Get ready for 14 South Park movies and five more seasons
Comedy Central has renewed Trey Parker and Matt Stone's animated series through season 30
Film News South Park
MTV Entertainment Studios has unveiled an expansive, $900 million deal with South Park co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, which includes extending the adult animated series on Comedy Central through its 30th season. Not to mention, Paramount+ will receive a whopping 14 South Park movies, with the first two out this fall. Boy, do these animators have their work cut out for them.
“Matt and Trey are world-class creatives who brilliantly use their outrageous humor to skewer the absurdities of our culture and we are excited to expand and deepen our long relationship with them to help fuel Paramount+ and Comedy Central,” Chris McCarthy, president-CEO of MTV Entertainment and chief content officer of adult animation for Paramount+ said in a press release. “Franchising marquee content like South Park and developing new IP with tremendous talent like Matt and Trey, is at the heart of our strategy to continue growing Paramount+.”
Running on Comedy Central since 1997 and soon entering its 25th season, the network has renewed the series through 30 seasons, which is just, a lot. (But still: Simpsons did it.) This means Cartman, Stan, and Kyle will be around until at least 2027, with a few more chances to kill off Kenny again.
“Comedy Central has been our home for 25 years and we’re really happy that they’ve made a commitment to us for the next 75 years,” said Parker and Stone, adding that the channel’s current owners, ViacomCBS, were “immediately supportive” of the unorthodox way South Park has been produced during the COVID-19 pandemic. “We can’t wait to get back to doing traditional South Park episodes but now we can also try out new formats. It’s great to have partners who will always take a chance with us.”
According to Hollywood Reporter, Stone and Parker consider the first two films hitting the streamer as “one big story broken into halves.” While the series is no stranger to creating specials, like the two hour-long ones they made during quarantine, this fall’s film release will be the first South Park movie since 1999’s musical South Park: Bigger, Longer, And Uncut.
224 Comments
Trey Parker looks like hell.
Trey Parker should lay off the fatty foods.
I thought he was a fat Mel Gibson. I’m sure he would love that comparison
Matt Stone looks like the luckiest man in the world…
So, would South Park move from HBO Max to Paramount+ then?
No, from what I read, HBO Max licensed it for 5 years (not sure what year it ends). This deal is Viacom aiming to get exclusive South Park content on P+ until they can have the full show back as well.https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-05/south-park-creators-sign-900-million-deal-for-more-episodes-movies
Why did they license it? HBO Max is still fairly recent – CBS All Access predates it by at least a year – and they had to have known that they might want to put non-CBS Paramount/Viacom content onto the streaming service at some point even if it never changed over into Paramount Plus or whatever.
I think Matt and Trey still have a lot of control over it, and I’m guessing AT&T/Warner offered them more money than Paramount.
Exactly what Soylent said above. HBO Max paid $500 million (!), thereby setting a huge price point for their library. That number is a huge reason why they just got the near billion dollar deal.Viacom undervalued them and lost out, so they had to pay the price later.
No wonder they were feeling saucy enough to buy the Casa Bonita!
Glad I got here before a certain commenter comes along and complains about how awful this show is and how it ruined society because he doesn’t like 4 specific episodes.
I think they came in 6 minutes after you posted your comment.I won’t say that the show sucks – it’s what it’s always been. Still there aren’t any episodes from the last few seasons that I would consider to be “classic.” Maybe I’ve just forgotten them. These past few years were unmemorable. For me, the show kind of stopped working around 2016 – which is also when I turned 44 and my Logan’s Run “too old to do anything but complain about the good old days” jewel started flashing.But Parker and Stone aren’t young anymore and perhaps farting out an amazing new episode with only a week of lead time isn’t as easy as it used to be.
That said, I’ve enjoyed the two videogames and I think movies might be the way to get them back on track.
I’m sorry your genitals will fall off if somebody criticizes media you like…
I don’t think it’s about having a problem with someone criticizing the show…it’s the fact that you clearly seem to hate the show, yet on every single South Park/Trey & Matt-related article on this site, you post the same diatribe every goddamn time. If you don’t give a shit about this show, why do you rush to the keyboard the instant an article is posted about it to give the same spiel? At least think of a new critique next time, if you simply can’t help yourself.
And yours, in turn, if a couple showrunners played around with sensitive ideas in ways that didn’t seem in every way to conform to your preferences.
Or maybe people just don’t appreciate being made to feel like pieces of societal garbage because they like South Park…
If we’re talking about recognitions… eh. Even if he were praising something I liked, or criticizing something I didn’t, that guy is firmly in “wouldn’t piss on him if he were on fire” territory.
That dude is the absolute worst. Someone in a past thread once said that no one sums up the AV Club’s transformation from an awesome, fun place to a toxic and miserable one quite like him.
I swear to God he/she has alerts set for any potentially un-woke topic postings. Then gets RIGHT to work about that one episode he saw that time.
“That dude is the absolute worst.” A frumpy and obsessive scold.
Nice to see you replying to your own burner account…
The idea that someone like this insufferable troll scold is rewarded while some of remain for years in the greys speaks volumes about nu-AV Club.
I don’t know who you mean, but I love having that debate. Done it several times elsewhere. There’s a certain truth in the argument that Gen-X Contrarianism represented by South Park (and Bill Maher, etc) contributed heavily to the increase in political cynicism we are seeing play out now.
What makes you think people were less cynical about politics before South Park?
What makes you think people were less cynical about politics before South Park?
The fact that it’s mathematically documented as objectively true.
Funny you should put it that way considering that in 1996, the year before the show debuted, less than half of America’s voting age population voted in that year’s presidential election, whereas last year over 60% did.
less than half of America’s voting age population voted in that year’s presidential election, whereas last year over 60% did.
I’ve never heard the flat participation rate of voting be described as the level of “political cynicism”. That’s a metric of… voter apathy. Political cynicism is a different concept.
