Merry Christmas, Charlie Manson!
16th episode of the 2nd season of South Park

"Merry Christmas, Charlie Manson!" is the sixteenth episode of the second season of the American animated television series South Park. The 29th episode of the series overall it originally aired on Comedy Central in the United States on December 9, 1998. The episode was written by series co-creator Trey Parker along with Nancy M. Pimental and was directed by Eric Stough, in his directorial debut in the show and making it the first episode to not be directed by Parker or Stone.
In the episode, the boys go to Cartman's grandma's house in Nebraska for the holidays but Stan was told by his parents that he cannot go because it's far away from South Park. Stan challenges their authority and goes anyway. Meanwhile, Cartman's Uncle Howard and his friend Charlie Manson bust out of prison and cause mayhem and mischief.
Plot
Stan asks his parents for permission to go with Cartman and his friends who are visiting Cartman's grandma in Nebraska for the holidays. However, Sharon refuses because the place is far away from South Park and leaves it up to Randy to grant permission. Although Randy is okay with it, Sharon still forbids their son to go there and order him to stay with their family for the holidays but he argues with them about it and gets sent to his room without dinner. An angry Stan sneaks out to Cartman's grandma's house just in time to join the other boys.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Merry Christmas, Charlie Manson!” as 16th episode of the 2nd season of South Park. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as 16th episode of the 2nd season of South Park. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q833918. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1998.
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This entry incorporates text from “Merry Christmas, Charlie Manson!” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.