If you watch Southpark, you shouldn’t.
If you do anyway, you shouldn’t admit to it.
If you happen to know someone who watches Southpark, you might have heard indirectly about Kenny. He dies in every episode. Actually, he typically dies a few times in each episode, and typically does so violently. Experts claim that there are two episodes of Southpark in which Kenny does not die, but proof is all too conveniently scarce.
There is also an opossum named Kenny. Like Kenny of Southpark, Kenny the opossum dies in every episode.
Apparently, Kenny startled someone who was working too intently in the garden to notice his approach on top of a fence directly behind where this unnamed someone was working. This unnamed someone grabbed a stick and clobbered Kenny right across the backside. Although the blow was not terribly aggressive, and not intended to be harmful, Kenny surprisingly died violently in a fit of hissing, gnashing and flailing. After falling to the ground, he smelled as if he had been dead for quite a while.
The surprised unnamed assailant went to find a box to put Kenny’s remains into for a proper ‘burial’, but upon returning to the scene of the incident, could not find Kenny.
Others briefly observed Kenny frolicking about in the same garden later, but when the unnamed assailant came within view, Kenny again died in a violent fit of hissing, gnashing and flailing, accompanied by the aroma of well aged death. Again, the unnamed assailant was unable to locate Kenny’s remains after retuning with a box in which to put them.
After a few more similarly violent deaths, it became apparent that Kenny was merely playing possum, likely in response to being clobbered with a stick by the startled unnamed assailant during their primary encounter!
I apologize for the length of the video. My attempts to trim it compromised the quality of the imaging. The important part of the video is between ten and thirty seconds. This is not the real Kenny anyway, but merely a random opossum who happened to be frolicking in the garden.
I also apologize for posting this at noon rather than at midnight when I typically schedule my articles for the day. For midnight, I posted a short excerpt from an old article from the gardening column instead.
Tony Tomeo 
That’s a funny story. I never saw one play dead.
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I have seen them do it, but never heard of one doing is so reliably and regularly! When I relocate an undead opossum away from the farm, they seem content to stay out in the forest. Because we grow horticultural commodities rather than fruits or vegetables, there is nothing for them to eat out in the production area. I prefer to just chase them off if they are willing to go. I have read that playing possum is an involuntary reaction rather than something they choose to do, sort of like a seizure. The way the gnash their teeth and flail about in the beginning really seems to be unpleasant.
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There was one hanging around my yard once. I saw it at night several times. I was amazed at how fast they move, like this one does.
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I would not mind them in my own garden. They eat baby rats, slugs, snails and grubs. The problem with some of them is that they also eat fruit. At work, I must evict them just because they are perceived to be vermin.
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One of the common names for persimmon trees is “possumhaw,” just because the possums love the fruit so much. I have a friend who often sees possums in her persimmon tree.
John James Audubon pictured the Virginia Opossum in a persimmon tree, and an old American folk-song celebrates the relationships among the Possum, the Persimmon and the Raccoon. The lyrics include these lines:
Possum up in a ’simmon tree, raccoon on the ground,
Raccoon said, “”You rascal, shake them ’simmons down!
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Does that refer to the native American persimmon? They are not native here, but Japanese persimmons are somewhat popular.
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My friend has both the Japanese and our native (Diospyros texana). I think Audubon was familiar with a different native persimmon. Atakapa Indians on the Gulf coast called the tree piakimin and early French settlers transformed it into plaquemine, which today is the name of a famous Louisiana parish.
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Oh, that is a third species. I never met a Diospyros texana. The Diospyros virginiana is what I met in Oklahoma. It was RAD! It is used for understock for the Japanese persimmons, but is not grown for fruit here. I brought seed back, just for my own garden. They are completely different from the Japanese persimmons.
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I guess you just admitted you watch Southpark! Didn’t know about the “dead smell” part – that is quite a good trick.
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I did not admit to anything, although I know people who do watch Southpark, and know who Kenny is.
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If I did watch it, I would NOT admit to it. It is so naughty and offensive. . . . not that I would know.
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Reblogged this on Tony Tomeo and commented:
Ah, (dysfunctional) wildlife in the garden.
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