VIDEO GAMES
SOUTH PARK: TENORMAN'S REVENGE
Dr. Mephesto does not appear in the game, but he is mentioned by Scott Tenorman, who releases many of the doctor's creations as mini-bosses. According to early press information, it is also Dr. Alphonse Mephesto who is helping the boys repair the time stream in their battle against Scott Tenorman.
SOUTH PARK: THE FRACTURED BUT WHOLE
The character plays a key role in the game's central storyline, where the player is tasked to visit the South Park Genetic Engineering Ranch to uncover the villain's efforts to have cats and his henchmen genetically altered. The level "The Many Asses of Dr. Mephesto", styled on a classic dungeon crawl, portrays the location radically different from the series, featuring it as a sprawling science facility with a wide, bustling variety of scientists, employed under the 'Mephesto's Tech' banner, with the interior visually resembling the Visitor's Center from the 1993 film Jurassic Park, with Dr. Mephesto playing a role as a tour guide. Though he retains his penchant for multi-assed animals and bizarre hybrids, his assistant Kevin is absent and never mentioned, and his son Terrance is indicated to have died long ago, despite evidence to the contrary.
After the end of a lengthy tour of each level of the facility, including a greenhouse, animal enclosures and failed clones of his dead son, Mephesto explains that the facility is funded by donors, including the villain, who has asked him to genetically alter cats and local sixth graders, boosting their aggression and number of asses, for his operation. When the complex security grid is turned off, the player is forced to lead the children and Mephesto through the facility to escape, killing many of his creations in the process, while Mephesto struggles with his own technological designs, including opening electrified doors. The player eventually escapes the facility, and can return to the main hall at any time to snap a selfie with him for Coonstagram.
As Mephesto's ranch looks wildly different from the show, his assistant Kevin is not present, and Terrance has continued to appear in the background of episodes after its release, in addition several episodes after his death is suggested to have taken place, these scenes are presumably non-canon. The facility seems to return to its classic appearance by "South Park: Phone Destroyer", published by Ubisoft one month later.
SOUTH PARK: PHONE DESTROYER
During the character creation process, Mephesto can be seen working in his laboratory in the background, with his sons occasionally walking past.
BEHIND THE SCENES
Dr. Mephesto's distinctive voice is provided by series co-creator Trey Parker.
The character was inspired by the poorly-received 1996 film adaptation of The Island of Dr. Moreau, a film plagued by a notoriously troubled production. The film notably featured legendary actor Marlon Brando portraying the title character, a mad scientist who surgically and genetically alters animal-human hybrids, as well as his silent assistant and surrogate son Majai. The designs and dynamics between these characters inspired Dr. Alphonse Mephesto and his assistant, Kevin, while Mephesto's hybrid animal creations were based on Trey Parker's old drawings as a teenager.
By the show's fourth season, Matt and Trey felt that the film reference was no longer very relevant, and the character no longer funny, so he was retired from the show, which finally made light of his similarity to Brando, and he has made sporadic non-speaking cameos since then, only coming back alongside other retired/discarded characters for in appearance "201", but he has noticeably been excluded from recent episodes dealing with genetics, such as "Eek, a Penis!" and "Holiday Special".
In the commentary track for his debut episode, "An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig", Matt and Trey observe retrospectively that Mephesto is not an evil character in their view, just eccentric, explaining that "in all the other shows, [Mephesto] becomes kind of a helpful guy, just hanging out there, doing his thing."
BONUS FACTOIDS
Dr. Mephesto is one of the shortest adult characters on the show.
Despite having been already unused on the show for several years, he received an action figure from Mezco in their fourth wave of South Park action figures, alongside Tweek Tweak, Damien Thorn, and a variation of Cartman.
MYTHS & LEGENDS
His name is a reference to the German demon Mephistopheles, and is often rendered incorrectly as Mephisto, even in official Comedy Central materials - however, the spelling in scripts has always been Mephesto.His first name is spelled Alfonz in "Spontaneous Combustion".
While he has been retired from the show, making only one speaking appearance in seventeen years, rumors of his death have been greatly exaggerated.
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