Officer Barbrady (voiced by Trey Parker) is a South Park city police officer who is extremely incompetent at what he does and is generally a bumbling oaf, incapable of solving any of the crimes he is charged to investigate. He even unintentionally helped Mr. Garrison try to kill Kathie Lee Gifford. Mayor McDaniels still often summons him, as he actually does keep the peace in South Park, as shown in "Chickenlover" when shortly after he quits, the city falls into chaos. Officer Barbrady doesn't drink coffee, as seen in episode "Gnomes"; he instead prefers to get hit in the face by a cat swung by the tail. He is slightly overweight and talks louder than he should, most likely because of his hearing aid.
Barbrady was illiterate until season two's "Chickenlover". After his illiteracy was exposed, Barbrady was ordered to learn how to read by the Mayor. Chickenlover made him learn to read by leaving the notes at the crime scenes describing where he would strike next. Barbrady was thankful at first to Chickenlover, but arrested him nonetheless for his crimes. Chickenlover then gave him the book Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, which Barbrady thought was such an awful book that he vowed never to read anything ever again.
In "Chickenlover" and "Spookyfish" Barbrady claims to have a wife. However, she has never appeared on the show. In other episodes, it has been implied that he and Mayor McDaniels are in a relationship, despite her general disdain for him.
In the season seven episode "Toilet Paper", Barbrady claims, while being interrogated by Hannibal Lecter-like character Josh, that he was beaten with a belt by his uncle and that his father forced him to wear a dress and sit on all of his uncle's laps on poker night. Josh interjects that this is the reason he became a police officer in the first place; to protect himself.
Parker's voice for Officer Barbrady was inspired by Dennis Prager, a syndicated radio talk show host, who Parker said he and Stone liked to make fun of for his "big, bombastic, stupid voice".
In "Chickenlover", it was established that Barbrady was the only police officer in town. In later seasons, he was phased out in favor of an actual police force, led by the equally incompetent Sergeant Yates. Barbrady's role in the series has decreased as a result, but he still appears regularly, most recently in "200" while protecting the town, and was considered a possible father for Eric Cartman, having been in the room on the day of the DNA test; however, this was ruled out when the true identity of Eric Cartman's father was revealed in "201".
Read more about this topic: List Of Recurring South Park Characters
Famous quotes containing the word officer:
“That’s all right, sir. A commanding officer doesn’t need brains, just a good, loud voice.”
—Cyril Hume, and Fred McLeod Wilcox. Dr. Morbius (Walter Pidgeon)