3. Homeless Guy – South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999)
South Park‘s enduring popularity doesn’t necessarily stem from an ability to create a deeply intricate world of intelligent narratives, but there are far more layers to the fictional Colorado town than it’s given credit for. Nowhere is this more evident than South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, in which the entire plot hinges on the actions of one minor unnamed character.
Referred to only as “Homeless Guy”, this character accepts money in exchange for taking Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny to see the (fictional) R-rated movie, Terrance and Phillip: Asses of Fire. The film opens the boys’ eyes to a whole new colorful vocabulary, which they then employ at school to impress their friends. Their parents’ resulting outrage over the language ignites a war between the United States and Canada, which itself leads to the deaths of Terrance and Phillip. Their deaths fulfill a prophecy that allows Satan to invade and conquer Earth, and it’s left to the boys (or just Kenny) to save humanity.
Of course, none of this would have happened if it weren’t for the actions of the Homeless Guy. While it’s entirely possible that he just wanted to help them out by taking them to see Asses of Fire, it could also be that he was an agent of Satan actively working to sow chaos in order to fulfill the prophecy.