question. Although Liane possesses a social and moral conscience, Cartman is usually able to manipulate her into doing even morally reprehensible things for him. In "Up the Down Steroid", Cartman is able to have his mother sign him up for the Special Olympics, even though Cartman was not disabled. It appears that Liane is convinced of her son's goodness and accepts any excuses or stories he makes up, no matter how improbable. The relationship between the two shows a significant change in "Tsst". To manage Cartman's behavioral issues, she hires Cesar Millan. Cesar's methods work, and Cartman becomes a normal, good natured, well behaved boy. Liane tries to form a relationship with Cesar, but he turns her down as she is just a client, and she soon begins to spoil Cartman again—as this boy is the closest thing to a friend she really has. However, Liane seems to be one of the only humans whom Cartman genuinely cares about; it was only his much-repressed conscience that kept him from killing her in the same episode. She doesn't mind doing stuff that is completely gross, as seen in "Make Love, Not Warcraft", when she takes a bedpan down to the basement where the boys are playing Warcraft and lets Cartman crap into the bedpan that she is holding.. In the later seasons, she has been shown to be strict with him as seen in "Coon 2: Hindsight", "Coon vs. Coon & Friends", and "HUMANCENTiPAD" all of which show her not only following through with punishments, but also showing obvious disgust with Cartman's behaviour. Still, despite her taking a more firm stance with Cartman, Liane will still often spoil him, due in large to part to pre-emptively avoid his tantrums as seen in "You're Getting Old".

Cartman places his mother second on his 'Shit List', seen in "The Fractured But Whole" with Kyle as first on the list. This implies he has a strong hatred for her, however he is defensive of her whenever her promiscuous nature comes into question during earlier seasons, as well as being disturbed during "South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut" to discover she was a star in a German pornographic video. With this factored against his outrageous acts against her, it can be seen that he has a strong loathing of her and yet has some form of caring about her at the same time.

Pets and Toys

Cartman: "I... don't want you to worry about me." Clyde Frog: "(Clyde Frog just sits there)" Cartman: "Hey, you're the best stuffed animal I ever had."

Cartman has a cat named Mr. Kitty , and a pot-bellied pig named Fluffy Mr. Kitty and Fluffy have never been seen together in the series thus far. He also has a stuffed frog toy named Clyde Frog . Other beloved stuffed animals include Wellington Bear (a take on Paddington Bear), Polly Prissypants the rag doll, purple lizard Rumpertumskin (a take on Rumpelstiltskin), and Peter Panda. Cartman nearly always plays with these toys by himself, perhaps out of embarrassment or (just as likely) mean-spiritedness. Occasionally others are allowed to play with him, such as Bebe in " Bebe's Boobs Destroy Society ". Cartman's games with thesetoys can demonstrate his vindictive and cruel nature; one of his games, as seen in aforementioned episode, is "Lambs", in which Cartman reenacts scenes from "The Silence of the Lambs" with his dolls, such as placing a doll in a pit in his basement and then voicing the doll begging to be released while the doll holding it prisoner threatens the pit-bound doll. Often Cartman's games involve the toys telling him how cool and smart he is, and he directs towards them an affection which is not seen towards any other person except his mom. Oddly enough, during one incident in which Cartman's toys were 'praising' him, one of the toys called him a 'fat piece of crap' which was a surprise to Cartman himself. Considering Cartman was voicing the toys, this could imply that a small part of a Cartman despises himself, and that the insult was a subconscious slip. In " Die Hippie, Die ", when a group leaves to conduct a rescue mission, all the group members say goodbye to a person close to each of them, except Cartman who bids farewell to Clyde Frog.

In the Season Twelve episode, "Tonsil Trouble", although Cartman had given Kyle AIDS as punishment for Kyle laughing at him for having HIV, Kyle angrily breaks many of Cartman's toys in reaction. Among these toys, he rips off Clyde Frog's head. In "Dances With Smurfs", Clyde Frog is seen on the chalkboard in Cartman's morning announcements implying that Cartman has fixed him.

In "1%", someone begins destroying Cartman's toys after he was told to grow up. He is seen with a new toy, Muscleman Marc. Clyde Frog is stabbed and nailed to a tree with the word VENGEANCE underneath. Then, Peter Panda is set on fire while Cartman was asleep, which burns his room. Later, Cartman takes them to Token's house, convinced that "black people are incapable of doing anything wrong." The toys soon disappear, leading Cartman to find Muscleman Marc inside a pot of boiling water, and Rumpertumskin chained with a bomb collar, which Cartman inadvertally sets off, blowing its head off. Cartman finds Polly Prissypants in a chair, with a revolver. The act is dropped when we see Cartman voicing Polly as she "confesses" to the murders, claiming that the others were right, that Cartman had to grow up. So she killed the other toys and planned on framing Token, but Cartman reminds her that because of Obama, black people cannot be blamed. In desparation, Polly asks Cartman to kill her, which he reluctantly does. The other boys watched, and realized that this was Cartman's delusional way of getting rid of his stuffed animals.

