South Park famously relies on a very tight cast of performers, with series creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone playing most of the characters in the show, but, every once in a while, guest stars make a visit to the sleepy mountain town. While many celebrities have been infuriated by the long-running Comedy Central show, some have joined in on the fun and been a guest star.
Compared to other mainstays of modern animation like The Simpsons or Family Guy, there have been far fewer cameos from big guest stars. However, a handful of modern comedy stars, genre-defining musicians, and legendary comic creatives have appeared in the show. Some even got full episodes dedicated to them, like Korn. Here are the best (and maybe unknown) South Park guest stars, which episodes they appear in, and where you can find them on streaming platforms like HBO Max and Paramount+!
George Clooney
Season 1, Episode 4, "Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride"
George Clooney was an early champion of South Park, with his two cameos making him the show's first notable guest star. Like many early fans of Trey Parker and Matt Stone's original animated short "The Spirit of Christmas," Clooney shared the animated parody in the early days of the internet.
Clooney, in the middle of a meteoric rise to fame thanks to shows like ER, then appeared in Season 1's "Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride" as Sparky. The dog belongs to Stan and eventually finds love amid Big Gay Al's collection of creatures. Clooney also appeared in South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut in a brief but memorable gag role. Clooney plays a surgeon (seemingly a parody of his ER role) who tries to save Kenny but accidentally swaps his heart for a baked potato.
Elton John
Season 2, Episode 14, "Chef Aid"
Elton John is one of the most prolific musicians of the 20th century, with plenty of guest roles in shows and films over the years (never forget his gloriously goofy appearance in Kingsman: The Golden Circle, where he fights villains in a bowling alley). One of his silliest cameos is definitely in South Park, where he is joined by several other high-profile singers like Joe Strummer, Rancid, Ozzy Osbourne, Ween, Primus, Meat Loaf, and Rick James in Season 2's "Chef Aid."
The episode focuses on a record company suing Chef for a song he made, leading the boys to assemble a benefit concert for him. The assembled musicians are all revealed to have been inspired or influenced by Chef in some way, leading to a fun sense of unity between some very disparate musical guests. Elton John is the one who feels most out of place in the world of South Park, but he's just silly enough to work. Special mention should also go to the recently departed Ozzy Osborne, who even gets the dubious honor of being the one to carry on the tradition of killing Kenny.
Jennifer Aniston
Season 3, Episode 1, "Rainforest Shmainforest"
At the height of her popularity as one of the stars of Friends, Jennifer Aniston made an unexpected but hilarious one-off appearance in South Park's third season. In Season 3's "Rainforest Schmainforest," Aniston appears as Miss Stevens, the founder of the "Getting Gay With Kids" environmentalist choir tour. A parody of liberals who preach respecting nature while also wildly underestimating its dangerous qualities, Miss Stevens leads the troupe into the Amazon rainforest, which quickly turns deadly and overwhelming.
It's a silly turn from Anniston, especially once her patience finally snaps and the initially holier-than-thou Stevens starts cursing up a storm about her problem with the rainforest. The episode even seems to sneak in a reference to Anniston's role on Friends, putting Ms. Stevens into a cheerleader outfit that resembles the one she wore as Rachel.
Malcolm McDowell
Season 4, Episode 14, "Pip"
A minor character in the early seasons of South Park who eventually fades from prominence (before being killed off in the show's 200th episode two-parter), Pip's biggest stand-alone episode of South Park features Malcolm McDowell in a prominent (and even briefly live-action) role. McDowell, who is perhaps still best known for his performance as Alex in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, lends his voice to the episode as the narrator of Season 4's "Pip."
A parody of Charles Dickens's Great Expectations, the episode serves as the final big showcase for Pip before he's more or less replaced by Butters in the show's regular dynamic. McDowell, playing a character only ever referred to as "a British person," offers dramatic narration to the episode, with the ridiculous elements of the South Park approach gaining a deadpan comic edge thanks to McDowell's performance.
Radiohead
Season 5, Episode 4, "Scott Tenorman Must Die"
At the height of their success, Radiohead made a brief gag appearance in Season 5's "Scott Tenorman Must Die" that remains one of the show's most darkly hilarious turns. "Scott Tenorman Must Die" focuses on Cartman's feud with the titular Scott, a vindictive older kid who initially seems to outthink Cartman at every turn. Cartman eventually ruins Scott's life, tricking him into eating his own parents before introducing him to his favorite band, Radiohead, who immediately think he's lame because he is crying in public.