I think cynicism and apathy are pretty well-connected in politics(“It’s all corrupt, so why should I vote?”).
I’d say the cynicism of the mid ‘90s helped birth South Park in the first place. Other CC staples at that time like the OG Daily Show were along the same lines. People tend to look back at that era as a lost paradise when really it was choking from cynicism (which is one of the reasons we got the 2000 election).
You think that more people voted in last year’s election because of a DECREASE in cynicism?
To be fair, everyone in the world knew that Bill Clinton vs. Bob Dole was going to be a total blowout – and it kind of was. Not much enthusiasm for that one.
The 49-state blowouts in ‘72 and ‘84 had higher turnouts than ‘96.
Since you’re a political scientist, I’ll ask: would you say more or less cynical than during fucking Watergate? I’ll take your answer off the air, Dr.
Because they were.
If you look at my above comments you’ll see I gave numerical evidence that the opposite is true.
It’s one of those shows that I grew up with and I’m happy it’s still around. It’s basically my generations Simpsons.
6
Ah, Laserface. Guy’s the worst.
It’s funny how sensitive you people are to people who don’t fully stan for your shitty heroes.
He’s here now and he literally copy-pasted the post he made before.
IMO, it has declined almost as hard as the Simpsons. I could name much more than 4 bad episodes, and there are so many episodes I can’t even remember because they weren’t interesting at all for that matter.
6 specific episodes.
Oh it took me moment to figure out Trey Parker was in the header picture. They have an episode on gout right?
You are thinking of King of the Hill
“He named his swollen toe ‘Madame’ and she talks with a French accent.”
“It’s time to start the showwwww”
I think that’s Brendan Fraser.
What about the header photo made you think of gout? The uric acid crystal foot thing?
Might be confusing gout with goiter.
You know how one usually get’s gout right? I’ll just go out on limb here and say Timothy Olymphant probably hasn’t gotten it or doesn’t have it.
The buildup of uric acid crystals in joints is mostly a genetic factor with some specific dietary triggers thrown that are high in purines (beer, asparagus)
Same here. But I have to admit Matt is still a fairly handsome dude.
We are in hell
This headline reads like something from the Onion. Jesus, 30 seasons of South Park…just typing that out is absurd.
I absolutely love South Park: Bigger, Larger and Uncut. I consider it one of the best films of 1999 (which is saying a lot) one of the greatest comedies of the last 25 years and one of the best musicals of the past… 50 years (this isn’t exact maths) But even I was shocked – and not in a positive way – when the headline turned out to be accurate.
SP: BLU is an excellent movie. That said, it’s not something I think they can repeat 14 (or even 2, honestly) more times.
I imagine most of the movies will be closer to their Imaginationland and GOT specials rather than the feature they released.
The Simpsons just had its 32nd season.
Saturday Night Live, which is not only still covered and discussed often here but also seems to be accorded a lot more respect than it does anything to earn, must be in something like its six hundredth season by now.
I think SNL’s different because its cast keeps changing(although Lorne apparently wants people to stay longer now), unlike The Simpsons and South Park. I think South Park has an advantage over The Simpsons as far as staying in the zeitgeist in that they make the episodes the week they air, so they’re much better able to tackle current events like SNL does than The Simpsons.
They have different dynamics, sure.Personally I never needed the straight-out-of-yesterday’s-news “tackling of current events” that South Park sometimes attempts; it reminds me, kind of, of that really minor John Lennon album where the cover was made up like a newspaper and the songs were supposed to be kind of topical missives, sort of in the manner of old-fashioned folkies like Guthrie or Seeger. “And this one’s about a little issue you might have heard about…” It’s like, you’re already in the zeitgeist, dude. Just take a breath and write about whatever you want.Anyway, obviously that’s a really minor part of the conversation.
At this point I really think that neither The Simpsons nor South Park want to be the first to go off the air, until the former is assured that they’ll keep their “longest running animated sitcom” or the latter is convinced they won’t break it by holding out a few years more than them.
Lol nah. You’re just a dumb nobody
How is the show holding up? I watched until it started getting serialized. It’s wasn’t bad, I just couldn’t keep up. Was lost dropping into random episodes.
The simplified take on the last few seasons is “not bad, not nearly as good as the show at its peak.” The somewhat more nuanced take is, well, that, but also adding that the serialization has been kind of an interesting development and it’s let them do some experimenting that hasn’t always worked out but has been fun to observe. A lot of the recent episodes have been kind of unfocused, just jumping from one big social phenomenon to the next in a single episode, but I’d be hard pressed to describe anything from the last few seasons as genuinely bad or not worth watching
This is the best description I’ve seen so far in the comments here. You summed it up well. I’d also add that the “jumping from one big social phenomenon to the next” part oftentimes ends up being the biggest weakness for them. You can tell they want to or feel expected to have a take, spin, or joke about damn near every political or social issue in the news cycle of a given week/month. And because of it, they cram too much in. When they pare things down, stick to one or two plot points, the show is still capable of putting out high quality episodes. Since its AVC, we’ll say A grade, B+ type stuff. But when they’re just going down the checklist of a news cycle, you get an unfocused, serviceable C+. It’s not “bad” and you won’t feel like you wasted your time all that much, but its not memorable in any way and you won’t think about it much after you finish watching
also the animation looks great, IMO.
The trump years were rough on this show (much like, you know, everyone else)
Eat your ‘memba-berries, y’hear?
I think it’s about as hit-or-miss as it’s ever been. Every now and then there’s something really fantastic, but also a lot of filler.
