The South Park guys became billionaires by anticipating the streaming wars
South Park has become one of the most expensive shows on the planet in part because Matt Stone and Trey Parker secured its online fortunes a decade early
TV News South Park
It’s nothing new to observe that Trey Parker and Matt Stone tend to move pretty quickly; the duo’s flagship project, Comedy Central’s South Park, is famous for responding to the real world in something approaching real-time, a rarity in the typically glacial world of animation. A new THR report on the duo’s recent deal-making reveals another way that the pair has been quick on the draw in recent years, though—and how it’s now helped them become billionaires, after signing a $900 million deal with ViacomCBS that covers the next several years of South Park’s existence late last week.
Even in the world of celebrity showrunners—your Ryans Murphy and Shonda Rhimeseses—that number is very high, especially for a single TV show. (Even with the six seasons and multiple movies/specials, aimed at Paramount+, included in the deal, it still feels pretty minimal versus the first-look deals Murphy and Rhimes made headlines with at Netflix of late—although its worth noting that few brands going are more powerful than South Park, even now.) The THR piece focuses in on one very specific element of the South Park guys’ deals that helps explain why they’re able to command these kinds of prices: Streaming.
See, way back in 2007—i.e., just two years after the creation of YouTube, and the same year that Netflix began streaming content to its existing subscribers—Stone and Parker negotiated a deal with Viacom for South Park, one in which the media conglomerate agreed to give the creators a 50 percent stake in all future online deals for the show. In 2007, this was a functionally worthless arrangement, but you can probably see where it’s all going. For example: When WarnerMedia tossed a huge pile of money ($550 million) into the mix to secure exclusive streaming rights of South Park for HBO Max a few years back (stealing them away from Viacom’s own CBS All Access in the process), Parker and Stone got half. Which is, you know, a lot of Mexican novelty restaurants and weird deepfakes, if that’s how you want to spend your cash.
That same THR report also quotes sources who say that Stone and Parker could have walked away from the most recent deal with even more money, because ViacomCBS was apparently trying to buy their Park Country production company (and the attendant exclusive online rights to the series) outright. But the duo apparently declined, and so the show will continue on its semi-independent path—even as Stone, Parker, and company are apparently gearing up to sign another massive deal consolidating the show’s international broadcast rights. As Stone put it in a recent Bloomberg interview: “We’re proud of the fact that years ago we said, ‘Let’s put the show online and build that audience.’ What a great time to be an independent dealer.”
213 Comments
I remember back in the day when they had every episode on their website for free (plus ads, I think?)
Yup. You didn’t even have to watch the ads if you had a decent ad blocker installed.
CC.com? Yeah, they’re still there.
SouthParkStudios is what I remember; it’s still there, but it appears a lot of episodes are unavailible.
I think the newest 2 or 3 episodes are available on CC.com…you can get them on Kodi for free with the right repository, though that’s a pretty monumental effort to set-up for a show that’s been pretty middling in it’s recent iterations.
So does HBO Max get the show AND Paramount+? What’s the deal with that?
Paramount owns Viacom now, so it’s Paramount+…but SP’s still syndicated on most of the other streaming services as well. HBO Max only has a license to air previous episodes, the movies / specials will be offered exclusively on Paramount+, probably for a year or two, then syndicated to other streaming platforms.
These guys would be really great stockbrokers if they weren’t as into fart jokes.
You say that as if stock brokers aren’t into fart jokes.
Farts are up, and they’re expected to peak in the 4th quarter.
the smart money is all long farts
Don’t forget to diversify. Boogers are a top pick right now and people are paying through to nose to stick them in their portfolio.
Don’t forget to diversify your fart portfolioInitial investors just put money into common quacks or butt putts but you really need to expand from there. Make sure you get a swamp ninja or an slide whistle into the mix.
I’ve got a lot of my money on the ‘don’t be scared’.
Don’t forget to diversify. Boogers are a hot pick right now and canny investors are paying through the nose to stick them in their portfolios.
Be careful investing in derivatives like farts, they can blow up in your face pretty quickly. Instead, invest in the underlying asset, which in this case is shit.
They’ve been going up the whole month of October and I got a feeling they’re going to peak right around January. Then, bang! That’s when I’ll cash in.
You say that as if stock brokers actually made millions
They’re a lot wealthier than most stockbrokers. Maybe more stockbrokers should get on the fart train. (Though FWIW I don’t think they’ve done any fart jokes since the first season.)
Maybe not as much on the show but the two RPGs are all farts all the time.
They’ve moved from fart jokes to straight up shit your pants jokes.
I know. I don’t know why they’re wasting their time drawing doodles when they could be making real money!
South Park hasn’t been about fart jokes since like, 2002.
They could be the Winthorpe and Valentine of frozen concentrated fart juice futures.
They seem to have done alright for themselves in the Comedy business. And it’s probably more fun.
Also, come on – all farts are funny.
South Park is just a centrist comedy with dick and poop jokes that spent the past 20+ year with shitty takes such as:Being trans is equivalent to wanting to be a dolphinSpending decades peddling climate change denier bullshit until 2018 when they finally said “Meh, I guess climate change is real.”.Using their fictional gay character as a sockpuppet to argue that businesses should be able to restrict LGBT+ people from accessing basic goods and servicesInferring that alcoholism isn’t real and that it’s really just a lack of “self control”.Using their platform to encourage their audience to use a homophobic slur under by saying that it now means dudes who own Harley’s.Equating trans people participating in sports as Randy Savage in drag.South Park, much like the Simpsons, is the sick old man of adult animation and uses it’s “edgy” humor to push the idea that it’s good to maintain the status quo so long as it does not effect Trey Parker and Matt Stone.
Ok? Are you trying to make some kind of point here? Maybe that AVClub should have made an article about a 20-year old show which was a decade ahead of the curve on streaming that hasn’t had shitty takes in the past 2 decades?