It's a quick scene, but a memorable turn from Radiohead, whose exaggerated delivery makes the harshness of their judgment all the more childish and silly in direct contrast to the sheer horror of the episode. It's one of the shortest cameos in the show's history, but it's also one of the most memorable, given the infamous episode.
Norman Lear
Season 7, Episode 4, “I'm A Little Bit Country”
To celebrate South Park's 100th episode, Season 7's "I'm A Little Bit Country" brought in the legendary Norman Lear for one of the show's most striking political moments. Norman Lear is one of the most revered comedy creators in television history, creating sitcoms like All in the Family, Sanford and Son, and The Jeffersons. This explains why South Park afforded a surprising amount of reverence to his guest role as Benjamin Franklin.
After Cartman knocks himself out and revisits the Continental Congress that eventually helped spur on the American War for Independence, he witnesses Lear's Benjamin Franklin make a case for America's contradictory mix of peaceful ideals and warlike tendencies. Franklin's arrival is met with a certain amount of awed reverence by the other national founders, with even Cartman taking a real lesson from Lear's Franklin. Given All in the Family's influence on South Park, it's a perfect guest star appearance for the show's 100th episode.
Peter Serafinowicz
Season 10, Episode 1, "The Return Of Chef"
Peter Serafinowicz only appears briefly in Season 10's "The Return of Chef," but it finalizes the punchline for South Park's two-part send-off for Chef. After Chef's voice actor Isaac Hayes had a falling out with the show's creatives over the prior parodies of Scientology, South Park's tenth season debuted with Chef falling in with the Super Adventure Club. This eventually leads to Chef's apparent death, at least until the club brings him back in a new Darth Vader-inspired form.
Serafinowicz appears in the episode as the new Darth Vader version of Chef, itself a sly reference to how Peter Serafinowicz provided the vocal performance for Darth Maul in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace. Chef has not since returned in the show proper, so Serafinowicz hasn't reappeared as Chef, although the character briefly return for South Park: The Stick of Truth video game as the final boss for the storyline.
Brad Paisley
Season 16, Episode 7, "Cartman Finds Love"
Brad Paisley is a notable country musician who has one of the rare distinctions of appearing as himself in South Park—one of the few times that has happened outside of Korn's episode or "Chef Aid." Paisley factors into the climax of Season 16's "Cartman Finds Love."
As part of a scheme to keep Kyle from dating Token and Nicole, Cartman frames it as if he and Kyle are in a romantic relationship. This prompts him to go to a Denver Nuggets game and get on the jumbotron to profess his love for Kyle and deliver his own version of "I Swear" by John Michael Montgomery. Paisley joins him for the performance, performing a duet with Cartman that comes across as a genuinely heartfelt and also a goofy showcase for Cartman and Kyle's perpetually antagonistic relationship.
Bill Hader
Season 17, Episode 1, "Let Go, Let Gov"
Bill Hader has become one of South Park's most consistent guest stars, even serving as a writer on the show for a period. Still, one of his most memorable appearances is in Season 17's "Let Go, Let Gov." The Saturday Night Live veteran delivers a parody of Alec Baldwin in an episode that pokes fun at the actor's social media habit.
Hader also briefly appears in Season 15 as a farmer and then subsequently appears in Season 17's "Taming Strange," Season 18's "Grounded Vindaloop," and "#HappyHolograms." He then guest stars as Tom across three episodes of Season 19. Beyond his appearances in the show as a voice actor, Hader worked as a South Park writer and is cited as the source for many of that era's most memorable gags, including the Kanye West punchline from Season 13's "Fishstick."
Josh Gad
Season 21, Episode 5, "Hummels & Heroin"
Josh Gad is one of South Park's best guest stars, delivering a great performance in Season 21's "Hummels & Heroin" as Marcus Preston. When a Chuck E. Cheese birthday performer dies at his birthday party of an overdose, Preston sets out to discover the guilty party that provided the drugs.
In a role that only works if Preston feels like an innocent child and a morally driven detective, Gad delivers arguably one of his funniest performances to date. Gad might be better known for his appearance as Olaf in the Frozen films, but his South Park character is a highlight of the season and one of the best examples of how an outside performer can easily fit into the comic world of Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny.
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