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| Tolkien Black | |
|---|---|
| South Park character | |
 | |
| First appearance | "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe" (1997) |
| Created by | |
| Designed by |
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| Voiced by |
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| In-universe information | |
| Alias | Tupperware |
| Gender | Male |
| Occupation |
|
| Family | Linda Black (mother) Steve Black (father) |
| Significantother | Nichole Daniels (girlfriend) |
| Education | South Park Elementary |
| Residence | South Park, Colorado, United States |
Tolkien Black is a fictional character in theadultanimated television seriesSouth Park. He was voiced byTrey Parker in early appearances, butSouth Park art directorAdrien Beard took over in 2000 and has performed the character since. Until 2022, the character's name wasToken Black as a play ontokenism, and formerly had the last name “Williams”. His name wasretconned in the episode "The Big Fix" to be Tolkien, afterJ. R. R. Tolkien, though earlier episodes now have his name spelled Tolkien in the closed captioning.
Tolkien attends South Park Elementary, he initially is a third-grade student ofMr. Garrison's class before moving up to fourth-grade.
He was originally the only black student attending the school untilNichole Daniels was introduced in "Cartman Finds Love".
Residing in South Park, he is theonly child and son ofSteve and Linda Black, who were originally the only African American family in the town until theDaniels family first appeared.
Tolkien debuted in the series' first episode, "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe", though having no spoken lines. He was composed withconstruction paper and animated throughstop motion. From "Weight Gain 4000" onward he is animated digitally, though in a way which mimics the original use of the construction paper. Tolkien is not offered the same free-ranged motion as hand-drawn characters, as he is shown on one angle, and is animated with a jerky fashion.[1][2]
Tolkien is African-American, with dark brown skin and short black hair, and usually wears a light purple long sleeve shirt with a yellow letter "T" on it, and dark blue jeans. Up untilseason 5, Tolkien, along with other African-Americans, had darker skin. Adrien Beard speaks with his normal vocal range and is edited withPro Tools, which alters the pitch to that of a 10-year-old.[3]
Following the release of "The Big Fix", Tolkien's name was edited in all previously released material to match the retcon, including subtitles of past episodes. Because "The Big Fix" establishes that Stan and Randy have been unaware of Tolkien's real name up until this point, Tolkien's name is still subtitled as "Token" in their dialogue. Stan and Randy are meant to represent the audience, as the episode contains a scene of a character directly speaking to the audience about Tolkien's real name.[4]
Paste magazine ranked him No. 17 on their list of 20 bestSouth Park characters.[5] He was ranked No. 19 on theLooper list of 25 popularSouth Park characters.[6]
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