16 AUGUST 14-20, 2025 westword.com WESTWORD | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | LETTERS | CONTENTS | Friendly Faces Everywhere! TEN COLORADO LOCATIONS WITH STARRING ROLES ON SOUTH PARK. BY EMILY FERGUSON Although Season 27 is just getting started, Trey Parker and Matt Stone continue to draw inspiration from their home state of Colorado. The fi rst episode opens with Eric Cartman asking Alexa to tune into 90.1 — which hap- pens to be where Colorado Public Radio lives on the dial in the Denver metro. The station just plays static, so Cartman asks his mom what happened to his favorite “show,” National Public Radio. She tells him the presi- dent canceled NPR, and Cartman moans about the loss: “The funniest show ever, where all the lesbians and Jews complain and stuff.” In the second episode, there’s an ICE raid at Ball Arena, a protest at Larimer Square, and Kristi Noem’s face melting all over Denver. Parker and Stone frequently return to Colorado to visit friends and family, and a few years ago — when they sat down with Gover- nor Jared Polis to reveal that they were buying Casa Bonita — they told him that they would still live here if they could. And why not? You can’t watch the show without catch- ing references to the Centennial State. In honor of that, we’ve compiled ten real-life places in Colorado that have been featured in South Park (fi nd more on westword.com). We can’t promise you’ll see “friendly faces everywhere” or “humble folks without temp- tation,” but we can say this list could inspire an excellent end-of-summer road trip (or just a reason to binge on Paramount+). CASA BONITA “Casa Bonita,” S7, E11 “201,” S14, E6 “South ParQ Vaccination Special,” S24, E2 The “Disneyland of Mexican restaurants,” as Kyle calls it, fi rst appears in season seven, when Kyle has his birthday party at the pink palace and Cartman is enraged that he wasn’t invited. Cartman then traps Butters in a bomb shelter so that he can join the party in his stead. In the now-pulled episode “201,” the restaurant is destroyed by a giant robot of Bar- bra Streisand. Casa Bonita’s last appearance came in the “Vaccination Special,” when the restaurant supposedly reopened its doors after the pandemic shutdown (it didn’t until almost two years after Stone and Parker bought it). COLFAX AVENUE “Erection Day,” S9, E7 “Butters’ Bottom Bitch,” S13, E9 “My Future Self ’n’ Me,” S6, E16 Colfax Avenue fi rst appears in season six, when Stan meets his “future self” — who turns out to be an actor from a business called Motivation Corp., located at 3451 Colfax Avenue, that’s part of a scheme by parents to keep their kids from using drugs. In season nine, Jimmy is excited to do his comedy routine at the talent show, but stiff challenges arise when he discovers that his hormones are setting in, and he’s terrifi ed his penis will become erect during his per- formance. After Butters tells him he needs to have sex to get rid of it, Jimmy consults Offi cer Barbrady, who suggests that he go to the red-light district of “Colfax Point,” where Jimmy meets a prostitute named Nut Gobbler. Just think what South Park could do with the current Bus Rapid Transit construction on Colfax! FIVE POINTS “Krazy Kripples,” S7, E2 Jimmy and Timmy (the inclusive characters added to South Park before such things were necessary in order for shows to be picked up) create a club for disabled kids called the Crips, but realize there already is such a group. The two make their way to Five Points to meet the gang and join it after unwittingly blowing up a gas station where the rival Bloods are hanging out. BALL ARENA “Stanley’s Cup,” S10, E14 “The Ring,” S13, E1 “W.T.F.,” S13, E10 “Cartman Finds Love,” S16, E7 “Taming Strange,” S17, E5 “#REHASH,” S18, E9 This Denver venue, formerly known as the Pepsi Center, has been in several episodes, including the most recent. In season ten, the Park County Pee-Wee Hockey Team fi lls in for the Colorado Avalanche, only to be shown no mercy by the Detroit Red Wings. In “The Ring,” Kenny takes his new girlfriend to a Jo- nas Brothers concert at the venue in hopes that he will be able to seduce her. And that isn’t the only concert celebrated on South Park: Kyle takes his brother, Ike, to see Yo Gabba Gabba in “Taming Strange,” and in “#REHASH,” Stan’s sister, Shelly, attends a “Women of Rock” concert, where none of the perform- ers are rockers. The boys also attend a WWE wrestling event there in “W.T.F.,” and they catch an NBA