Look, those things you pointed out aren’t wrong. Those were shitty takes, and I’m sure there are more examples. But people like you are just exhausting.
Ooof yes that’s another reason for me to not revisit South Park, a show I used to love so much. Though I’m sure plenty of the episodes still hold up.
Honestly, even the episodes where the show has a marginal point that’s worth a damn usually had some fucked up ideas. Like Go God Go had the right idea that Dawkins’ brand of Atheism is just as antagonistic and dickish as religious fundamentalism. But it’s resolved with heavy transphobia. Honestly I’d rather just re-watch episodes of Venture Bros. or Archer.
There are so many other animated and non-animated shows you can watch instead with less of a terrible legacy.
Like Amos & Andy
Hmm, yes. Certainly no gay or trans jokes in VB/Archer’s history.
No one asked you or cares. You’re a loser whose life is fundamentally worthless. You’ll never do or say a single thing of note. Douchebag
The best ones were all just the kids being kids – utterly fucked-up kids, but kids nonetheless. “Casa Bonita” and “Scott Tenorman Must Die” were great.
When it comes to shows like South Park and It’s Always Sunny, just for two examples, I tend to enjoy the ones that focus more on the characters than on the social issue flavor of the day. Not that I think that shows like this shouldn’t do episodes like that at all, but sometimes the humor in the latter category can feel very forced.
That thing with It’s Always Sunny is that they are – at best – a proxy for the audience’s Id (or however you want to parameterize the human mind). Like, every one is self-evidently an awful person. South Park, on the other hand, treats everyone of the boys as a viable proxy. Even ol’ Cartman who – despite acting odiously continuously – is treated fairly charitably and redemptively even.
Yeah the political ones are cringe and they’re usually the first to admit that the “kids being kids” one is better. To their credit:They skewered Trump harder than any other major animated show. The Simpsons and Family Guy jokes were really weak and had nothing new to say. They were one of the first cartoons I can think of where being gay wasn’t just a punchline. Sure there were gay jokes/homophobic language but they explored those themes (and sometimes were wrong on them) had complex recurring characters and explicitly said in their fourth episode that it’s ok to be gay. This honestly was huge for a show that 10-13 year old boys in 1997 worshipped, both in risk to their growing popularity and hopefully made an impact. They apologized on the climate change thing. It’s ok to let people change and evolve their opinions.They called Atlas Shrugged a giant piece of shit. As libertarian as they are they do not worship at the Ayn Rand altar it seems.
They usually have 1 or 2 good ideas but add a couple more to fill out the episode. The show would be much better if its episodes are half as long.
Are you still actually watching new South Park episodes? Just curious.
You said “Honestly” twice.The lady doth protest too much…
FFS, Laserface, find a new hobby. Nobody gives a shit about how horrendous you find this show; kudos for at least writing an original comment this time instead of just copy-pasting your usual banal diatribes.I’m not even going to try to argue with you; with your list of complaints about the show, it’s very clear that you have little-to-no comprehension of modern satire, nor do you ever intend to interject these comments with anything more than “woke” arguments with the end-game being, “ME GOOD! YOU BAD!”Fuck off, Laserface. If you really gave a shit about South Park, you’d be mounting a legal battle against Viacom, the FCC, and SP’s creators…instead you’re on here prostheletyzing to a bunch of nerds who basically emanate a nice little PC echo-chamber.Seriously, find something better to do with your time. I’m too busy working and taking care of my ailing parents to work on, oh…social injustice, police reform, the pandemic, civil inequality, political corruption, substance abuse, homelessness, sexual harassement, assault, and rape in the workplace, unsafe working conditions, genocide……yeah, let’s worry about the cartoon that calls you a fag for riding an expensive, loud, emission-exhausting vehicle. Nice hill to die on.
Fuck
off, Laserface. If you really gave a shit about South Park, you’d be
mounting a legal battle against Viacom, the FCC, and SP’s
creators…instead you’re on here prostheletyzing to a bunch of nerds
who basically emanate a nice little PC echo-chamber.By that insane logic, if you really gave a shit about Laserface you’d be mounting a legal battle against em.If you’re this bent out of shape over people complaining on the internet then hoo boy have I got bad news for you about what the internet is.
In terms of perpetuating climate-change denialism, Man-Bear-Pig is a straight-up crime. Also a crime in terms of being unfunny.
Do you think that episode actually changed people’s opinions?
Change opinions? No. Further encouraged the “Haha, yeah, what a load of crap” denialist mentality that had already been seeded in the minds of the teenage/young adult audience watching it at the time? Almost certainly.
Seeded by who?
Whatever influence South Park has is pretty negligible at this point. Too many other vectors of influence and (mis) information.
Yeah, but not at the time of the referenced episode.
Do you think it didn’t help form them in the first place? Do you think pop culture isn’t a significant driver of our social outlook?
Absolutely. Not in the sense of “I believed in climate change and now I don’t” but in the “Ha, yeah, these fucking scientists and the people we share the planet with are fucking dorks and losers”-edgelord manner. It definitely shifted the mean of the populace in the wrong direction.
Here’s something I think is pretty good evidence to contradict the idea that South Park has had a big impact on people’s opinions. I’ve heard people claim that the 2004 episode “Douche and Turd” increased political apathy, but the voter turnout in that year’s election was at the time the highest since the voting age was lowered to 18. So if that episode didn’t have the kind of impact the show’s critics say it did then I don’t see what evidence there is to support the idea that “ManBearPig” did.
I appreciate the thoughtful reply. Admittedly, my distaste for that episode and my opinion that it affected people’s attitude toward climate change is based on the people from whom and situations in which references to Man-Bear-Pig have occurred since its airing. Those circumstances being a fairly broad sampling of teens through adults and topics ranging from climate change to, well, really anything where experts have to talk with laypeople about difficult-to-understand topics.