Remember the South Park episode where they had their fictional gay character say that private businesses should have the right to discriminate against LGBT+ people?Remember the time Matt and Trey, two straight assholes, declared that the f-slur meant dudes who owned Harleys despite the fact that they are two straight dudes who don’t get a say in another community re-appropriates slurs used against them?Remember the episode where they compared gender confirmation surgery to wanting be turned into a dolphin?Remember the episode where they equivocated trans people competing in sports to Randy Savage in drag?Remember the fact that they’ve only just now started acknowledging that climate change is real despite spending the past 20 years espousing climate change denial?Remember the episode where they said alcoholism isn’t real and it’s just the result of a lack of “self control”?The show has and always will be about upholding the status quo unless it personally inconveniences Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s Libertarian ideology.
No I don’t remember any of that because I am not an emotionally stunted man-child who still watches that played out old show.
It’s the general problem of comedians. They start out young and rebelling against what they disagree with, which was stuff that was largely pro-queer and anti-mainstream.
But as they got older, their views stayed the same and nothing challenged their worldview, so they drifted more to the center and more to punching down. But a lot of their old stuff was pretty much them being assholes too. Their “all crimes are hate crimes” but was pretty anti-BLM a couple decades before BLM.
They admitted even in the earliest of interviews that they weren’t so much being political as they were pushing back against the establishment. When you’re in the entertainment industry, that establishment is generally liberal even if just for show. That’s what Gen-Xers did back then, and they were handed a shitload of money for doing it. Why change a formula that was working? It’s been in the past few years that they began to see that their show had and actual effect that they maybe weren’t too proud of and started slight course corrections.
“Why change a formula that was working?”I guess the question is working for whom? They got a shitload of money, but arguably they caused harm to certain classes of people, and arguably to society as a whole. It’s fine not to care about that (I don’t mean that sarcastically), but I think it’s a fair criticism.Also, “it’s not political it’s just entertainment” thing doesn’t make much sense.
I think the next sentence covers that.
I don’t know which next sentence you mean that covers what, but if I thought anything I said was answered by something you already said I wouldn’t have had to say what I said.
When you’re in the entertainment industry, that establishment is generally liberal even if just for show.
I always find it funny how people always like to claim that Hollywood’s liberal slant is entirely performative, unlike their totally real and not at all edge lord reactionary bullshit.
They admitted even in the earliest of interviews that they weren’t so much being political as they were pushing back against the establishmentMaybe. But “I’m against everything you stand for” is a particularly juvenile philosophy. It’s not standing FOR anything, it’s just standing AGAINST things.
It’s just contrarianism.
“It’s just contrarianism.”
And that’s exactly how they describe themselves.
E-X-A-C-T-L-Y.
The only real issue that I’ve had with the show is that it frequently seems to be against having any sincere political or moral opinions about the world. It does this typically via very facile and cheap, “Both sides are equally awful” arguments. This works sometimes because sometimes both sides are awful. However, in many cases they aren’t, and it often seems like a cop-out for the show to continually take the same “both sides” position on almost every issue. I’ve always seen this as very immature, but I do think Parker and Stone have grown out of it somewhat as the show progressed. The only problem is that the show has been on too long so it’s just no as funny as it used to be. All the material has been mined to death. So I rarely laugh at it anymore.That said, there’s something comforting about the fact that I can turn on a show I watched and highschool and it’s still there. Honestly, I didn’t realize this until their COVID-19 special. I had taken South Park for granted for years. However, I saw that special after 2020 literally being the worst year in my life, and then I turned on the show and saw these same characters I’ve watched since I was 16 dealing with all the same shit I’m now dealing with as a 40 year old man and it actually made me cry.
Honestly, unlike most old rich people they’ve gotten BETTER as time has gone on. They’ve flipped on Global Warming and gender discrimination in bathrooms (while still having a pretty awful view on trans athletes), and had a genuinely pro-union message against Amazon. They also were by far the best cartoon at skewering Trump and his effect on America. Their older episodes are cringe when they have a “message” to them. But yeah some of their stuff is awful. They’re at their best when the kids are just kids
They’ve flipped on Global WarmingYes. After twelve years and in 2018. Which is like 23 years after Kyoto, when there ceased to be an real (non-political) defense against acknowledging it. and had a genuinely pro-union message against Amazon. They also were by far the best cartoon at skewering Trump and his effect on AmericaThat’s a pretty low bar. Those are fairly easy to mock and safe targets. It’s how the treat everyone else that’s the issue. How often they punch down or take a poor stance on racial or gender issues.
The problem with trans-atheletes is that men that change over to women still retain their male attribute, like muscles and bone density. When former males play sports against women they have a strength edge (see Renee Richards/Richard Raskind). It’s just not fair. You don’t see many female to male trans athletes. It’s just not fair to women athletes.
I think the Monty Python troupe had said something of the sort on why they can’t do satire forever- once you become reasonably successful, you become what was the brunt of the joke the whole time.Which is a prescient sentiment, considering John Cleese’s stupid old man schtick nowadays.
Yep..I see Bill Maher doing this….I don’t find him funny….he seems to be morphing into a“get off my lawn” kinda guy.
“The show has and always will be about upholding the status quo”
Yeah, that sure is what it’s about.
All good reasons not to watch. I used to enjoy the show, back when I was young and immature as it was. But I grew up. When they devoted an entire episode to defending their use of the f-slur, I realized that they wouldn’t.
I stuck around about a season or two longer than you. It was probably the episode “Ass Burgers” that killed it for me. Like, they did a fairly decent and respectful episode about Tourrette’s. But for Autism they just made the easiest fucking joke in the world (“Asperger sounds like ‘ass burgers’ haha funny joke!”) and a dated Matrix parody implying that autistic people with low-support needs are just faking being disabled.
My opinion of South Park changed in the opposite way: about 15 years ago I thought they were just a couple of edgelords, but eventually I came to like the show.
