Mr. Garrison

Herbert Garrison, voiced by Trey Parker, is a fictional character in the South Park cartoon series. For the first eight seasons of the series, the character was known as Mr. Garrison but in season 9 underwent sex reassignment surgery. The character is thereafter known as Mrs. Garrison, despite being unmarried.

Garrison grew up in Arkansas speaks with a Southern accent and has a master's degree in mechanical engineering from Denver Community College (episode "The Entity").

For the first three seasons, Mr. Garrison was the third-grade teacher at South Park Elementary School. In the fourth season, the status quo was shaken up when he was suspended indefinitely for (inadvertently) trying to solicit sex from Cartman, and afterwards he left the school to publish a sexually explicit romance novel titled In the Valley of Penises (a possible reference to Jean M. Auel's The Valley of Horses, or Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls, which were equally sexually explicit), but went into hiding after the book was "considered the best homoerotic novel since Huckleberry Finn". After he admitted his homosexuality, he tried to re-acquire his job as third-grade teacher but was turned down because the school did not hire gays. He was later rehired as the kindergarten teacher, where he enjoyed teaching sex education. By the end of the sixth season he was promoted to the fourth grade after the death of Ms. Choksondik. In contrast to the naïve majority of adults in South Park, Mrs. Garrison is one of the show's more cynical characters.

Personality and sexual identity

"Children, there's a BIG difference between gay people and Mr. Garrison. Do you understand that?" - Chef

Although acknowledged only sparingly in the series, Mr. Garrison suffers from a wide variety of psychological problems, the most noticeable of which appears to be dissociative identity disorder. Mr. Garrison constantly held a puppet known as Mr. Hat which he used as a sort of second, more aggressive personality, as well as for emoting his internal conflicts. It was suggested that Mr. Hat (and subsequently Mr. Twig) were manners through which Mr. Garrison could express his repressed homosexual feelings. Though Garrison staunchly denied he was gay, he acknowledged that Mr. Hat was. Mr. Twig also was gay, as his pink triangle on his shirt proved.

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Mr Garrison with Mr. Slave

Upon moving up to fourth grade, he abandoned the puppet in favor of a human assistant, Mr. Slave, his personal BDSM slave and lover, claiming fourth grade kids may be too old for Mr. Hat (although Kyle claims that 2-year-olds are too old for Mr. Hat). Garrison adopted Mr. Slave in an attempt to be so offensive he would be fired so he could sue the school for discrimination, but to his disappointment no adults except Chef seemed to have a problem with it, and he was instead praised for being "courageous."

His changing sexual identities are a continual source of problems. Though he often acts in a very clichéd homosexual manner, for a long time Garrison could be seen chasing women and displaying a very homophobic attitude towards gays. However, this appeared to be a coping mechanism for his own homosexual tendencies, and he eventually came out as a homosexual in season 4. Still, as a sign of his continual emotional and psychological problems, he continues to use homophobic language. He also was in despair over the fact that his father had not sexually molested him as a boy, believing that he didn't love his son. Garrison Sr. considered having sex with his son in order to save his life, but he instead had recording artist Kenny G., whom Mr. Garrison thought was his father, sexually assault him. In An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig, it was implied that Mr. Garrison has practiced bestiality.

Garrison is apparently racist, particularly towards Mexicans. A running gag is that every Christmas, he requests that the town get rid of all the Mexicans. (What exactly he dislikes about them is never indicated). In the episode "Here Comes the Neighborhood", he expresses intense animosity towards the rich African-American families or "richers" moving into South Park and commits himself to driving them out of town. Recruiting a number of other people to his cause, Mr. Garrison proceeds to publicly burn a giant lowercase T (standing for "time to leave") and persuades the other citizens to dress up in "ghost" costumes to scare the new residents into leaving. He persuades the white townsfolk to help by telling them it's a battle of the rich vs. the poor, but at the end, when the wealthy African-Americans have gone, he reveals in the very last line of the episode that his intentions all along were purely racist. Another episode features Garrison at a KKK meeting: his defense is "he's not a member, Mr. Hat is", and he proceeds to hold up Mr. Hat, dressed in a white hood. However she (having undergone a sex-change operation) did attend Chef's funeral. It has also been noted that he is intolerant of all other religions apart from Christianity and most recently intolerant of homosexuals after his sex-change operation. He claims he wanted to be a woman all along and have heterosexual relationships with men, as a woman.

As a teacher, Mr. Garrison is almost completely useless, regularly teaching bizarre and pointless classes (such as showing Barnaby Jones videos to the class for eight days, or asking the class why Chubby Checker left The Beatles in 1972). On the other hand, he will occasionally teach the children advanced subjects such as Stalin and Communism. Likewise, he also appears- despite his cynical nature- to genuinely enjoy his job.