Really, I would say that its primary detrimental effect was making those conversations more difficult with obvious follow-on effects being, for instance, a greater credence given to conspiracy theories. From my perspective, the painfully unfunny eponymous character and their portrayal of Mr. Gore were perfectly targeted to a juvenile mindset which probably shouldn’t be gifted with such effective characterizations. Compare with the similarly dorky portrayal of Al Gore on the Simpsons.
I know, I know, that’s a core component of Mssrs. Parker and Stones oeuvre vis-a-vis their skewering of (what they see) as ascendant or predominant social trends. It’s on them, though, to walk that fine line of offering humility to overly self-serious trends and respecting the effect their portrayals have on people’s perceptions. As others have pointed out above, their treatment of trans issues is of a similar flair (i.e. “Look at these dorks and their ridiculous cares”).
That said, I would be more concerned if that episode had been better written. I mean, Man-Bear-Pig is just fucking stupid – yes, appealing to adolescents but stupid and unfunny. I would be horrified if they had been able to bottle the comedy of Scott Tenorman Must Die and inject it into this episode.
To your factual objection now. That’s a fair-ish point and I’ve rewritten these paragraphs a couple of times thinking over the implications. My general response is that high turnout and the effectiveness of that episode – in term of inspiring apathy, especially – aren’t exclusive options. At the time, I was pretty annoyed with the both-siderism of the episode. Nevertheless, while I was super skeptical of John Kerry, his opponents were, in addition to being clearly products of nepotism, were two war criminals. Yes, we can debate what that means but I don’t think it’s controversial at this point to say that it’s super wrong to knowingly start a war under fabricated pretenses – espcially if that action is to apparently distract from military failures in pursuing a group who had committed actual acts of beligerence on American soil.
In any case, at the time, my feelings were already of “boy, this is a lousy but still ridiculously easy choice” while people of more conservative political affiliation were very committed to their wartime president who had already “mission accomplished” a “successful” foreign invasion. That is, people were geared up to vote for extremely motivating reasons but were maybe not as motivated by the actual people they were voting for (at least in the case of the Democrats) and there was always going to be high turnout. However, without some sort of statistical control I’m not convinced that “Douche and Turd” didn’t have a real effect on people like me who were pretty apathetic to our chosen candidate and their resultant votes. Indeed, given which party I would associate with candidate-based apathy in that election (Democrats), I would be interested in what party-based polling changes we could associate with its air date. I mean, that’s a lot of work to do for the end of a comment thread on a tangentially-related article seventeen years after the fact so I’ll just say that I wouldn’t be surprised if there was an identifiable conversion of likely-Democrat voters to non-voters as a result. Nevertheless, the EV differential was 35 and the popular vote differential was 3 million which is gonna be a rough difference to ascribe to an episode of South Park over the short time-span we’re considering.
On a more appreciative note, I would say the the fatuous both-siderism that episode engaged in did probably open peoples’ eyes to stupidity of that perspective. Granted, contemporary goings-on probably overwhelmed that effect.
I appreciate your thoughtfulness as well. I’m not gonna address every point you made, so I’ll start with one:The idea that South Park made Democrats more apathetic in 2004 sounds to me like it assumes a high percentage of the show’s fans were Democrats. I’m skeptical of that, especially since from what I remember that era was the peak of it being considered a right-leaning show(you may remember the concept of “South Park conservatives”).
I wouldn’t necessary say their audience skewed one way or another – just that circumstances at the time enhanced its effect on Democrats. John Kerry was neither a skilled orator nor gifted with the ability to play-act folksy mannerisms. And John Edwards – for all his decent policy positions and his ability to talk well – was too handsome to be trusted. While Bush was the incumbent president, a wartime president, and the son of president who was also the vice president for a fondly-remembered (by some) former president who had died the same year. Overall, I think it’s fair to say, Democrats were opposed to GW, for contrasting policies and not strictly for their parties presidential slate.
There may technically be no way to prove it didn’t have an effect, but if you look at voter turnout since they went on the air I think the general trend is the opposite of what you’d expect from an increase in apathy. In 1996, the year before the show debuted, fewer than half of the voting-age population voted, whereas last year over 60% did.
Yeah, it’s a weird thing to essentially write “people were geared up to vote but were also discouraged from voting”. I think the effect of political polarization has been essentially that, as we find the candidates of different parties increasingly odious, we are motivated to put in the effort – minimal as it may sometimes be – to vote against them which should lead to greater participation. So, good job political polarization! In fact, what’s interesting about the election you focused on, is that was the presidential election immediately following the Contract-With-America era which, though it might not be a strict starting point, was at least one of the first big pushes toward decreasing across-the-aisle tolerance and public messaging to that effect.
But elections are of their time and, for the most part throughout the world, associated with particular candidates. In 2004 the Democratic candidates were largely “not George Bush” and were not particularly convincing otherwise. In that situation, I can see a “both sides are the same” message being fairly effective at peeling support away from Democrats and towards GW and the Republican aura of “we make war, we are powerful, and we fight America’s enemies”.In theory, it might be possible to ascertain a difference by looking, as I suggested above, at the changes in intended voting preferences around the air data but Kinja ain’t paying us enough.
What do you make of the fact that Trump won even though the show had Garrison beg people not to vote for him?
To be honest, I haven’t watched the show in years. Much like the Simpsons, its cultural relevancy has waned significantly. 2004 South Park was assuredly more influential than 2016 South Park. I’m not keen on relitigating 2016 either – ugh, what a fucking mess. That said, it seemed a pretty cheap approach to use the most mistreated and neutered character to make that plea. To use the parlance of our age, ain’t no “cuck” gonna changed undecided people’s minds with an impassioned appeal. Though, to contradict myself, I do recall watching that and it was moving and effective. To me. But the use of that character in that sociocultural situation and with those candidates was garbage. If they meant it – like really fucking meant it and wanted to make a difference – Cartman should have made that appeal. But they would probably have had to kill the show with that. Cartman has principles but threading the needle of him revealing them semi-earnestly and still being a corrosive antihero would have been nearly impossible
I think Trump supporters would think Cartman’s a cuck for bashing Trump.
