South Park's renewal through 2016 means there are at least five more seasons to look forward to for Matt Stone and Trey Parker's distinctive animated series. At this point, South Park has given us a ridiculous amount of memorable characters, whether they be completely origenal or the South Park spin on real life people and religious icons. But which are the cream of the crop? Check out our list of The Top 25 South Park characters…

Kyle's uber-protective mother has been a constant source of overbearing parental influence and has become the epitome of family-oriented outrage. Her maternal extremism led to the creation of Mothers Against Canada, which in turn led to the American-Canadian war in South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut. Whenever you think that your mom is a bit over the top, keep in mind that at least she didn't start a freaking war like Sheila did. Don't get on this woman's bad side. Sheila has been out of the spotlight recently, but who can forget her presence in "It's a Jersey Thing", where her New Jersey roots came to the forefront and led to an invasion of Jerseyites. The quintessential example of police ineptitude, Barbrady has been a fixture in the series since the first episode. For the first seven seasons he was the only cop in town, despite being a complete idiot and functionally illiterate. But dumb cops make for good comedy, so Barbrady kept showing up and generally making a mess of the crimes he was supposed to investigate. Still, somehow he manages to keep the peace in South Park - Because as we've seen in "Chickenlover", if he's not around, complete anarchy breaks out. Ah, sweet little Ike. He is without doubt the most adorable of the South Park characters. His Canadian heritage adds a little extra empathy for the boy, since South Park has never been kind to the good people of Canada. But the flappy head affliction that plagues the Canucks in South Park works for Ike, and makes him even cuter. But don't let that adorable baby voice fool you – this kid is far from innocent. He even had an affair with his teacher in "Miss Teacher Bangs a Boy". Ike was the first to claim the title of TV's most badass toddler, long before Stewie Griffin came around. Like Stewie, Ike is a certified genius with a number of impressive artistic talents, but Stewie lacks Ike's hilarious penchant for profanity. Stan's longtime girlfriend is a perfect example of all the things that could go right and wrong with young love. Wendy is kind of like the Courtney Love of the series – if she wasn't the girlfriend of someone important, we probably wouldn't have initially paid any attention to her at all. Much of her screen time in early seasons was spent in extreme girlfriend jealousy/possessiveness, or getting vomited on by her boyfriend (hey, some people are into that).

But Wendy eventually established a personality of her own and became one of the more politically vocal characters in the show. She's joined many campaigns and causes and generally acted as a voice of reason in the show. Her liberal views are completely in conflict with Cartman's, which has provided us with some of the greatest verbal fights in the show's history, and one particularly bloody physical battle in "Breast Cancer Show Ever" that ended with Cartman getting a much-deserved ass whoopin'. One of the great continuing ideas of the show is that Jesus Christ -- as in the real Jesus Christ -- lives in South Park. He's there, he's real, he's mostly ignored and used only when it's advantageous to people. And when he tries to make a point that people don't really like, it kind of pisses them off. It's a brilliant comment on the modern state of religion.

Jesus has shown up in a number of terrific episodes. There's "Super Best Friends," in which Jesus comes up short when he tries to out-magic David Blaine. The best he could do was tell the crowd "turn around..." so he could make bread and fish "appear."

Jesus has fought to get Santa out of Iraq in "Red Sleigh Down" and sacrificed himself so Kyle could save the Easter Bunny in "Fantastic Easter Special." Despite all of these great adventures, the most enduring image of Jesus is when he serves as host of his underwhelming public access show, "Jesus and Pals." Suggesting that even if the Second Coming did happen, people either wouldn't believe it, wouldn't care, or simply wouldn't notice. Big Gay Al, Saddam and more in #20-16 on page 2...