Oh my God! They un-killed Kenny!
Great news for South Park geeks in a funk since little Kenny McCormick seemingly got permanently flatlined last season after countless gory deaths and barely noticed exhumations.
Those bastards Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the brain trust behind the likes of Eric Cartman, Timmy and Mr. Hanky the Christmas Poo, have decided to resurrect the long-suffering hooded boy for more deadly misadventures.
"We're not exactly bringing Kenny back," Parker tells TV Guide Online. "We're doing something more clever than that...in the very way you'd expect South Park to bring him back, we're bringing him back."
Adds Stone: "We're kinda sorta bringing him kinda back..."
Way to build the suspense, guys.
Parker and Stone have devised many a demise for Kenny, from falling in a hole to eating a bowl of seltzers (he thought they were mints) to exploding in a planetarium.
For those who've forgotten, Kenny already paid a visit to both Hell and Heaven (meeting a very flamboyant Devil and Jesus in the process) in the film South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut and came back as a ghost, so no doubt Parker and Stone will revive the little muffled guy in a similarly creative fashion.
Maybe a twist à la Twin Peaks, where he's reincarnated as Kenny's cousin? Or perhaps a Dallas-like scenario where Cartman finds Kenny in his shower, as if nothing happened and last season was all a dream?
Whatever the scenario, Parker and Stone say they never intended to off the kid for good.
"It actually came just from an idea that it would be really funny to do an episode where Kenny died and everyone cared," Parker tells the Website. "It was a whole sort of movie-of-the-week episode where this child was dying and everyone was concerned--whereas obviously it had been going on for years and no one gave a shit."
The pair, however, loved Kenny's "official" death so much they just decided to give him a rest for awhile while they turned their creative juices to other foul-mouthed fourth-graders.
"It turned out to be a really funny episode and we were like, 'Let's keep him gone. Let's see how long we can ride this out,'" added Parker. "We started focusing on other characters, like Butters, to take his place and really had fun. It's been cool."
Comedy Central says it's not even sure exactly when Kenny will reappear, but it could come as soon as the seventh season's premiere, November 6 at 10 p.m.
"This episode will be delivered on the sixth," says network spokesperson Lisa Chader. "They work one episode at a time, and it hasn't been determined what the next one will be."
According to South Park's official Website, the episode titled "A Ladder to Heaven," has Stan, Kyle and Cartman missing Kenny so badly, they build a ladder to Heaven to bring him back to South Park. But when they arrive, they're surprised to find a paradise populated by Saddam Hussein, who may or may not be stockpiling weapons of mass destruction.
Which begs the question: Will Kenny turn up to save the day?
"It's better than that! Better than that!" Parker and Stone promise.
If it's not, we can always blame Canada.