Yes, are right, they would have cancelled the fuck out of him. But, I mean, how does even a Cartman exist in a world with a President Trump?
Ha, I just rewatched it. Not that I want to talk about 2016 but their debate is unfortunately a good nutshell of that election – for a fairly limited perspective at least. It didn’t traffic in the misogyny partially underlying many people’s objection to Hillary, focused on the poor messaging of the Clinton campaign and emphasized much of the emphatically accurate Democratic position as “obviously not that asshole over there”. But that’s almost why it’s not an effective satire. I don’t know how I would have written it (and I have not watched the whole episode ever) but does the systemic misogyny apparent in the actual campaign make real appearances. Fuck, you’re gonna make me watch South Park again, aren’t you?
Since when is Garrison a character that anyone respects or takes advice from?
I keep having to repeat this, for some reason, but ManBearPig turns out to be real in the credits. Nobody actually seems to recognize that plot-twist; it’s one thing to not want to admit that you’re wrong, but to ignore that fact ad-naseum is…something else.
It’s because laserface is an idiot
K, well they were climate change deniers.https://www.salon.com/2018/11/08/south-park-apologizes-to-al-gore-and-admits-it-was-wrong-about-global-warming/https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/nov/11/south-park-al-gore-apology-climate-change-manbearpig
The guy you’re replying to openly admits to calling me a slur so I really don’t think it’s wise to engage with him.
No one anywhere cares what you think. That’s why this site is the only place you have any power whatsoever
what like stupid or retard or stupid retard? thats uu spend all day searching 4 southperk articles to post ur copypasta onits fucking paTheticur actual garbage and should kys
Waaaa waaaa waaaa
Apparently a lot about the show goes over a lot of people’s heads. Like thinking they want us to keep using the slur “f*g” when it’s really using the language that bigoted bikers use and would not like to be called. It’s insane to think that every character is a moral compass, and to think that Stan and Kyle, pretty much the only 2 who ever proselytize somewhat rational arguments, are always going to be right. The show is clever, makes fun of everyone, and original. I’m pretty damn lefty and yes, I understand how some episodes can make people feel uncomfortable, but this is where a key element comes in, having a sense of humor. Oh well, despite many of these critics, the fans can rest easy knowing there’s still more Tegridy in the future.
That’s a rather irrelevant plot twist for the portrayal that the rest of the episode invests in. Moreover, “it’s a joke, see” is a really thin (read: non-existent) defense.
While not defending it they did do a follow up apologizing to Gore going on that they were wrong and Man Bear Pig is real. I think the bulk of the world forgets that while the show is brutal and harsh and has some very poor ways of covering topics at times it is at its core a satire or tries to be and if taken in that context it can bring solid awareness to a topic of discussion. If I don’t like something they do I stop watching (all Mr Hanky and Towlie episodes for one).
I don’t know which twitter post you got your information about South Park from instead of just watching the show, but they’re famously libertarian, not centrist.
You’re an embarrassment to the human race
Do you really have to do this on every article on South Park? There’s plenty of things I dislike, but I don’t feel the need to obsessively bash them online. We get it, you don’t like it. But it’s also obvious you haven’t seen the show for close to a decade, so your opinions aren’t even relevant to where it’s at now. Get a hobby.
It’s bad to be centrist?
Ehh, get a life
It’s a satire, characters are just as horrible as real life people. The Randy Savage episode makes a point about how past controversies don’t mean we can’t have reasonable conversations about relevant problems.
South Park hasn’t been the same since the first 4 or so season but man you’ve really got an ax to grind don’t you?
Constantly high reading everyone gives him the moral superiority he craves over all else. He’s a bad person
It’s kinda disturbing though how obsessed you are with a show that you claim to not have watched in a decade.
Yeah, it was pretty funny how they didn’t really care.Love how it’s held up over the years, and showed how cultural norms can change. Not many shows can do nor get away with that.
I still here transphobic people in my family who will quote the whole “Its like wanting to be a dolphin” shit from South Park.
Seems like you’re really keeping tabs on a show you hate.
I’m surprised you didn’t include the Ginger thing. That episode led to something like “national kick a ginger day” and a lot of kids being picked on for something that wasn’t an issue before the episode. There’s this poor mentally disabled ginger kid who must live near me. About every month or so I hear him as he walks down my street almost screaming about how he has a soul and “of course I have a soul!” The episode is pretty funny, too. But damn it must have made some kids lives suck.
You seem to be lacking the ability to detect satire.
People who are LGBTQ are not immune to satire. No one is.
Much better comment than Alchoholic Synonymous’s.
Its a fucking cartoon, you fucking woke c*nt don’t fucking watch it then you pussy Jesus Christ!!!!!
What a pu$$y grow up don’t watch it then you’re a little triggered b!tch!!!!waaaa waaaa
Waaa waaa it’s a friggin cartoon!!!!! Jesus!!!! a little triggered hey
@Laserface1242:Sorry that you can’t seem to have a grown-up dialogue about this, so I’ll just put this here where you can’t just cover your ears and stomp your feet like a toddler:FFS, Laserface, find a new hobby. Nobody gives a shit about
how horrendous you find this show; kudos for at least writing an
original comment this time instead of just copy-pasting your usual banal
diatribes.I’m not even going to try to argue with you;
with your list of complaints about the show, it’s very clear that you
have little-to-no comprehension of modern satire, nor do you ever intend
to interject these comments with anything more than “woke” arguments
with the end-game being, “ME GOOD! YOU BAD!”Fuck off,
Laserface. If you really gave a shit about South Park, you’d be mounting
a legal battle against Viacom, the FCC, and SP’s creators…instead
you’re on here prostheletyzing to a bunch of nerds who basically emanate
a nice little PC echo-chamber.Seriously, find
something better to do with your time. I’m too busy working and taking
care of my ailing parents to work on, oh…social injustice, police
reform, the pandemic, civil inequality, political corruption, substance
abuse, homlessness, sexual harassement, assault, and rape in the
workplace, unsafe working conditions, genocide……yeah,
let’s worry about the cartoon that calls you a fag for riding an
expensive, loud, emission-exhausting vehicle. Nice hill to die on.