I found that with a lot of comedy- The Daily Show with John Stewart didn’t quite hit as hard 15 years in, after a couple seasons of Real Time with Bill Maher I realized I have a modicum more political awareness than Maher (and a shitfuck more compassion for Muslim folk), and I really can’t stand the saccharine obliviousness of the centrist mindset Aaron Sorkin dwells in any more (and I absolutely loved The West Wing years ago). None of those comparisons quite are as aggravatingly stupid as South Park is with its edginess though, I really wish they had the capacity to evolve their commentary kind of like what happened with It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia- McElhenny & co. have kept a consistent vibe to their show since Bush Jr. was POTUS and yet some of the remarkably insensitive stuff from early series has evolved into some very introspective, considerate comedy that punches down more against the bigotry and bigots than those victimized.
Its a pity. Around the time of BLU they seemed pretty progressive with jokes about racism in the armed forces etc. Then they started pandering to the Chan dwellers and edgy memesters. I still have affection for the series despite this stuff and it does seem a twinge of regret has set in with Matt and Trey, who are still talented as hell (Book of Mormon is fantastic).
Chapo Trapouth Park
You’re not funny or interesting
I remember when the show didn’t really have a ‘message’, it was just about stupid crap like aliens putting a satellite dish in Cartman’s butt.Even the older ‘message’ episodes were good. I’m literally on the board for an Earth Day committee but making fun of Al Gore’s style of environmentalism is perfectly fine with me. Once they started getting too heavy into the ‘message’ bullshit I dropped the show.
I think the issue with Manbearpig was, based on their other episodes about environmentalism like the episode where they go to the rainforest and conclude with a musical number about how saving it sucks ass, that it wasn’t mocking Gore’s brand of environmentalism but rather just the idea of climate change in general.And yeah a few of their message episodes could have something worth saying, like mocking Richard Dawkins brand of Atheism, but that’s more a case of a broken clock being right twice a day.
What season was the rainforest thing though? I don’t remember it in the initial seasons. They were definitely mocking Al Gore himself in the Manbearpig episode, not environmentalism in general.
It was the one where Kenny gets a girlfriend. They go to the rainforest for a song and dance number and it ends with them singing about how saving the rainforest “really sucks ass”. It’s definitely one of the earlier seasons because Kenny’s girlfriend directly asks Stan and Kyle who “killed Kenny” when Kenny dies.
Yeah pretty sure that’s after I stopped watching…
I think he may be referring to the one with Jennifer Anniston guest voicing. So this is probably with in the first four or five seasons. Even then, I don’t think that it was a message episode. The whole logic to the ‘fuck the rainforest’ ending was that there were bugs and snakes and shit that makes someone who comes from a city uncomfortable. They also get kidnapped by guerillas if I’m remembering right, and they’re rescued by the crew that’s there to tear down the rainforest in their bulldozers. It was silly for the sake of being silly.
Season 2 maybe? It was very early and I think Jennifer Aniston did the voice of the rain forest guide.
“style of environmentalism”That’s an argument straight out of the GOP playbook.
I’ve only ever voted Democrat and am actually a Communist and an environmentalist. Al Gore didn’t help environmentalism at all, his hypocrisy only hurt the cause.
“I’ve only ever voted Democrat and am actually a Communist and an environmentalist.”That’s how you know how successful the propaganda was.“Al Gore didn’t help environmentalism at all, his hypocrisy only hurt the cause.”That’s another argument straight out of the GOP playbook. This is why billionaires have no problem spending lots of money flooding the zone. It works.
“That’s another argument straight out of the GOP playbook.”And, oddly enough, it’s absolutely true. When you’re preaching about how everyone is hurting the environment and then you’re driving around in gas guzzling SUVs, you’re a hypocrite and you’re not helping.
Spend 10+ years on the board of an Earth Day committee and then you can come at me, I can say with the utmost confidence I know more about this than you do.
“And, oddly enough, it’s absolutely true.”My work here is done.“Spend 10+ years on the board of an Earth Day committee and then you can come at me”This is the environmental version of the Navy SEAL rant.
ManBearPig is a very funny episode, but the message is so insanely dumb and cynical, for no fucking reason at all. It did nothing but reflect back the conservative retort that Al Gore was Chicken Little. And, I mean, look around.
Eh, always is a stretch. South Park generally started losing its way when they started embracing the whole “6 Days to Air”, “We have to comment on everything going on RIGHT NOW” mentality. It means they generally go with their first takes on issues rather than fully exploring them. Not to mention it means their jokes are lazier and episodes start being timely but lack universality. They also started abandoning silliness – a key component of their early success – and started taking their own opinions relatively seriously. In other cliched words, they bought into their bullshit and the show’s suffered for it.
Remember all those people who can’t handle comedy? Yup, they’re all still around, and really mad.
Yeah, it’s a good show.
South Park has been on for nearly 30 years. I assure you that when it debuted in the 1990s it was a very progressive show as far as gay rights went.Also, as a genuine, certifiable, gay I give them permission to use the f-slur because (1) I don’t think they’ve ever used it in a way that is anti-gay, (2) it’s funny, and (3) I think the meaning of words is entirely determined by the context of their usage, so while I’m definitely offended when some people use the f-slur, I’m not offended when everyone uses it and I actually think it helps when people satirize homophobia by saying the word outloud.Not that it will matter. I’ve argued this same thing about South Park on Reddit before and got accused by a bunch of outraged straight people of being homophobic. I mean, I actually got physically and verbally persecuted for being gay in highschool and was deeply closeted until I was 25, not because I was “figuring myself out,” but because I had no choice. Yet if I say that I think it’s funny when South Park uses the f-slur, I get accused of being homophobic by some 24 year old girl who despite only ever dating men her whole life, nonetheless claims to be both “queer” and “pansexual,” and who accuses me of “gate keeping sexuality” if I point out that exclusively dating men her whole life probably just means she’s straight.All of this actually happened, for the record, and it’s the first time I’ve ever felt old. I genuinely do not understand Zoomer sexuality. I admit I may be in the wrong when I silently think “Yeah, sure” when yet another Zoomer announces to me that they are bisexual or queer or pansexual, then proceeds to exclusively date members of the opposite sex, but whatever. I’m old and probably just a big gay homophobe.
