South Park Mystery From the Very First Episode Still Confusing Fans 28 Years Later

The first ever South Park episode released on August 13, 1997. The episode, Cartman Gets an A*** Probe, is one of the more well known and frequently seen episodes as the introductory episode of the show. That said, there is one scene in it that has confused fans in the subsequent decades. This includes many of the most hardcore South Park fans that use and frequent the South Park Reddit page.

Of course, there have been many South Park mysteries over the years, though rarely any that fans continue to think about for 28 years. That said, in the very first episode of South Park there is a shot inside the Cartman household where a real person can be seen in the picture frame. More specifically, a young, blonde woman.

What’s odd about the picture frame is it’s never addressed in the episode who this person is. More than this though, it is a real person and not an animated character.

“I was rewatching Cartman Gets an A*** Probe, and I noticed something I never paid attention to before,” reads one of the top posts on the South Park Reddit page. “There’s a framed photo on the side table in Cartman’s living room. It’s a picture of a random girl — she’s smiling, and it looks like a school portrait. Does anyone know who this is supposed to be? Is it just a placeholder image, or was it someone involved in the production? It feels way too realistic compared to everything else in the show.”

Now, as some fans may know, this is actually Matt Stone’s younger sister, Rachel Stone. Why her portrait is in the shot isn’t exactly clear, however, as some older South Park fans will remember, the early episodes of the show had photos of real people on occasion.

“I miss the wholesome randomness that the early episodes oozed,” writes one South Park fan of the scene in question. Meanwhile, other fans point out we actually see Matt Stone’s sister in a picture frame twice this episode, and the other time she’s missing a tooth.

Why South Park got away from doing this has never been revealed. It also used to show celebrities real faces when they appeared on the show — such as Mel Gibson and Ben Affleck — but it also got away from this in later seasons.

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