LOVE this. And I promise you 95% of the readers of this site do as well. Guy’s a sanctimonious cunt
Why are you cool posting something calling them a slur?
I’m not, I just have better shit to worry about. Dentists and doctors cosplaying as biker gangs on their toys has no bearing on my existence; and while that was a weird thing for Trey and Parker to harp on, and was definitely a dated joke when they made it, I hardly see that as a reason to make it one’s sole-purpose to chime-in on every. single. article. with a canned-response about how much one hates the show. Just seems like a weird fetish. We get along otherwise, I just get tired of him posting the same crap everytime there’s a South Park article; he doesn’t read it, he just skips down to the Comments and posts his same diatribe.It’s exhausting. We get it. He can stop watching the show, he can make his own blog detailing his hatred of the show, OK, I don’t care. Maybe somebody could show him how to make his own blog on kinja and he can detail his utter disdain for this particular show there…might even go debate him once or twice.But seriously…every. fucking. article.
Do you though, have better shit to worry about? Because you seem to be pretty worked up about something that doesn’t matter.
“Maybe somebody could show him how to make his own blog on kinja”I think they got rid of that
Don’t call people slurs you fucking shit stain. Jfc
Or you could go die in the woods and shut the fuck up
I don’t think he called anyone a slur? The only slur I see in his post is “fag” when talking about how the show made a lame effort to redefine the word as an insult to Harley Davidson riders.
I don’t think he called anyone a slur? He didn’t. He referred to one, in the context of the show.
Thanks for that sanity check.
What was the slur?
I generally agree with what they’re saying but mocking a very legitimate example of how the show has failed occasionally is gross and stupid. I love South Park but it takes big swings and some of them do not hit.
No one cares what you think about anything
He wasn’t calling anyone a slur, he was referencing an episode that called bikers that. The “you” was the general you, if you ride a Harley.
Because he is a hypocritical asshole.
“Toddler” is a slur?
Don’t be disingenuous. You used a homophobic slur starting with “f”. If you’re going to complain about someone else not responding in good faith, don’t do the same thing.
He mentioned the word, but he very clearly, and I mean plain as day, did not *call anyone* a fag.
this is incredibly weird behavior
To give Laserface credit, they do raise fair criticisms of the show. They didn’t always have that, in fact it used to be just ‘Why would anyone be friends with Eric Cartman, he’s a terrible person and this seems illogical to me’ like some kind of alien who doesn’t understand humans (which honestly for Laserface makes a LOT of sense). Much of South Park aged very, very poorly (and some newer episodes were stupidly bad takes on current events) but if you don’t watch it with morality or political lessons in mind, it’s still got quite a few laughs left in it.
Laserface has frequently talked shit about me and dismisses any attempt I make to reply to one of his posts, but I don’t think this kind of vitriol is a good way to reply.
This is really the only way I can do it. He just Dismisses anybody who disagrees with him, and that’s why he’s always the top Commenter on every single AVC article pertaining to South Park, and it always spawns the same, tired debate. If he was arguing in good faith, he wouldn’t Dismiss our Replies, would he?No, he’d debate us. But arguing with Laserface on this subject is like playing chess with a pigeon; say something he disagrees with, and he’ll just knock all the pieces off the board, shit all over you, and strut around like he’s King Shit of Turd Mountain.
They’re also a big fan of taking screenshots of grey comments and posting them as pictures to reply to them, because 1.) that keeps that person grey and 2.) they don’t get a notification, so they can’t come back to refute or defend themselves. Laserface is just a shitty person hiding behind a super-woke exterior. Surprise, being sensitive to the plight of others doesn’t mean you aren’t a supreme asshole.
He Seems like a little pu$$y a triggered little crybaby
find a new hobby … I’m not even going to try to argue with you … Nice hill to die on.I love how this guy tries to posture as more laid back and detached than the person he’s responding to while working himself up into a hot lather over the course of five breathless paragraphs of invective.
You realize this makes YOU look like the unreasonable, crazy and offensive one, right?
Not if you have any awareness of Laserface’s history. He doesn’t debate. If you reply to his comment and disagree with him, he’ll just dismiss your reply. Then he’ll attempt to talk shit about you by copying and pasting random quotes in completely unrelated articles. His attempts are usually pretty underwhelming because he’ll claim you said one thing and then post a quote that directly contradicts his own claim. It would almost be amusing if it weren’t such blatant trolling that Kotaku somehow overlooks. Honestly, the fact that Kinja allows you to dismiss replies is a really poor substitute for actual moderation. It’s absolutely exploited for trolling, as Laserface has proven time and time again. Say something controversial or incendiary, then delete any replies that disagree with you.
Nah
I’d be less irritated by it if it weren’t just a reiteration of “This show exists and I hate that it does.”Like…fuck Gray’s Anatomy. No use for it. But if I see an article on it, I just don’t read the fucking thing. ::shrug::
Is that show still on?
You, Sir, have made an enemy for life
That show needs to end with a JCAHO site visit.“So, wait…how did you all get AWAY with this shit? You’re shut down, as of RIGHT GODDAMNED NOW.”
You’re an idiot
That book doesn’t work, from experienceA hit of weed might do the trick
Calm down, you clown. Find something better to do with your time. If you see a comment you dont like take a deep breath and move on, your vitriolic reaction is extremely unbecoming and makes you out to be the bigoted fool nobody wants around.