Remember when Parker was the better looking one?(Not cool, I know, but your post’s format made an opportunity I was going to pass up harder to resist.)
South Park didn’t make those viewpoints exist. They talked about them when nobody else would touch those topics on TV with a 10-foot pole. If any show, South Park included, tried to say those things today, they’d get booted off the air in a heartbeat. They weren’t on the right side of the fence on those issues, but nobody else was even approaching those issues at the time. Decades went by and NOBODY was doing anything about it in polite company. I submit that without South Park doing what they did, it wouldn’t be inappropriate for them to do it today. They got the conversation going, which is kind of what Satire is supposed to do.
What issues are these that no other show would touch? Also, this doesn’t excuse the show’s shitty politics.
There weren’t a lot of shows even talking about transgenderism, or climate change, or challenging the notion of alcoholism. If those issues showed up on other shows, it was in the most kids-gloves way possible. I’m not trying to excuse the politics, but if a discussion is ever going to happen, there needs to be a place where it’s OK to be wrong. South Park was absolutely wrong on more than one occasion. But people took those wrong viewpoints and often clumsy metaphors to the water coolers of the world and started really hashing things out. We were confronted with wrong ideas and forced to ask, “Are we OK with this?”
I agree that there wasn’t a ton of visibility of trans issues in pop culture in 2005 when Mr. Garrison’s Fancy New Vagina aired, although they were by no means the first to explore issues of sexual and gender identity (Ru Paul had been famous for a long time by the time that episode aired, Drew’s brother on the Drew Carey show was a cross-dresser, if I recall correctly, obviously there was Ellen, etc.). I disagree that, like, climate change and alcoholism (lol) hadn’t been addressed in pop culture at the time those episodes aired.But at the end of the day, who cares? I’m not about to give two cis straight white guys credit for essentially espousing strong, completely wrong viewpoints, on issues they clearly couldn’t be bothered to actually try to understand or approach with sufficient empathy. They’re just typical asshole white guys who think, once they’ve formed an opinion about a thing, that’s the right opinion and everyone who doesn’t have it is a moron piece of shit. You’d be hard pressed to convince me that it helped trans people that a very popular TV show took the position that trans people are roughly as delusional as a 10 year old Jewish boy who wants to be a tall black basketball player or a middle aged Jewish human who wants to be a fucking dolphin. By the same token, I was (and am) a big fan of South Park, and I know a lot of other fans of South Park, and we never had big deep conversations about whether the politics of a particular episode were fucked up or not, and I doubt that was a thing that was happening a lot (nor is it a thing that Parker and Stone could count on happening, obviously). Mostly we just spent a lot of time going “Guys, I’m super SERIAL, but no one will LISTEN to me!”At the end of the day, we don’t actually need more of the half-formed rough draft of thoughts two fairly ignorant white guys have about issues they can’t even be bothered to try to understand on anything more than a superficial level.
They’re just typical asshole white guys who think, once they’ve formed
an opinion about a thing, that’s the right opinion and everyone who
doesn’t have it is a moron piece of shit.
Take out the word “white” and that’s literally everyone online, including in this very comments section.
thanks for the contribution
I like the show, because I think it’s funny, but there are no lies here. I think they are very funny, but they have mixed politics (at best).
Remember the time you made an interminable post full of sanctimonious, hectoring, holier-than-thou woke bullshit? Remember the other ten thousand times you did that? Look, we get it. You’re the bastard lovechild of Princess Progressive and Captain Hindsight. You’re guaranteed to always take the wokest position imaginable, no matter what the issue. Since everyone already knows (and always will know) exactly where you stand on absolutely everything, maybe – just as an experiment – you could try shutting the fuck up?
Thank you. Christ. If you don’t like it, shut up and move along. Is your life so miserable that you need to spend ten minutes behind your keyboard reminding the whole world how evolved you are? If you’re so damn woke, write your own television series. Sounds like you know your audience, as little as you know others.
Lol laserface will never shut up. It would be near impossible to be as big a sanctimonious douchebag as them.
“Remember the time Matt and Trey, two straight assholes, declared that the f-slur meant dudes who owned Harleys despite the fact that they are two straight dudes who don’t get a say in another community re-appropriates slurs used against them?”
As a proud gay man who came out just a year before their first episode, this stance always makes me chuckle, especially considering – if we’re to take their comments at face value as we do every other celebrity who comes out as some letter in the LGBTQ spectrum – Stone and Parker are not completely straight. In South Park’s Season 1 “Fireside Chats” (yes, I own all the DVDs) they’re asked if they’re gay, to which they respond, “isn’t everyone a little bit gay?” Ellen came out that same year, and it tanked her sitcom. These guys were far from rich in the mid-’90s, and South Park could have met the same fate when they decided to embrace Sparky the gay dog, and they’ve since done far more to de-stigmatize homosexuality than Ellen ever has. Maybe they were just trying to be provocative, but no one can convince me that these two guys haven’t gotten high on quaaludes and acid and given each other a handy-j at least once, which they essentially admit to in “Two Guys Naked in a Hot Tub.”They’ve certainly evolved. Both say they’re embarrassed by the first three seasons. But the show has been on for two and a half decades. Public opinion has evolved. I’ve evolved. My friends have evolved. Everyone on Kinja has evolved. Yet we hold celebrities accountable for past transgressions even when they too have clearly evolved, all because they’re millionaires. I can’t think of a sharper pop culture skewer of Trumpism than South Park’s 19th season, and they did it without ever once mentioning Donald Trump’s name all to deny that cretin his ego. It’s simplistically easy to cherry pick outliers from a 25 year body of work to make the case that these two guys are the enemy. Any reasonable human being knows they’re not.Stone and Parker lampoon the absurdity of extremes. Seinfeld did something similar, and if Jerry hadn’t bowed out after his 9th season, the most narcissistic armchair activists would find some way to complain about the time he said “not that there’s anything wrong with that,” despite the fact that it was progressive at the time and could have gotten him cancelled. This kind of comedy begs us to have a sense of humor about our most serious topics – while still understanding and working on those topics – because life is too short to catastrophize everything on a daily basis. We can be both activists and watchdogs while also laughing at the topics we advocate for and the zealots that come with them. It’s a brand of Gen X humor that younger generations would be wise to embrace before they have to go pick up their first prescription for high blood pressure medication.
