"Best Friends Forever" is the fourth episode in the ninth season of the American animated television series South Park.
After entering Heaven, Kenny learns that God had created the PSP to search for what the angels call "our Keanu Reeves"—the person who can command his legions against Satan's forces of Hell in a manner like that of the video game.
Meanwhile back in Hell, Satan and his minion Kevin conspire to have Kenny's feeding tube kept inside him, to prevent his soul from being in Heaven.
However, the Terri Schiavo case had just entered a "media frenzy" so Parker and Stone felt as though they needed to do an episode about it; they saw it as the biggest news story since the September 11 attacks.
Eventually, the decision was made to go with the "joke version" consisting of the angel narrating the battle as opposed to a large scale scene because Parker and Stone wanted more emphasis on the Terri Schiavo story.
It also became the fourth prime time animated cartoon, and the first cable TV series, to win the award, behind The Simpsons, King of the Hill and Futurama.
In her book The Deep End of South Park, Leslie Stratyner applauds the episode for its ability to "tackle such challenging issues as... right to die in 'Best Friends Forever'... its 'devil-may-care' attitude that has brought a fair amount of acclaim".
[8] On a different aspect of the controversy, Jonathan Gray commented that the "twist at the end with Kenny's final page of the will... illustrates just how crazy people become about everyday issues.
[9] Writing for the Chicago Sun Times, Jeff Shannon described the episode thus: "Clearly aware that taking sides in the right-to-life debate would be a divisive, no-win strategy, Parker and Stone aimed their satirical arrows at the one aspect of the Schiavo case that's indisputably offensive: the horrendous media circus that turned a private matter into a shamefully public spectacle.