Cats

Cartman, though incapable of empathy towards people, exhibits a strong bond with cats despite being a speciesist. In "Major Boobage", cats are made illegal because Kenny, along with several other kids around the country, begins using male cat musk as a hallucinogenic drug. Cartman lies to the police, claiming that he had his cat put down when he really is hiding his cat in the attic. Throughout the episode he collects abandoned cats in his attic out of sympathy. His cat has been on the show since the series began, and his love for cats could have developed from his lack of other family members besides his mother; he has no father or siblings. This empathetic relationship is reserved for cats and not humans; he does not (or more likely chooses not to) recognize a parallel between his cat safe-haven to the history of Jews hiding from Nazi soldiers during the Holocaust, which Kyle points out.

Relationships

The rivalry between Cartman and Kyle has been a recurring theme from the beginning, but has become significantly stronger since Season Four . Cartman appears to have a very strong hatred for Kyle, and shows that he has no tolerance for Kyle's Jewish faith. Kyle hates him in turn. However, neither one of them seems to realize the effects of their almost poisonous relationship, and continue to live in close contact with each other.

In Season Five, Cartman and Kyle's relationship meets a turning point, going from a relationship of them simply ripping on each other constantly to near hatred simply because Cartman caused Kenny's semi-permanent death. It was around Season Eleven that they began their descent from love-hate to full on hatred.

However, in the "The Death of Eric Cartman", during the scene where Cartman has Butters apologize to all of his peers in his stead (as he believes he is a ghost), he seems to wish to recant some of his earlier misdeeds towards Kyle (and obtain his forgiveness), and seems genuinely moved upon seeing him.

Kyle is often put in the shoes of the protagonist to Eric Cartman's antagonist. For example, in "Cartoon Wars Part I", the two of them work against each other; when Cartman tries to get Family Guy canceled, Kyle tries to stop him. The two of them often have arguments about morals, like in "Up the Down Steroid", where Cartman decides to pretend to be mentally handicapped so he can win the "Special Olympics".

In South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, when they were facing certain death, Cartman tried to atone for all the times he called Kyle "A big dumb Jew", telling him "I didn't mean it. You're not a Jew". Bewildered, Kyle replies that he is indeed a Jew, and Cartman tells him not to be so hard on himself (implying that Jew was an insult rather than a religion).

Cartman also has attempted to murder Kyle more than once, the most significant incident being in a scene from "Toilet Paper" in which he lures Kyle into going rowing with him to the middle of Stark's Pond, and then, when Kyle's back is turned, attempts to bludgeon him to death with a wiffle bat, without comprehending the stupidity of the plan. When he learns someone has confessed to the crime he, Kyle, Stan and Kenny had committed, thus eliminating the need to kill Kyle who was going to confess himself, Cartman asks Stan (in his usual trademark-pathetic way) if he can still kill Kyle. Cartman tries to murder Kyle again in "Fatbeard".

However, in "Smug Alert!", Cartman saves Kyle and his family when a large storm is about to go towards their house in San Francisco. Cartman finds Butters as too boring a nemesis since he will simply accept anything Cartman directs at him, and realizes that in order to have someone with which to argue incessantly again he must get Kyle back. At the end of the episode he hides the fact that he was the savior of Kyle's whole family, opting to insult Kyle again instead; Kyle replies angrily and storms off, to Cartman's satisfaction. In the episode "Le Petit Tourette" when Kyle (unintentionally) saves Cartman from shouting out all his secrets on Dateline (Cartman had originally intended to use fake Tourette's so as to deliver a hate-speech against Jews), Cartman hugs Kyle and thanks him, even saying "I love you, man." In the episode "Prehistoric Ice Man", when Kyle falls into a cavern and asks from the bottom, "Is Cartman there?" he responds with a sincere "I'm here, Kyle!". Of course this only occurs after Cartman suggests they leave Kyle for dead and continue to their search for crocodiles. In the episode "Lil' Crime Stoppers", Cartman defends Kyle saying, "Broflovski's a good cop!"

Cartman's obsessive hatred of Kyle above almost all others, has called into question Cartman's deeper feeling for Kyle. In the episode "Imaginationland", Cartman wins a bet with Kyle which requires Kyle to suck his balls, and goes to various extreme measures throughout the Imaginationland trilogy to make Kyle do so, including going to the Supreme Court and breaking into the Pentagon (twice). In the end of the trilogy's first part, Cartman is seen with a photo of an innocent looking Kyle. The scene ends with Cartman dragging his finger slowly across Kyle's mouth in the photo, which could be interpreted as an act of lust, this further hints at a confused sexuality. At the end of the trilogy's third part, Cartman conjures up an imaginary Kyle to suck the balls of an imaginary Cartman.