Mr. Hat

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Mr. Garrison with Mr. Hat

Mr. Hat initially appeared to be simply a puppet used by Mr. Garrison as a teaching aide. However, Mr. Hat later appears to perform activities not possible if he was merely a puppet, and it is not entirely clear how much autonomy Mr. Hat and Mr. Garrison have from each other. In the episode "Chef Aid", Mr. Hat is able to drive a car through a prison wall to rescue Mr. Garrison and Chef. Mr. Hat has been able to move his eyes at Mr. Garrison, and in a fictional crossover psychotherapy session with Dr. Katz (from another Comedy Central series) in "Summer Sucks", Katz suggests that Mr. Hat was a personification of Mr. Garrison's gay side. Garrison rejected this, and Katz was never able to counterpoint because he was killed shortly afterward by a gigantic novelty firework. Further evidence of Hat's autonomy is in Worldwide Recorder Concert, where Mr. Hat beats up Mr. Mackey, or in South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut when Satan picks up Mr. Hat as a companion to replace Saddam Hussein. Satan speaks Mr. Hat's lines in a voice very similar to Mr. Garrison's.

Mr. Hat is also a racist, as seen in "Chef Goes Nanners," where he is a member of the South Park branch of the Ku Klux Klan. Mr. Garrison claims to not be a racist, and in fact at one point refuses to go with Mr. Hat to a Klan meeting (and is then shocked when Mr. Hat disappears from his hand and appears later at the rally, again leading one to speculate on his autonomy). The episode "Here Comes the Neighborhood," however, implies that Garrison may be a racist himself, leading to the possibility that, just like Mr. Hat's sexuality, his racism may be a product of Mr. Garrison's suspected Multiple personality disorder (or vice versa). In the episode summer sucks we see Mr. Hat in the steam room and when he is spoken to he looks and blinks even though he is by himself

Mr. Twig

Mr. Twig was a short-term companion to Mr. Garrison. Mr. Twig was introduced in the episode Summer Sucks, as a replacement for Mr. Hat. Mr. Twig consisted of a twig wearing a purple shirt with a pink triangle collar. His voice was identical to Mr. Hat's until his final scene in Chef Aid, where he spoke with a French accent. Mr. Twig was not well-received by the children in Garrison's third grade class, who repeatedly called for the return of Mr. Hat.

Though Garrison constantly assured himself that Mr. Twig was a better choice than Mr. Hat, he came to terms with his attachment to Mr. Hat in the episode Chef Aid, upon being broken out of jail by him. Mr. Twig, advising Garrison to follow his heart, was discarded, and has not been heard from since.

Mrs. Garrison

In the 9th season premiere episode, "Mr. Garrison's Fancy New Vagina" (original airdate: March 9, 2005), Garrison revealed that he had not been a gay man, but was actually a transsexual woman. Following a vaginoplasty, Mr. Garrison became Mrs. Garrison--presumably "Mrs. Herbert Garrison", since no mention has yet been made of Garrison changing or feminizing her given name beyond adding the inappropriate "Mrs." (an unmarried woman would more properly be addressed as "Miss" or "Ms."). Despite also getting breast implants, she continues to have male-pattern baldness and a masculine voice. She often asserts her femaleness, though in a somewhat unfeminine manner ("Just between us gals, nothing gets my cooch wetter than a black man singing").

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Mrs. Garrison discussing with Mr. Slave and Big Gay Al

The operation lead to the end of her relationship with Mr. Slave, who had not been consulted before the operation, declining Garrison's sexual overtures because she's now a woman. Garrison also notes that there have been no menstrual periods after the sex change, leading her to believe she is pregnant. While attempting to have an abortion, Mrs. Garrison is told that a vaginoplasty does not result in the ability to have periods, pregnancies, or abortions, as he was not a biological woman. Like many veteran characters, she has appeared with less frequency following "Mr. Garrison's Fancy New Vagina", but was given an important role again in "Follow That Egg!", where she attempted to prevent legislation granting gay citizens the right to marry.

In the episode "Go God Go", Mrs. Garrison is ordered by the school district to teach evolution to her class but deliberately presents the theory in an extremely skewed light (due to her personal aversion to the concept of evolution) and is subsequently replaced by Richard Dawkins. Although Mrs. Garrison continues to inject snide and insulting remarks into Dawkins' lecture, Dawkins is drawn to her by her masculine boldness and directness (though he is apparently oblivious to the fact that he was obviously once a man, as evidence by his deep voice and partial baldness). They begin to date and are even shown having sexual intercourse. Dawkins converts Mrs. Garrison to atheism, and they subsequently determine to eradicate all religion from the world. However, due to most likely Mrs. Garrison's influence, there is also the belief that mere logic doesn't work, but one must be a "dick" about it, leading to wars about the answer to "The Great Question", which is what the Atheists should call themselves. When Cartman, in another plotline, cryogenically freezes himself and wakes up five hundred years in the future, he finds that the entire world is now atheist, thanks to the work of Dawkins and Mrs. Garrison.

In the subsequent episode, Cartman calls Mrs. Garrison's home from the future. Dawkins answers the phone while he and Mrs. Garrison are having anal sex, and in the course of requesting asking to talk to Mrs. Garrison, Cartman reveals that she had had a sex change. Dawkins flees from Mrs. Garrison's home in shock and disgust, effectively breaking them up, and Mrs. Garrison returns to her own religion.