The Two Gay Guys in a Hot Tub episode literally has every guy in South Park admit that they did the same thing, and that was in the 3rd season. Going picking around to try to say the show is anti-gay is just straight up wrong.
Literally no one anywhere cares what you think about anything. You’re an awful, unintelligent person.
To the self-proclaimed Kings of the LGBT+’s: Just because you personally have no problem with Matt and Trey using their platform to “ironically” use homophobic slurs by claiming they’re “re-appropriating” them does not mean that every LGBT+ person agrees with you.It’s like if your black friend gave you permission to use the n-word around him. Just because he’s cool with it doesn’t mean you can call every single black person you see the n-word.
I remember when South Park was cool and cutting edge.It was 18 years ago, and I had just started middle school.
Awweeee who hurt you little buddy? Grow up it’s a satire show.
Just because it’s satire doesn’t mean it’s not political. All art is political, particularly a show that makes a lot political commentary. Peepee and poopoo jokes don’t protect any form of art from criticism.
Good for them.
I haven’t watched the show in years but BL&U is still one of my faves so I’m looking forward to seeing what they do with more movies. Not enough to subscribe to Paramount+ but it’ll be another reason to pop on for a month once or twice a year.
I don’t appreciate South Park, I did when I was younger, but I grew up and learned some of that wasn’t so good and time has changed. I still really like the movie though AND their Oscar performance for best original song. It is on YouTube, unfortunately in terrible quality.RIP Robin Williams
They’re likely going to be closer to their big Imaginationland and Coon & Friends 3-parters than BLU.
Good. 14 more chances to give these guys a goddamn Oscar so they can finally EGOT.
Unfortunately these “movies” won’t be in theaters so they will not qualify for Oscar contention.I’m still confident they will make a Oscar winning movie someday though and this deal will allow them to make a bunch of other shit happen.
Oh, I hadn’t even thought of that! But I thought Netflix changed that, and streaming films were eligible. Maybe those movies were briefly run in small theaters so they could be. I agree. They’ll get one some day. And I think they were given some sort of student Oscar when they were in college. I keep wondering when The Book of Mormon will make it to the big screen, because they’d easily earn an Oscar nod for that. On a side note, I wonder if their 14 movie deal is actually for 14 South Park movies or just 14 movies in general. It’s hard to divorce Stone and Parker from South Park because that’s so much of who they are, but they really crush everything they do. I would love to see what they could do with 14 independent vehicles. I know they’ll never return to the tedium it took to make Team America, but the way they’ve worked in various medium – and given 14 unique opportunities – I could see them dabbling in other forms of animation. I could see them making a really messed up Christmas movie in claymation or stop motion animation like Rudolph or Frosty.
And yet they still won’t be able to come up with any truly new material.
Did anybody REALLY want let alone need 14 movies?Even if they’re more like ‘specials’ and end up at around an hour and change, that’s a minimum of 14 hours, closer to splitting the difference and hitting 21 hours, so they’re going to do really 7 more seasons…I haven’t watched the show in years but who’s the audience anymore? White middle aged dudes who vote Republican?
I’m a white 35 year old who votes Democrat and I’m a fan, so make of that what you will.
who’s the audience anymore?People who don’t lose their minds when their worldview is mildly lampooned by a cartoon.
who’s the audience anymore?People who don’t lose their minds when their worldview is mildly lampooned by a cartoon.So, in 2021, like, five people…?
There are dozens of us! Dozens!
Oh man, watch out, edgelord coming through.What’s fascinating is your argument is the same basic framework as ‘what, I use and doesn’t mind.’It isn’t like I don’t like South Park because I’m sensitive, I’m aware it has a negative impact on the zeitgeist by promoting nihilism. We have reams of data and decades of research showing how shows like this negatively impact society. But fuck quantitative research, I’m just a prude who doesn’t like fart jokes. /eyeroll
I would like to review your reams of quant data. Until then, this sounds like some warmed-over “video games and heavy metal cause violence” logic.
Ouch, this dumbfuck is a dumbfuck.Oh well…if you’re so hell bent on fucking yourself into a corner, I’m glad to help you. Now tell me how south park didn’t color your political leanings and we can end this farce with me laughing at you and you declaring victory. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2704015/
Honestly, pretty compelling. Doubt it would hold up in court, but interesting.Where’s all the content relating South Park to societal degradation?I never insulted you, so I don’t know why you took things to such an unsavory place. Dumbfuck? That’s just uncivilized.
Where’s all the content relating South Park to societal degradation?
I can make you super silly one that’s only kind of an exaggeration 😂
The problem with that slippery slope argument is that the transitions between South Park > 4chan > GamerGate > Trump > Capitol Hill are doing the bulk of the heavy lifting in this imaginary pipeline.
There’s some overlap since these are all things that can be described as part of a vague anti-establishment counter-culture, but for the most part the terminally online right dislikes South Park as much as the terminally online left for much of the same reasons, even if it is just about the only popular ”””right-wing””” show out there.
“What’s fascinating is your argument is the same basic framework as ‘what, I use and doesn’t mind.’”
No.
“It isn’t like I don’t like South Park because I’m sensitive”(x) Doubt
people don’t make things because they have an audience, they make it because the IP is valuable and so is regular content.