Cartman also, in the episode "Go God Go XII", offers to suck Kyle's balls (after Kyle said "Suck my balls, Cartman"), in exchange for Kyle's help in getting Cartman back from the distant future. In the episode "Fatbeard", Kyle encourages Cartman to run away to Somalia, hoping that he will die. Cartman also seems to have no qualms about seriously invading Kyle's personal space, as shown in a scene from "Manbearpig" wherein Cartman, while contemplating his hatred for Kyle, looms a mere inch or two from Kyle's face as he sleeps; soon Kyle wakes up and yells, "Dude, get away from me!"

However, the fact that Kyle challenges Cartman more than any other character in the series, may in fact be the core reason for Cartman's obsessive fixation on him. In "Fatbeard", he says that Kyle has "finally come to terms with his disability" and seemed more willing to kill Kyle later in the episode by making his walk the plank over an alligator. As of "Dead Celebrities", he seems to be more passive toward Kyle, greeting him with only " 'Sup, Jew?". This passive attitude however seemed to be only temporary, as seen in "Crippled Summer", in which during Towelie's intervention on national TV, each of the boys is asked to read a pre-written statement about their feelings for Towelie. Cartman however instead reads off a long-winded hate speech against the Jewish people (most likely the one he intended to use during "Le Petit Tourette"), where he urges the rest of the country to help him in rising up against the Jews and in which most of his speech is directed primarily towards Kyle.

The two have occasionally gotten along such as in "Kenny Dies" and "Pinkeye" when Kyle put his hand on Cartman's shoulder when was upset about Kenny dying. In fact, in "You Have 0 Friends", Cartman helped Kyle make new friends, even though Cartman did not appear to be gaining anything out of it. In "It's a Jersey Thing", Kyle was ironically the one who saved Cartman when he was being raped by Snooki. Cartman showed genuine appreciation for this act, thanking him and later going as far as to say that although Kyle was a "monster" (for having Jersey blood running through his veins), he was "my [Cartman's] little monster", and pinched his cheek. Although they bicker constantly, the two haven't full on fought since then, and have had a lot more moments together where they seem happy, such as Kyle sharing music with Cartman in "You're Getting Old". There are also moments such as in "Faith Hilling" where the two share a common goal. However, there are many moments where they are at ends like earlier in the series, such as in the Coon trilogy. Therefore, their friendship is in a constant state of disrepair.

The back-and-forth of their outward conflict yet still regularly meeting with the other boys can be seen as somewhat ironic. Therefore, Kyle and Cartman could be seen to have a more complex connection than Stan and Kyle with . In "The Entity", Kyle described Cartman as "my sort of friend-ish", as his best explanation of their relationship.

In "You're Getting Old", Stan's behavior change upon turning 10 causes a rift to develop occurs in his friendships with Kyle, Cartman and Kenny to the point where they no longer wish to interact with him. As a result, at the episode's end with Cartman and Kyle playing video games together, the pair offer each other kind smiles, showing their friendship growing even further.

In "Ass Burgers", Kyle and Cartman have quite a few friendly moments together. Although they are shown bickering, the argument isn't angry as most of the arguments between the two can be. Kyle is quick to support Cartman in his new business, even going so far as to tell Stan that they can't be friends anymore because he's with Cartman Burgers now. When Stan shows up, drunk, talking to Kyle, it is shown that Cartman is keeping a close eye on them from where he was standing. He even eventually comes over to check if Kyle is okay, giving Stan a distasteful look. However, this is rapidly tarnished by the episode's end when Kyle discovers his method for producing his burgers.

In "Jewpacabra", Cartman constantly rips on Jews throughout the episode, even to the point of making up a Jewish creatures that eats children in Easter egg hunts. When Cartman believes that the creature could be real and is chained so the creature can eat him, he is tranquilized and is hazed. Kyle finds him and takes him home and puts him to bed. The next day, at the Sooper Foods Easter egg hunt, Cartman claims that he is Jewish and knows how Kyle feels.

Cartman and Stan's friendship is clearly existent but it is very tense. In fact, when Kyle and Kenny aren't around, he and Stan often don't show a close friendship with each other or rarely interact one-on-one.

In "Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow", Stan and Cartman hang out at the boating rack, and Cartman even comments that it is great that they are hanging out with each other without Kyle, to which Stan does not disagree to, implying that Stan somewhat shares these feelings. Stan also agrees with Cartman in the episode, such as not telling Kyle he caused the dam to break, and not telling Randy he was the one who broke the dam.

Cartman's song "Kyle's Mom's a Bitch" was joined by all the other classmates (minus Kyle of course), even getting Stan's attention in which Stan actually enjoys the song.

In "Fat Butt and Pancake Head", while Kyle is immediately distrustful of Cartman's claim that he cannot control the actions of his hand (which has seemed to take on a life of its own), Stan gives Cartman the benefit of the doubt and admits that, with all the stuff that happens in South Park, Cartman could be telling the truth. Cartman and Stan were also seen interacting one on one in "Sexual Healing" when Kyle, Kenny and Butters were away at the Karne Institute for Sex Addicts and they were playing wit