Original air date: 12/12/2001
A Day in the Limelight episode centered on Butters Stotch, a cheery, little boy whose mom tries to kill him after Butters discovers that his father goes to gay bathhouses.
"Butters' Very Own Episode" contains examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Butters' mom becomes so insane once she learns about her husband's secret, that she literally tries to drive Butters into a lake in an attempt to drown him and then kill herself. Good god!
- Accidental Misnaming: The theme has the singers mispronouncing John Elway's last name as "All-way". Butters corrects them ("EL-way!"), though they pay no heed.
- Adults Are Useless: Nobody thinks of having Butters' parents arrested after Linda literally confesses to trying to murder him and both Stephen and her trying to cover it up.
- Bittersweet Ending: Butters' parents get away with their actions, but Butters still gets to go to Bennigan's.
- Breather Episode: The episode serves as one to the heartbreaking previous one "Kenny Dies".
- Brick Joke: At one point in the episode, Butters' mother has gone insane and is compulsively painting the house - Butters decides this means his father should get her a paintbrush for her anniversary. Later in the ep, he has an Imagine Spot of their anniversary, and Linda opens a gift containing a paintbrush.
- Call-Forward: Some characters who wouldn't be officially introduced till Season 6 were seen in the episode including Tuong Lu Kim and Mr. Slave.
- The Cameo: Stan, Kyle, and Cartman only appear in the last scene. Kyle doesn't even get any lines.
- Children Are Innocent: Butters believes his dad went to see a Tear Jerker movie and then went wrestling, when he was instead watching a gay porno film and having sex with other men in a gay bathhouse.
- Cliffhanger Copout: Butters was being targeted by a Predator in the cursed woods, only to be perfectly fine and return to the Stotch house in the final act.
- Comically Missing the Point: Butters, especially regarding the truck driver who chose to abandon him due to Butters being too bubbly and innocent.Butters: (disheartened) He must like T.G.I. Friday's.
- Cowardly Lion: Poor Butters is utterly terrified as he makes his way through the creepy woods on his way home, but he keeps trudging along despite his fears.
- Creepy Gas-Station Attendant: Farmer Fred, in his first appearance, who is based on Jud Crandall.
- Creepy Monotone: Linda talks like this in her Sanity Slippage as she paints the house and prepares to kill her own son and herself, as if she were hypnotized.
- A Day in the Limelight: Serves as this for Butters, as, although he's been around before, this is the first time we get a good look at him. He essentially became a main character at this point.
- Depraved Bisexual: Butters' father is revealed to be one, going to gay bathhouses to have sex with other men behind his wife's back.
- Don't Go in the Woods: Parodied. The gas station attendant informs Butters that the last people who attempted to travel through the woods had to resort to cannibalism, the area contained a Serial Killer who targeted children, and there's a cursed bridge built with the bones of Chinese laborers.
- Driven to Suicide: Linda decides to kill Butters and then herself after learning that her husband is watching gay porn and having sex with other men behind her back.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Mr. Slave's voice can be heard when Butters walks into one of the rooms at the bathhouse.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Butter's dad Stephen is still called Chris at this point in the show.
- Everyone Has Standards: Though he later makes sure to confirm to Butters that he plans on making fun of him about it later, even Cartman was shocked by the revelation that Linda tried to kill him.
- Expy: The old farmer Butters encounters is clearly supposed to be Jud Crandall. He would make a reappearance three seasons later just to reaffirm it.
- Faint in Shock: Linda after Butters shows her pictures of her husband's homosexual outing.
- Goodbye, Cruel World!: Linda starts writing a suicide note for her husband to discover alongside her body hanging from a noose. Stephen walks into her writing it and prevents her from killing herself.
- Interrupted Suicide: After the attempted murder of Butters, Stephen walks into Linda writing a suicide note and prevents her from hanging herself,
- Kids Are Cruel: Cartman cheerfully tells Butters that he, Stan and Kyle plan on mocking him over his dad's visits to gay bathhouses and movies and his mom trying to kill him. Stan and Kyle don't disagree.
- Karma Houdini: Chris (later Stephen) and Linda Stotch get away completely with trying to kill her son and lying about it to the police.
- A Lesson Learned Too Well: When Butters returns home, he scolds his parents for trying to teach him how to lie and that lying is always wrong. Deciding that he is right, they go outside and confess as to what really happened, including Stephen's bi-curiosity and affairs and Linda's attempted murder. Disturbed by these truths, Butters concludes that maybe sometimes lying is for the best.
- Mood Whiplash: Butters' mother trying to drown him in a lake is sharply interrupted by the cheerful and goofy "It's Butters!" interstitial bumper.
- My God, What Have I Done?:
- Stephen has this moment after his son walks into him masturbating at the gay bathhouse.
- Linda also has one when she feels regretful for trying to drown her son.
- Never My Fault: Stephen passes off the blame for his infidelity on the Internet as it was how he connected with other married men in chat rooms.
- Not Now, We're Too Busy Crying Over You: Butters' return to his crying parents in the middle of their argument was initially met with a Not Now, Kiddo, seconds before realizing that he's not really dead.
- Offing the Offspring: After her Sanity Slippage, Linda decides that it would be best to kill Butters and then herself. She tries to kill him by locking him in the car and letting it roll into the river.
- Promotion to Opening Titles: Played for laughs. Butters gets a special opening title sequence and bumpers just for this episode.
- The Scapegoat: "Some Puerto Rican Guy" is blamed for Butters' disappearance and JonBenet Ramsey, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Chandra Levy's deaths. It's clear that this individual doesn't exist and is satire of the Susan Smith incident.
- Shout-Out: The chant that O.J. Simpson, the Ramseys and Gary Condit use when inducting Butters parents into their club is from Freaks.
- Butters is initially targeted by a Predator as he tries to find his way home.
- Soap Punishment: Butters mentions that his grandmother once washed his mouth out with soap for saying "nutsack" in front of her.
- Spoof Aesop: Butters decides it's okay to lie after finding out the truth about his father's sexuality and that his mother tried to kill him.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: The Ramseys stating that they definitely didn't kill their daughter. Seven years later, it was revealed that there wasn't enough definitive evidence to prove that they killed her.
- Take That!:
- O.J. Simpson, ex-Congressman Gary Condit, and John & Patsy Ramsey are all portrayed as Karma Houdini liars and murderers. This came back to bite Matt and Trey in the ass when, years later, it was determined that the evidence could not prove that the Ramseys killed their daughter.
- The fact an all-points bulletin was put on the very vague description "Some Puerto Rican Guy", is a satire of racial stereotyping and profiling.
- Uncanny Valley: Gary Condit is animated with disturbing realism. It doesn't help that he has a Thousand-Yard Stare the entire time.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Butters. In this episode, Butter’s unintentionally causes the near destruction of his family as it all starts with an innocent task from Linda on finding out what Steven is getting her for an anniversary gift. Butters ends up accidentally catching his dad in several gay infidelities and takes several compromising pictures. Butters then shows his mother the pictures while completely misunderstanding what was going on due to his young age.
- Wham Episode:
- Butters' mom tries to kill him by abandoning the car he's in and letting him drown in the river.
- Butters discovers his dad's bisexuality after his dad publicly announces what he was doing in public bathhouses.
- This episode would elevate Butters to main character status, with the next episode showing that he replaces Kenny.
- Woman Scorned: After Linda discovers that Stephen is cheating on her with several gay men at a bathhouse, she becomes psychotic to the point where she becomes violent and attempts to murder Butters, who was the one who caught Stephen cheating and told Linda about it, and then tries to commit suicide.
- Everyone knows it's Butters! Well, that's me!