Did anybody REALLY want let alone need 14 movies?Panicked execs at Paramount+, clearly
“I haven’t watched the show in years”
Then why do you fucking care? It hasn’t impacted you life in years, it can continue to not impact your life and as a bonus you can not be a knob about what other people like.
Oh my god, did you say WHITE?!?!?! THE HORROR!!!
Parker and Stone are also in the process of purchasing Casa Bonita here in Denver.https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/trey-parker-matt-stone-south-park-aim-to-buy-casa-bonita-colorado-restaurant-1234988885/Which would be excellent, since the first thing they mention is improving the food.
I doubt it will happen. Casa Bonita isn’t actually for sale:
https://uproxx.com/tv/south-park-casa-bonita-not-for-sale/
That’s easy to say until someone walks in with $900,000,000.
I forget…is it okay to like this show, or does watching it and thinking it’s funny make me an anti-progressive terrible human being?
No thank you
Basing what I’ve come to learn from Rick & Morty’s big renewal, this tells me that South Park will no longer be good. Got it.
That guy on the left looks like a cross between David Harbor, Liev Schreiber, and Steve Zahn.
I like South Park and I love Bigger, Longer and Uncut but it’s a crime that they’ll get two (out of a total fourteen) movies out by the end of the year while the seemingly completed single Bob’s Burgers movie sits on a shelf.
The voice actors have recorded all of their lines for the film, that doesn’t mean that the film itself is finished. Loren Bouchard said in January that the film was still in production.
Oh the 2 year animation gap thing.
but it was supposed to come out july 2020. i know the pandemic happened obviously but it had to have been close by march of 2020.
I think the “movies” will be more like the hour-long specials. And remember their production process makes it possible to crank these things out at the last moment.
That Imagination Land thing was a “movie” right? I don’t remember if it started as three episodes then made into a DVD movie or vice-versa.
Imaginationland is definitely 3 distinct episodes in a season (ep 10, 11, 12). That are a directly continuous narrative.
“I think the “movies” will be more like the hour-long specials.”
Even though there is a quote at the bottom of the article saying the first two will be “one big story broken into halves”?
That’s a bold prediction, Cotton.
For those keeping track:The Muppets – $75 millionLate-era South Park – $900 million
I’m a big Matt and Trey fan and this is just awful news to me. South Park has been creatively stagnant for a while, and I was really hoping the two of them would venture out into different spaces, like live-action movies or different musicals, that would reinvigorate them. There’s only so much two people can say through the same exact characters and medium over 25 years – hell, look at the Simpsons, which had way more than two people try to say things over that timespan. But I mean I can’t blame them, that’s a whole hell of a lot of money. Just a damn shame.South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut will always be their masterpiece.
I’ll see your BLU and raise you an Imaginationland or Fun With Weapons…
That’s like comparing a steak from a Michelin-star restaurant to the meat of the day from a local diner. Imaginationland is fun, Fun With Weapons is fun, neither is comparable to BLU.
A new movie ?
When did Matt Stone turn into David Harbour?
I love this show, but I’m also fine with it ending. 20+ years is a good run
I thought 14 was hyperbole — 14 actual movies is a hell of a lot. Even Futurama didn’t hit it out of the park every time with its 4 movies. I guess they could all be good (or at least okay), but chances are they probably won’t be.
I like when South Park satirizes the beliefs of others.But sometimes they satirize my beliefs, and I REALLY don’t like that.- The Internet
This is a nice try but that isn’t actually the psychology at play in people who feel internally polarized over South Park. South Park can be brilliant and on point when it’s punching up, and uncomfortable and stupid when it punches down. This is the real dichotomy at play. Not “my beliefs vs other beliefs”.And that was true even before anyone coined those punch up/down terms. People of good social conscience could just feel the difference in your bones.
I get what you’re saying. But I’ve grown tired of the directional punching thing. Who gets to decide which way is up? Couldn’t one say that liberal orthodoxy in Hollywood is powerful, and if you punch it, you’re punching up? I don’t know.This is the same show that has at one time angered: conservatives, Christians, Islamic extremists, environmentalists, Sean Penn. It might not seem like these folks have much in common except: being uptight and humorless. If you laugh at the punching, you should be able to absorb being punched – to use your phrasing.
“ Who gets to decide which way is up?”Why, the one who’s trying to convince everyone that the thing that bothered them is actually hurting a lot of people who need their protection, of course.
Each person gets to decide for themselves. But do you honestly think making fun of trans people, for example, is punching up?
It’s not complicated. Using grand and broad terms like “liberal orthodoxy” doesn’t mean anything. Specifics. Matt Damon? Punching up. Trans surgery so they don’t commit suicide? Punching down. Most non-sociopaths can feel it naturally.
It actually is complicated. I know given that, like most liberals on the internet, you assume everyone agrees with you, it might seem odd. But they actually don’t.
Heh, imagine thinking Christians and LGBT people enjoy an equivalent level of power. Perfect South Park viewers.
If you laugh at the punching, you should be able to absorb being punched The thing is, to further explain that metaphor, vulnerable communities like the LGBTQ+ community (especially the Trans community right now), American Muslims, BIPOC communities, Jewish people, and disabled people are being “punched” all the time in their lives without having to watch an internationally beloved show doing so and inviting others to do the same. Trans people commit suicide without access to proper medical care. Jewish people are still being gunned down in synagogues. Indigenous people are being denied autonomy on their ancestral lands. Muslims are still discriminated against in public. Mocking Caitlyn Jenner? Punching up. She might be trans but she’s a rich out of touch white lady, first. Mocking gender confirmation surgery? Punching down, because it’s life-saving and often denied as a result of cruel circumstances.
SP has done some great episodes, and the best ones have almost nothing to do with a political message, like the silly “Pandemic” guinea pig/pan flute episodes from years ago, or the Trent Boyett episode. I won’t lie and say “I never liked that show” or that I still don’t like it; I’ll probably always chuckle at the “Christian Rock” episode and a good many others.
