21 Years Later, South Park Season 29 Brought Back The Best Gag From Its Funniest Episode

Published Oct 15, 2026, 2:15 PM EDT Cathal Gunning has been writing about movies, television, culture, and politics online and in print since 2017. He worked as a Senior Editor in Adbusters Media Foundation from 2018-2019 and wrote for WhatCulture in early 2020. He has been a Senior Features Writer for ScreenRant since 2020. Even though it has been over two decades since South Park introduced one iconic gag in one of the show’s funniest outings ever, that did not stop the series from bringing back this joke with a perfectly timed comeback in season 29, episode 3. While South Park season 29’s second episode was one of the show’s most shocking outings ever thanks to its relentless parade of full-frontal nudity, the long-running satirical comedy series opted to tone things down with its next episode. Season 29, episode 3, “You Like That On Your Face,” follows Kyle’s baby brother Ike as he attempts to aura farm his way into becoming the school’s number one chad. Kyle was understandably bemused by this entire affair, and told his little brother that looksmaxxing was a fool’s errand. However, the other South Park boys weren’t so easily dissuaded from partaking in the online fad. While Cartman tried to support Ike’s attempts to mog his fellow schoolmates, Stan succumbed to pressure to improve his looks. Desperate to start looksmaxxing, Stan joined Wendy on a shopping trip to Sephora, only to soon discover that that labyrinthine, eerie store was a Backrooms-style liminal space. This set up a comeback from one of South Park’s best running gags ever as the show brought back a familiar face. South Park Season 29 Episode 3 Brings Back Pet Sematary’s Judd Crandall In “Marjorine” Like many of South Park’s greatest episodes ever, season 9, episode 9, “Marjorine,” is surprisingly devoid of the show’s usual topical humor. Its bizarre plot sees Butters fake his own death so that he can return to school as a new gender-swapped student, the eponymous ‘Marjorine,’ in an attempt to infiltrate the girls of his class. This entire elaborate plan is cooked up by the boys of the class, who want to get their hands on a rudimentary paper fortune-teller that they assume is some sort of advanced divination technology. This setup results in Butters’ dim-witted father, Stephen Stotch, genuinely believing that Butters is dead, prompting the arrival of an elderly farmer based on Pet Sematary’s Judd Crandall. The doomsaying old man warns Stephen not to rebury Butters’ ‘body’ in the Indian burial ground, something that hadn’t even occurred to the suburban father until the Judd stand-in mentioned it to him. The same old man who warned Stephen Stotch off using the pet cemetery to revive his son returns in “You Like That On Your Face” to warn the boys off venturing inside Sephora. He tells the main characters of South America season 29 that the space does something strange to the men who venture inside. Stan, of course, ignores his advice, and enters Sephora in the hopes of looksmaxxing South Park Season 29’s Horror Movie Parody Perfectly Updates “Marjorine” Reimagined here as the infamous titular backrooms from director Kane Parsons’ 2026 indie horror box office hit of the same name, Sephora turns out to be so bizarre and nightmarish that Stan simply goes home and swears off skincare and anti-aging routines entirely. As he bluntly informs Cartman later, what felt like multiple hours wasted in the store turned out to be only a few minutes when he finally escaped. As terrifying as Backrooms was, South Park makes the movie hilarious with this absurd spoof. While the show’s title change proved South Park remains as politically relevant as ever, “You Like That On Your Face” highlighted the fact that some of its best episodes are more rooted in parodying social and cultural fads than specific news stories. By blending a classic King spoof with a more recent parody of 2026’s horror hit, “You Like That On Your Face” highlighted the reality that South Park is just as relevant as it was in 2005, and even its oldest gags can still work in new contexts. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that looksmaxxing and mogging prove that mainstream culture also gives South Park plenty of silliness to work with in 2026. Release Date August 13, 1997 Network Comedy Central Showrunner Trey Parker Cast Trey Parker Eric Cartman / Stan Marsh (voice) Matt Stone Kyle Broflovski / Kenny McCormick (voice) Directors Adrien Beard Writers David A. Goodman, Nancy M. Pimental, Kenny Hotz, Philip Stark, Dave Weasel, Dan Sterling, Susan Hurwitz Arneson, Trisha Nixon, David R. Goodman, Tim Talbott, Pam Brady, Robert Lopez, Dani Michaeli, Kyle McCulloch, Karey Dornetto, Jonathan Kimmel, Jane Bussmann Franchise(s) South Park Creator(s) Matt Stone, Trey Parker