I’m captivated that members of my generation get so invested in a marginally okay TV show that’s been around for decades. It’s like hearing people argue about the quality of food at McDonald’s. It’s especially weird in this context because the article is literally about how the South Park are billionaires who own a valuable brand. Like… regardless of the product they’re making, they’ve been promoted to the worst fraction of society.
It’s been said before, and I’ll say it again (even though I’m sure it will languish in the greys) – nobody but nobody represents the descent of the AV Club from a cool, fun, joyous playground for pop culture obsessives to a miserable outrage factory quite like Mr. Laserface. He is the absolute worst.
Has anybody here seen Laserface, I heard he’s back looking for a place to lay down…come on Laserface, my old friend…needs a man who’s young to walk him around…I love your Laserface.
Good job. Why is it a modern past-time to place one’s POV into everyone else’s? smh. You don’ like it, dont effin watch it. case closed.
I saw the South Park movie in 1999. That’s all I needed to watch. See? I predicted that its creators were simple-minded gross-out ‘artists’ 22 years ago.
Eh…the movie was a pretty terrible representation of the show; e.g., remember The Simpsons: The Movie?That said, it’s definitely a rollercoaster as far as the messaging; some episodes were nail-on-the-head, some were just not only complete duds, but contained extremely gross and offensive “humor” for no good reason.There’s a reason it’s been on the air for nearly 25 years; if you compiled all of the truly-great episodes into one collection, you’d easily have 10 seasons of comedic genius…the other 15 seasons? Eh, not so much.Try to find somebody that really enjoys the show and get them to show you a few episodes; when they find the sweet-spot, they can deliver a pretty solid 22-minutes of fun. Otherwise? Meh.
Man the movie is like one of the best comedies AND one of the best musicals of recent times, and it’s nothing like what South Park would become. What a strange take.
Scratching the fuck out of my head over this one.
Try to find somebody that really enjoys the show and get them to show you a few episodes; when they find the sweet-spot, they can deliver a pretty solid 22-minutes of fun. Otherwise? Meh. Yep. It’s…that’s pretty much it.
I do wonder how much better the show and its “messaging” would be if they didn’t usually write and create them in a week or less. It’s like they intentionally handicap themselves, and most of the time they’re still really funny.
That’s a crazy take. The movie is fantastic. Sure, TV to film adaptations don’t always work but in terms of animated efforts that’s exhibit A of taking what you have and justifiably expanding it to feature length (it’s also a genuinely great musical). Exhibit B is Beavis and But-head Do America.
South Park has done well lately with video games and one-off specials, I was kind of hoping they’d just stick to that, as those aren’t churned out/rushed weekly and they take their time making them.
What??? The movie is literally the single best thing to come out of South Park. Unmitigated masterpiece. None of their weaknesses and all of their strengths. Glorious music, killer jokes, and somehow also has a heart.
The heart’s what’s been missing from a lot of their output since, though musicals seem to being it out. I absolutely get goosebumps when Kenny reveals himself, when Satan finds Mr. Hat, and when Kenny gets to heaven at the end. It’s the best type of comedy in that it’s parodying over-the-top musicals but also delivering those big emotions they deliver.
“[R[emember The Simpsons: The Movie?”I don’t and you can’t make me!
Weird, I thought the movie was pretty much them at their peak. That and the Awesome-O episode, and the Scott Tenorman one.
I thought Satan and Saddam in bed was amusing.
Yeah, but the framed picture of Skeet Ulrich over their bed is hilarious.
The movie should have won an Oscar.
There is an episode about “cock magic” wherein some characters stumble onto a cockfighting ring where roosters play Magic: The Gathering.“Well, your New Hampshire broiler chickens
are the best for white mana. These here have been raised to play mostly
protection spells and do well with sorcery cards. And here you got your
green mana necromancers. Lots of earthy growth and hindering
incantations that are good against blue- or black-stacked decks.”Another character hears the phrase and revives his old “sleight of penis” magic act, consistently presented with the “taut snare drum” riff from Birdman.
It’s juvenile and crass, but when they’re on, they’re on.
The movie was super fun AND had the added bonus of allowing me to watch dumb parents who brought their 9-13 year old kids to watch the movie leave in a mass exodus with said kids during “Uncle Fucka”. Then my fiend and I followed them out and watched several parents raising hell with the theater manager demanding their money back for showing kids a “filthy cartoon”. Then watching said manager refuse by telling them “it’s R rated, maybe you should keep an eye on what your kids watch”. Dude deserved a medal for that.
Have we ever got a good explanation for what Matt Stone does on this show, besides the voices? It seems like every episode is written and directed by Parker.
Well, I guess a lot of people must clearly still watch it, but South Park hasn’t felt relevant in years. It was a product of the late 90s/early-aughts shock humor era, but the cultural world has long since left it behind.
I agree with this. They may still come up with some genuinely funny moments but they’re just settled into TV middle-aged medium relevance.
They did handle Trump very well though. But they definitely could’ve not done this and I would’ve been fine with the show finally ending
I came back to the show in 2015 after a long absence b/c I thought they were really nailing what social media-fueled trumpism was becoming. The one where a personified reality ends up being hanged in the town square as everybody cheers was pretty clutch.Then Trump actually got elected and overnight it wasn’t funny. I couldn’t watch anymore and haven’t ever gone back.
They basically treated Garrison/Trump like the abusive person he is, which can be emotionally exhausting. The specific episode I’m thinking of is “Put it Down” where they deal with the existential crisis of having someone like him dominating the news and social media. They also address how to deal with someone who has anxiety over it all (Tweek naturally) starting with telling him “just not to worry, we can’t control it!” which does not work, but inevitably concluding that validating his feelings and asking how they can help is the right way to go. That’s surprisingly mature of this show. It’s a good episode but definitely difficult given the climate of the time.
Yeah, there’s a lot of stick South Park/Parker/Stone get, a lot of it is deserved, but the claims that they soft-peddled Trump or were fence-sitters in the 2016 election are pretty far of the mark.
