The world is full of What ifs. What if Bryan Cranston had turned down the lead in Breaking Bad and the role of Walter White went to John Cusack or Matthew Broderick instead, like AMC supposedly wanted? What if The Tracy Ullman Show had decided not to take a chance on some weird animated shorts about a yellow family named “the Simpsons”? What if a bunch of aliens come down to Earth tomorrow, but they’re, like, cool aliens, and they just chill out and do skateboard tricks in the park all day instead of trying to take over the planet or harvest our organs for fuel or whatever? All things to consider.
And now we can add one more, thanks to an answer to a fan question from the folks at South Park Studios: What if Cartman’s dad and sister hadn’t been taken out after the original, unaired pilot episode of South Park?
Fan Question: In the un-aired pilot, did Cartman have a dad and a sister? What’s up with that?!
Answer: Yes, he did! You can see a brief glimpse of Cartman’s Dad and Sister in the 3rd Act of the Unaired pilot. They don’t have any speaking lines, and they’re only on screen for a few seconds, but they ARE there.
Basically, as with any TV show, the pilot episode is where you test out your characters and plot lines, see what works and what doesn’t. A few scenes (along with this one) didn’t make the cut.
The still from the scene is above. It’s crazy to think how different the show would have been if that little “brief glimpse” hadn’t been taken out, right? No more multi-episode mystery about the identity of his father, no more April Fool’s okie-doke where they aired a half-hour Terrance and Phillip episode titled “Not Without My Anus” instead of revealing the answer, no more hilarious freakout from fans upset at getting duped, none of it. It’s like they say, “A butterfly flaps its wings in China and two animators in Colorado decide to nix half of a profane cartoon character’s family.”
Source: Pop Culture Brain