Great comment. Thoughtful, respectful. Is it possible, that by selecting groups of marginalized people, and saying “they have it tough, we don’t joke about them”…..is that a form of othering? Excluding groups from the joking around, deciding for them that they’re too sensitive….is that a little much? Is it even helpful?
Is it possible, that by selecting groups of marginalized people, and saying “they have it tough, we don’t joke about them”…..is
that a form of othering? Excluding groups from the joking around,
deciding for them that they’re too sensitive….is that a little much? Is it even helpful?I can’t speak for everyone in every group. But as a member of a couple (Jewish, Queer, a woman [albeit a white one]) – I can say.. it’s nice to get a break. See also: “I’m not like other girls, I also tell sexist jokes!” it’s not helpful or fun. I’ve been in that crowd too, it isn’t gratifying. It’s just an easy way to avoid getting shit on the most, and by the time you realize you were part of the problem, the world is still treating you less-than and you were a part of keeping that status quo.
It depends on the joke. There are plenty of jokes about marginalized people out there. South Park jokes at people’s expense are generally jokes about how weird and silly and dumb people are. So yeah, it’s not a bad a idea to “exclude” groups of people from idle mockery on a popular TV show.
It’s supposed to be uncomfortable and stupid.If it offended you, it worked.
“South Park can be brilliant and on point when it’s punching up, and uncomfortable and stupid when it punches down.”And making fun of everything you like = punching downmaking fun of everything you don’t like = punching upHence OP’s point still stands.
I don’t like it when they use slurs (which they do regularly, all sorts), when they have shitty and flat out wrong politics (see ManBearPig). You’re probably telling on yourself here more than anyone else.
I like when South Park satirizes the beliefs of others.But sometimes they satirize my beliefs, and I REALLY don’t like that.- The Internet Trey Parker and Matt Stone, never.Fixed that for you.
the unorthodox way South Park has been produced during the COVID-19 pandemicI guess this is one way of describing it.
“Boy, do these animators have their work cut out for them.”I mean, they’ve gloated about how many episodes are done from start to finish in the week before it’s supposed to air. More than likely, the movies will be similar to the various 3-parters they’ve done the past few years.
Further proof that Cancel Culture is not a real thing: These fucking deplorables, who mocked Al Gore for warning us about climate change and Hillary Clinton for warning us about Donald Trump, have received no consequences for pushing their proto-QAnon bullshit.
“Proto Qanon?” Come the fuck on…
“Proto Qanon?” Come the fuck on…There’s definitely a straight line, or maybe a dotted line, you can draw from South Park 1997 “Everything 4 the lulz” through Chan culture, gamergate, and then QAnon.
There’s definitely a straight line, or maybe a dotted line, you can draw from South Park 1997 “Everything 4 the lulz” through Chan culture, gamergate, and then QAnon.
That’s a real stretch.
If ‘cancel culture’ refers to your *ability* to tear down figures like Parker and Stone, lock all their works into a kind of pop culture dungeon and stop them from producing anything similar in the future, then I think we all have to agree that *that* is not something that exists at this time.But if it’s understood to refer instead to your *desire* to do those things, well, you’re making that clear as day.
You’re sure making a lot of assumptions here….
Posts like that one are hilarious because of how clearly they want to have it both ways. “It’s outrageous that these guys still have careers! But it also proves once and for all that nobody wants to take anybody’s careers away.”
“Trey Parker and Matt Stone”Damn. Time marches on
I thought this was a screen grab from Oh Hello.
I’ve heard Matt & Trey talk about how the pressure of making BLU nearly killed them — now they’re doing FOURTEEN of them?
The “movies” definitely have to be things like the pandemic special, or the 3-part episodes. Basically just a 50-65 minute episode. Maybe?
Probably. I read that the “Imaginationland” 3-parter from… Jesus, 2008? Anyway, I read that at one time they were considering that for a theatrical release, but decided just to roll into that season, instead.And I also may be confusing their BLU experience with the grind they went through doing Team America, or getting Book of Mormon up and running. It’s all a blurry haze now.
That was 22 years ago. Their style and animation has improved since then. It’s not just them anymore, there’s a whole team of animators working for them, and the animation process is pretty streamlined compared to 1999.
Holy shit. 22 years ago. That is just, for some reason, blowing my mind.
I imagine they’ve learned a few things since then. They’ll survive.
The world needs these guys more than ever.
How so? I’m genuinely curious.
Culture requires satire. It’s good for everyone.
Unpopular opinion: I think South Park is still great. They’ve had some great episodes in the last 5-6 years that diehards seem to overlook for some reason.A list of great episodes from the last 5 seasons:- Season 23 – SHOTS!!!- Season 23 – Turd Burglars- Season 21 – Moss Piglets- Season 20 – Skank Hunt- Season 18 – Gluten Free Ebola- Season 18 – The Cissy
Is that the entire list? Because that not a great argument for the shows quality.
This was literally off the top of my head. I’m not going through every season to make a list for you. I don’t care enough!
You care enough to tell me you don’t care enough when you could have said nothing.
This is mostly an exaggeration. Mewstly.
Honestly the fact that people are still getting mad about South Park’s existence is a sign to me that the show still has life left in it. Kind of surprised by this news, it always seems like the show may be ending soon but it just keeps going. Looking forward to having more of this show, which really showed me how crazy and irreverent comedy could be as a kid.
900 million dollars. Almost a BILLION DOLLARS for South Park. Wow, I didn’t even know it was still on. Wow.
Cool, if nothing else will enjoy AV Club commenters freaking out about the content of these while simultaneously trying to pretend they don’t care because South Park is irrelevant.
Ugh, this is still on the air? I can’t even. I am literally crying, y’all.
That feels like an overreaction.