game in “Cartman Finds Love.” COORS FIELD “Professor Chaos,” S6, E6 “The Losing Edge,” S9, E5 When the boys fi re Butters as their new friend — unleashing Butters’s evil villain side, Professor Chaos — they enlist the British character Pip to join them at a baseball game at Coors Field to see if he’ll make a suitable replacement. Cartman kicks Pip out when he asks for tea and crumpets from ballpark vendors. It’s a season six classic. In “The Losing Edge,” we see how the South Park Little League team is suffering from playing such a boring sport. But with every team in the Little League also trying desperately to lose, South Park ends up play- ing Denver’s Little League team in the state fi nals at Coors Field. Randy doesn’t let the boys’ boredom stop him from getting drunk and fi ghting other Little League dads. COLORADO STATE CAPITOL BUILDING “Free Hat,” S6, E9 “Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow,” S9, E8 “Follow That Egg!,” S9, E10 “Eat, Pray, Queef,” S13, E4 South Park may be the only series that dedi- cates an episode to comparing queefs and farts, and the debate ends up at the Colorado Capitol in “Eat, Pray, Queef.” But the gold dome is fi rst seen in season six, when Stan, Kyle, Tweek and Cartman form the club “Save Films From Their Directors” after seeing multiple edits of The Empire Strikes Back. The Capitol is also seen in background shots of the South Park streaming movies Post Covid: The Return of Covid and parts one and two of The Streaming Wars. CHERRY CREEK “The Tooth Fairy’s Tats 2000,” S4, E1 Cartman gets greedy after receiving $2 from the tooth fairy, and he, Stan and Kyle (who’ve already lost their baby teeth) recruit Kenny and others to give Cartman their teeth so that he can put enough under his pillow to buy a Sega Dreamcast. When Cartman’s mom breaks the news that the tooth fairy is fake and she’s given him all the money she has, Stan comes up with the idea of hiding a tooth under a “really rich kid’s” pillow and taking that money. They take a bus to Cherry Creek, which Stan calls “the richest part of Denver,” adding that the kids there “probably get at least $10 a tooth from the tooth fairy.” Turns out they aren’t the only ones with that idea. ELLIE CAULKINS OPERA HOUSE “Broadway Bro Down,” S15, E11 The Ellie plays a role in the unforgettable “Broadway Bro Down,” when Randy dis- covers that Broadway musicals not so subtly encourage women to give blow jobs. Turns out that theatrical masterminds ranging from Stephen Sondheim to Andrew Lloyd Webber to Elton John are just a bunch of frat bros who hang out at Hooters, and after a “bro down,” they join forces with Randy to help him with his musical, The Woman in White. But when Randy discovers that his daughter, Shelley, is being taken on a date to a Broadway show, he charges the Ellie dressed as Spider-Man, swinging from its bizarre chandelier. DENVER INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT “The Entity,” S5, E11 “Freak Strike,” S6, E3 “Hell on Earth 2006,” S10, E11 Denver International Airport’s fi rst appear- ance is in “The Entity.” The episode begins at the airport, where Mr. Garrison is trying to navigate security lines and misses his fl ight, leading him to rail about a $15 billion bailout taxpayers provided for airlines. He decides to create his own homoerotic device called “IT” that “beats dealing with airline companies,” despite the multiple penetra- tions required to operate it. “Freak Strike” is Butters’s fi rst episode as a replacement Kenny, and the boys have him attach testicles to his chin so that he can get famous on TV with other disfi gured people used by shows such as Maury to boost rat- ings. DIA appears only briefl y, when Butters is shipped out on the talk-show circuit and joins the “freaks” in their union efforts. In “Hell on Earth 2006,” which revolves around a Sweet Sixteen party for Satan, DIA pops up when the boys try to take Biggie Smalls to Los Angeles. CONEY ISLAND “City People,” S25, E3 Colorado and South Park converge again in the show’s 25th season, when Eric Cartman and his mother are forced to move into a hot dog-shaped home that is identical to the Co- ney Island hot dog stand now in Bailey. The hot dog stand, which was built in 1966 and originally located on West Colfax Avenue, is now named South Park Coney Island, in honor of the show and the fi ctitious town in which its based. CULTURE The South Park creators immortalized Casa Bonita in a 2003 episode. SOUTH PARK