Yeah I think most people just saw the article (on AVClub) that they said they weren’t going to have Trump on the show and they just tuned out. While it is true Trump himself wasn’t on the show (and Clinton/Bush/Obama were rarely on there too) they still lampooned Trump much harder than most shows via Garrison.
Frankly, their talent shows when you think about how much of that season they had to scrap since, according to them (and I believe it), they assumed that Hillary would win and had much of the season framed around that. For a show with such a short turn around time, Trump winning was definitely a spanner in the works.
Contrast that with 2008 and the Obama victory episode, where they essentially had it written well before election night on Tuesday, and were gonna air it no matter who won.
There’s a pending reply to my post by Giovanni Fitzpatrick that I can’t seem to access no matter what I do; can anyone else see it?
The funny thing is, at the same time, the show was getting flack online for NOT tackling Trump enough. I think they were smart to keep it fairly limited, because he IS exhausting and hard to parody because he’s already so ridiculous, but it got them labelled as Trump supporters by a lot of the internet (specifically people who don’t watch the show, and never saw the Canadian Trump episode where he turned the whole country into a wasteland).
One thing I really love about recent TV, especially TV comedy, is how sincerity has made a strong comeback and replaced the cynicism that predominated in the 90s.
The day they spare feelings is the day their show becomes worthless.
I’m 14 and this is deep.
Its still pretty funny.
The greatest show gets the greatest comments. Of course Trans are dolphins. Should they be kangaroos? Keep offending everybody South Park. The world is way too soft.
You shoulda kept this one in the Drafts folder.
The world is so soft! Hahaha! So true!Let me find those hilarious murder and suicide rates for trans people… I know they’re around somewhere… maybe under my jar of Blackface Cream…
People who say the world is too soft are almost always those who don’t have to experience the harshness that exists in it.
Sounds like the deal a failing ABA team made with the NBA.The NBA placated John Y. Brown, owner of the Kentucky Colonels, by giving him a $3.3 million settlement in exchange for shutting his team down. (Brown later used much of that money to buy the Buffalo Braves of the NBA.) But the owners of the Spirits, the brothers Ozzie and Daniel Silna, struck a prescient deal to acquire future television money from the teams that joined the NBA, a 1/7 share from each franchise (or nearly 2% of the entire NBA’s TV money), in perpetuity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirits_of_St._Louis2% of NBA TV money is A LOT! And it was FOREVER!
The NBA finally paid them a lump sum to go away, but they made almost a billion dollars over the $3.3M other teams took.
This was the first thing I thought of, too. Those guys turned out to be geniuses!
I’ll say what I always say when the tired South Park debates start up (pretty much any time the show is mentioned here): if a late-night adult animation TV show was enough to even TERTIALLY contribute to our modern sociopolitical hellscape, we were already fucked.
> if a late-night adult animation TV show was enough to even TERTIALLY contribute to our modern sociopolitical hellscape, we were already fucked.Whatever sway South Park had on its audience is marginal at best. If you want to criticize them for shit opinions that’s one thing but to blame them for some of the ills of society is nuts to me.
but to blame them for some of the ills of society is nuts to me. Correct.
“media has no effect on the populace”bold comment thread….
100% this. it blows my mind that people think that South Park is the cause of the libertarian/centrist/”both sides are equally bad!” mindset, as if it did not exist before the show aired and Matt and Trey came up with it themselves. To say nothing of the absurd notion that an entire generation based their politics on a cartoon.
It basically was the attitude of the 90’s, they were at the tail end of the Gen X “everything is lame” ethos. And as time went on they have largely grown out of it. What other show has an episode where workers rise up against Amazon?
There’s the hyperbole of “SP caused it”. That is silly, I agree. But I think the show helped make that mindset more acceptable and popular among people who might ordinarily not have formed any sociopolitical identity of their own. I find it hard not to see *some* measure of influence on the ease of social justice dismissal.That said, the Bloomberg interview was interesting regarding those topics because the guys seem to be aware of and tacitly supportive of cultural shifts. Maybe they’re self-aware enough to acknowledge some target missing? I dunno. They’re smart dudes and I admire their integrity and business savvy. I just also think their libertarian ideas are trash.
Same here, I think a big part of their attitude was a backlash against Hollywood Liberalism, especially people that crap on small-town USA. And they felt they were ripe for jokes most people hadn’t made yet. But it also made them more than a bit cynical and mocking of anything sincere, or both sidesing things like with “Douche and Turd”. But then when Trump came along they clearly said Hillary was the better candidate.
I think that’s hitting the nail on the head re: small town defensiveness. Maybe I’m misremembering them but I enjoyed earlier seasons for their satire of conservative moralizing and judgment. I’m sometimes a knee-jerk class warrior so conservatives get my blood up. I know they made fun of liberals too but I remember it as poking fun at overcompensation for white liberal guilt. Which is a fair enough target. Eventually that shifted into what felt to me like a blanket dismissal of all social justice concerns due to a misperception that those concerns were still primarily driven by elite white liberals and aimed primarily at their precious small town USA. But FFS, guys, small town USA is as guilty if not more so of participating in oppression! For libertarians they sometimes seem real resistant to considering personal responsibility when it’s their people.Ultimately they’re still funny and sometimes they’ll do an interview where it *sounds* like they’re less defensive of their tribe. So… (shrug). I only wish their stans would stop treating every criticism as an attack. It’s sometimes like when I’d criticize Big Bang Theory. You won, guys. Whatever critiques I have, why do you fucking care? The show is huge, the creators are rich, it’ll run forever… Like… Let me bitch about it. It hurts your show and your fandom not at all. And hey, maybe I have a point! Either way, YOU WON.
Yeah I think small town USA/conservatives are by far the more “PC” group, they just do it in a different way. Everything they do is in the service of shutting down uncomfortable conversations. South Park still focuses quite a bit on PC issues (that mostly white liberals focus on) and have a literal group of babies who cry at unPC things as characters. But they also have the White family as a counterbalance who are behind Garrison/Trump’s corner and are hilarious.
