Stanley Randall William "Stan" Marsh is the overall main protagonist and one of the four main characters from the animated television series South Park. He is voiced by and loosely based on series co-creator Trey Parker. Stan Marsh is one of the show's four central characters, along with Eric Cartman, Kyle Broflovski, and Kenny McCormick. Stan Marsh debuted on television when South Park first aired on August 13, 1997, after having first appeared in The Spirit of Christmas shorts created by Parker and long-time collaborator Matt Stone in 1992 (Jesus vs. Frosty) and 1995 (Jesus vs. Santa).
Stan Marsh is an elementary school student who commonly has extraordinary experiences not typical of conventional small-town life in his fictional hometown of South Park, Colorado. Stan Marsh is generally depicted as kind-hearted, intelligent, trustworthy and patient (if somewhat arrogant). He is outspoken in expressing his distinct lack of esteem for adults and their influences, as adult South Park residents rarely make use of their critical faculties.
Like the other South Park characters, Stan Marsh is animated by computer in a way to emulate the show's original method of cutout animation. He also appears in the full-length feature film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999), as well as South Park- related media and merchandise. While Trey Parker and Matt Stone portray Stan Marsh as having common childlike tendencies, his dialogue is often intended to reflect stances and views on more adult-oriented issues and has been frequently cited in numerous publications by experts in the fields of politics, religion, popular culture and philosophy.
Personality[]
Stan Marsh is generally the most tender and sensitive of the four boys. For example, in "Kenny Dies", he finds it difficult to see Kenny in his ill state, and in "Raisins" he becomes depressed after losing his girlfriend to Tolkien. Also, in "Fun with Veal", Stan Marsh is the only one who stopped eating meat completely when the boys found that veal was actually "tortured baby cow meat". However, in some episodes he does not seem to care when people die, as in "Dances with Smurfs" and "Chef Goes Nanners".
Stan Marsh is often very moral. This is evident in "Cherokee Hair Tampons", when he, Kenny, Timmy Burch, and Butters Stotch challenged the character Miss Information and her shop of alternative medicine, in "Super Best Friends", when he helped battle David Blaine's suicidal cult, and in "The Biggest Douche in the Universe" where he accuses the psychic medium, John Edward, of being a fake. In this episode he also gained possession of his own show (while trying to prove that cold reading was fake) and battled with John Edward in a "Psychic Showdown".
Trivia[]
- In episode "Make Love, Not Warcraft", the Warcraft executive tells Stan's father Randy Marsh they need to get the sword to a great knight, by the name of 'LUVS2SPWGE'. However, at the start of the episode, when viewing Stan's game screen you can read Stan's character name is "Staniscool".
- As of "201" Stan Marsh is the only one of the four boys who does not have a redheaded parent.
- Stan Marsh is depicted as a jock by the goth kids in "Breast Cancer Show Ever".
- Stan Marsh has been shown to be an animal rights activist: he protected baby calves from slaughter in "Fun with Veal", joined PETA (though only to survive because if he did not do so, he would have starved in the wilderness) in "Douche and Turd", and headed the Whale Wars crew for a while in "Whale Whores".