Fans of Charlie Kirk say it was a mistake for Comedy Central to pull off the air a “South Park” episode that parodied the free speech advocate after his assassination.

“Pulling the Charlie Kirk South Park episode isn’t what Charlie would have wanted,” one X user said. “It’s what the people celebrating his death want.”

A YouTube influencer who also has more than a million X followers, Zack Hoyt, said, “Stick to the actual bad actors instead of going after anything critical or satirical about Charlie Kirk. Even he thought the episode was funny.”

The episode featured the character Eric Cartman in a parody of Kirk, including him hosting a podcast where he “shuts down these woke liberal students.”

Cartman attends an awards ceremony in the episode where “The Charlie Kirk Award for Young Masterdebaters” is handed out.

Kirk said he enjoyed getting the “South Park” treatment. He temporarily changed his X profile photo to an image of a Cartman caricature of him when the episode was released.

He also posted a TikTok video that included clips from the show with his reaction.

“We got our own awards show,” Kirk said. “That’s a big win.”

“There’s going to be a lot said about this but we need to have a good spirit about this, being made fun of. This is all a success. This is all a win. And, we, as conservatives, we have thick skin, not thin skin. And you can make fun of us, it doesn’t matter.”

He ended his reaction by telling his audience to become “master debaters,” a nod to the title Cartman gives himself in the episode.

Kirk also posted a short clip of a Cartman debate in an X post with, “Not bad, Cartman.”

“I think I truly became a fan of Charlie Kirk after watching his response to being made fun of on South Park. Instead of complaining like every celebrity has done for 27 seasons — he embraced it,” actor and writer Zach Sage Fox said on X.

“Charlie Kirk was one of our kindest advocates of open dialogue and free speech. He laughed along with South Park’s recent parody of him,” a former BBC presenter, Andrew Gold, added in an X post.

A repeat of the season premiere aired instead of the episode “Got a Nut,” which was scheduled to re-air. The episode is still available on Paramount’s streaming platform.

Kirk was assassinated as he conducted one of his familiar campus debates at Utah Valley University on Wednesday.

A manhunt for the killer continued on Thursday.

The FBI offered a $100,000 reward in the case and released two images of a “person of interest” in connection with the case. They show a young person wearing a dark long sleeved shirt with an design on the front, sun glasses, and a baseball cap. The person is seen walking up stairs and appears to be wearing jeans and white shoes.

Officials also say they found a high-powered bolt action rifle in a wooded area where the shooter escaped from the scene. Investigators reportedly found ammunition with transgender and antifascist ideology engraved on it inside the gun.