Have you met teenage boys though? Edgelord cringe is their coup d’etat. Young teen boys are really impressionable and educational stuff tends not to get through the hormones. Likely the backwards philosophies of South Park have to be untangled and managed decades later in life. Sometimes you play with fire, you get burned. Doesn’t absolve our capitalistic government, but voting is a part of our constitution. And cynicism can seem so appealing from afar.
WarnerMedia tossed a huge pile of money ($550 million) into the mix to secure exclusive streaming rights of South Park for HBO Max
I’m kind of in awe of these enormous streaming deals that I keep reading about. I have to wonder if it’s worth it for the streaming services to shell out this kind of dough and if they’ll see a return on their investment with added subscribers.Doing some back-of-the-envelope math on this one, at $14.99 a month, HBO Max is betting that over 3 million people will jump over to their service (and stay for a year) in order to break even.
I suppose each service has got to build their library somehow in order to make themselves appealing to customers, but this is just one show. It makes me wonder about the economics of running a streaming service.
I mean, that is mind boggling, until you consider $550 mil is peanuts for its parent company AT&T, which managed a cool $171.8 bil during the pandemic. They’re very much in the business of tossing fuck-around money to build the brand to box out other streamers, esp. ones like Amazon/Apple that also aren’t primarily entertainment businesses (see also: their discovery deal, the TW purchase to begin with)…
That’s why I think Disney+ did it right. Use it as a place to access content they already own, and produce their own content, instead of paying huge amounts of money for someone else’s content.
Disney are arguably the only company who could do that though, they’re certainly the only studio people have any personal affection towards in the modern age. Warner Bros kind of had that not *so* long ago, and they’re trying to get that now, but by most accounts it isn’t really working.
Since Laserface can dish it out, yet can’t handle even the mildest retort to his rants, here’s my response that he dismissed: Do you really have to do this on every article on South Park? There’s plenty of things I dislike, but I don’t feel the need to obsessively bash them online. We get it, you don’t like it. But it’s also obvious you haven’t seen the show for close to a decade, so your opinions aren’t even relevant to where it’s at now. Get a hobby.
My advice: don’t come off as the guy who’s obsessed with the guy who sucks. It’s almost as bad. Let him have his moment where he gets to cut and paste the same thing onto every South Park article. Deny him what he desperately wants: attention.
It’s not just attention he wants, it’s control. And it isn’t just South Park, his idiotic opinions and inane non-sequiter comic references infect every aspect of this site. He HAS to go.
You’ve got a point but I’ve only posted about him twice and I don’t really plan on doing it again. I was just frustrated he dismissed my comment.
Does he work for the AV Club? Because that would actually make a lot of sense.
Laserface and recognitions are unofficial employees whether they like it or not.
I have recently seen their comments show up as Staff, e.g.
RECOGNITIONS IS A CRISIS ACTOR
I have recently seen their comments show up as Staff, e.g.That just means the author starred or replied to it.
Ah, didn’t realize that.Well, just a sorry reflection on that particular blogger, then.
Everything about recognitions is pretty fucking sorry, from what I’ve seen.
I mean, imagine him as a real person who you could just run into out in the flesh-and-blood world. Gives me the willies.
I mean, the comments section is for the purpose of posting opinions about pop culture, which is what Laserface is doing. Dismissing replies may be a bit frustrating, but also valid enough. As long as it’s not directly insulting someone or hate speech, I’m happy for people to post whatever opinions they like and just ignore the comments I’m not interested in.
I am pretty sure you graduate out of being able to write political, economic or social satire when you earn your first billion.
I remember watching as Ben Elton, British creator of such anti-establishment comedies as ‘The Young Ones’ and ‘Blackadder’, slowly began writing novels where the heroes were cultural conservatives and millionaires whose great life lessons were learning that poor people have feelings too.
I miss when you could just watch any episode on their website.
The randomizer (watch any episode) button was a really nice feature, too. I believe you could even keep it playing and it would keep pulling random episodes. Was very nice as a free site.
Way back in ‘98 when they signed the initial deal with Comedy Central they also made sure they got a big cut of the merchandising which if you will recall was fucking everywhere. They made sure it was in there because the only thing they knew about business was George Lucas got rich on merchandising.
The other day I was browsing Ebay for old South Park stuff, almost bought that “Many Deaths of Kenny” shirt
I wish I’d remembered this when the article first posted as nowhere near as many people are going to see this.When South Park first showed in Australia, it was actually on one of our government funded stations called SBS (the Special Broadcasting Service) which did a lot of foreign cinema, TV shows and news broadcasts in numerous different languages from other countries. Basically it covered a lot of news and entertainment for people from non-English speaking backgrounds.If I remember all of this correctly, SBS got South Park and some of their if not their highest ratings ever. That’s when the commercial channels started sniffing around but apparently Parker and Stone let SBS keep the show for quite some afterwards despite higher offers because they gave it a chance on Australian TV than no-one else would when it first launched.
Oh shit, I forgot that. That was back when ‘South Park’ was the weird, scrappy answer to ‘The Simpsons’ and there was no way anyone else would touch it, whereas SBS was where everyone went for weird, scrappy stuff.
Good for them. Lot of hard work, and here they are.
My 70+ mom loves this show to this day – but only the first 10 seasons or so. The more specific and current the humour gets, the less appeal it has for her. But damned if she’ll ever give up her beaded Cartman’s head change purse, her Mr. Hanky keychain or her Stan and Ike fridge magnet.
It’s a bit much for my mom, but she does love Family Guy. She was never one for jokes inherent to a story
Man, I hope someone one day offers me a terrible sounding deal for something I created, the worse the better. I’ll be all over it!
Going by the comments Americans have willingly become the avatars of the scorn Parker and Stone have for their society. Its the ultimate compliment for their achievements. Hilarious.