Agreed 100%.

​

Barbrady was just a stupid oaf from the era before South Park’s clever social commentary.

Yates, is actually a pretty clever caricature of a cop and tends to behave and think a lot more like they actually do IRL.

They fully sold me on Yates on the episode where he goes undercover for sex stings.

Butter’s Kissing Company was damn near a perfect episode.

But sometimes, they take the absurdity so far that it breaks the joke and becomes less funny for it.

Sergeant Yates marrying his pimp and moving to Switzerland was just stupid and not funny. But up until that point, the sex “stings” were absolutely hilarious. It also was so divergent from the main story, that they had to retcon it away as though it never happened.

​

South Park has a tendency to do this. They have a fantastic running joke and they have to keep on raising the absurdity until it “breaks”.

Butters is typically Cartman’s henchman for good reason. He’s gullible and naive. But he also participates in some pretty wicked schemes himself at times. “Butter’s Kissing Company” comes to mind.

​

Granted he nearly always has good intentions, but sometimes he’s so misguided that his actions come out as wildly wrong.

​

I suppose whether he’s even in the running depends on if you consider Butters to be a main character or not. I consider Butters to be more of a main character than Kenny.