The South Park kids are all grown-up in this tease for the show’s Thanksgiving “exclusive event”
Post Covid will apparently follow an adult Kyle and Stan several years in the future
TV News South Park
South Park has poked around with its characters’ futures before—most notably with the sixth season’s “My Future Self ‘n’ Me,” which briefly shows two different version of the person Eric Cartman grows up to be. (Unsurprisingly, the one powered by spite and terrible choices inevitably wins out.)
Now, though, it looks like the series will be diving head-on into this forward looking concept, with the teaser for upcoming Paramount Plus “exclusive event”—they’re very insistent on the terminology—Post Covid showing an adult Stan and Kyle living in the future, and an elderly Randy being as dumb and short-sighted as ever.
Given that it’s just a teaser, there’s not a huge amount we can glean from the video—although it looks like Kyle, who apparently got a psychology degree in the intervening 30 or so years, might have taken over for Mr. Mackey as a school guidance counsellor.
Obviously, something terrible has happened in South Park—we get a shot of the town’s usual screaming chaos, albeit with a hoverboard tossed in to highlight the future of it all—but, then: Something terrible is always happening in South Park, so who’s to say what’s actually going on?
Post Covid is the first of what will be several efforts by Paramount to get some online control over the long-running Comedy Central franchise. (Rival streaming service HBO Max retains the extremely expensive rights to the series’ regular streaming license, which might also explain why the “exclusive event” terminology is being used, instead of the previous “specials” that the show deployed in 2020 and 2021.)
It’s not hard to see why: 24 years in, South Park remains one of the most potent brands in animation, a functionally unkillable satirical effort to reckon with two-decades-and-counting of American cultural dysfunction. Like it or not, the show is an institution—something it’ll try to prove all over again when Post Covid airs on Paramount+ on Thanskgiving, Thursday, November 25.
45 Comments
I find it really sad that people are very unhealthily defensive of a comedy that spent decades peddling climate change denial (And no, just because they said “I guess climate change was real *shrug*.” does not excuse it.) that they act like you shot there dog and ate their grandma if you so much as criticize the show’s Libertarian politics…God forbid someone criticize a political satire’s politics.
“God forbid someone criticize a political satire’s politics.”…in the first post in every topic, as if they’ve been camping out on the AV Club front page and hitting refresh, hoping a South Park news story pops up so they can point out the obscure fact that the South Park guys are libertarian.
I know the AVC lacks editors, but when the commentariat complains about spelling and whatnot, it starts at the bottom. Dude, you need to learn the difference between “there” and “their”. Like I tell my servers, it takes all of 15 seconds to review your order before you hit that button. Fifteen seconds saves them five minutes of having to tell me what modifications they fucked up.Fifteen seconds of a quick re-read of your comment before hitting the publish button…
Oh please. The show has made fun of just about everyone over the years. And “decades of climate change denial” is a bit of hyperbole.
Besides, Al Gore was ripe for making fun of with ManBearPig. And no one has likely done more to benefit climate change deniers than Gore, promoting all sorts of hyperbolic bs that make the legitimate science seem crazy.And no, I am not being defensive of the show, I have not even watched any of it in years.
I find it really sad that people like you simply cannot tolerate a piece of entertainment that did not bend of backwards to reinforce their preexisting views.
It’s also weird to make a point to come to the comment section of any article about the show in order to attack it. South Park’s politics aren’t terribly coherent and I think that Parker and Stone have been pretty observant about some things and woefully wrong about or dismissive of others, but that doesn’t make the show as a whole worthy of the rabid defensiveness it inspires it its most enthusiastic fans nor of the condemnation it inspires in others. In its hundreds of episodes there have been several that were pretty wrongheaded, but in most of those cases Parker and Stone have changed their minds about the topics at hand, rather than doubling down, which so many people prefer to do. I want people to agree with me on all the important issues of the day, but I can’t demand absolute moral purity going back decades.
You know what’s unhealthy? Obsessing over a show you clearly don’t like. Get over it already.
I can like Mr Hankey, Chocolate Salty Balls and Mecha-Streisand, and not like climate change denial.
No show is perfect.
I can like Mr Hankey, Chocolate Salty Balls and Mecha-Streisand, and not like climate change denial.
No show is perfect. (Just reposting this. Thanks Laserface1242 for the explanation. All good.)
Sorry must have accidentally hit the wrong button and dismissed your comment by mistake. My bad.
It still had by far the strongest commentary on Trump compared to most mainstream comedy shows. And Amazon. And China.
I guess the episode “ManBearPig” counts as “decades peddling climate change denial.”EDIT: If I’m getting him correctly Laserface is saying that this one opinion of mine he disagrees with is invalidated by these other opinions of mine he disagrees with.
And this is you defending blackface…And here you are defending transphobes…Just proof of the true fandom South Park caters too…
Wow ngl, “Now that Trump lost / stop worrying about bad things being normalized”-11/26/20That couldn’t have aged worse on this day 11/19/21
What work(s) of media are you accusing of “normalizing” bad things now?
kill yourself
Duplicate post.
kill yourself
Rofl… Your trying to cancel someone in the comment section. Loser
kill yourself
LOL hilariously his comment was first.
The guy is an idiot. Why even engage with him? Getting in dumb petty fights like this is pretty much his entire sad life. He clearly doesn’t have anything else and if I was going to guess I would say he is extremely autistic.
Laserface is a known troll who gets a pass from the community thanks to their comic book knowledge.
God forbid Laserface shuts up. Jesus Christ.
So where exactly is this “teaser”??
Jesus Christ, this writing is so goddamned awful it’s almost amazing. This kid must be somebody’s nephew or something
You mean Laserface? Look, if there was any way to get rid of this prick, we would, but unfortunately for now we’re stuck with his obnoxious pontificating under every single South Park article this site puts up.
Literally 100% of my comic book knowledge comes from Laserface
I’d, uh, also like to express some strong opinions about this particular show.
Seems like a riff on STEPHEN KING’S IT, to me. Then again, I’m not a professional pop culture journalist.
Retaining your amateur status for that college scholarship I take it?
The NCAAVClub won’t allow me to make any money from endorsements even.
Stoodent AVleetes!
Um… where’s the clip? I assumed this article would have the clip it was advertising embedded in it.
Maybe it’s buried under all the other video ads? All Kinja sites are increasingly unusable.
There’s a tiny link in the attribution of the header image.
Of course. The best possible way for everyone to see it.
At the end of:Stan and Randy Marsh…in the future!Screenshot: YouTube
It’s almost admirable how dedicated to sucking the Kinja sites are, but they’re beyond self-parody at this point. A whole article about a teaser whose headline even uses the phrase “this tease,” but does not have it embedded in the article. I must abandon all my imposter syndrome, because it turns out I could run a better media site than established industry professionals.The old AV Club from like 2008 was wildly better than this, and they’ve had years to fix it at this point. I can’t believe this shit.
So it’s not airing on Comedy Central? Lame.
HOVERBOARDS! They have hoverboards!
Ugh, I guess the plan is gonna work, because I’ll probably have to sub to Paramount+ for a month in order to see this. Hopefully by next year they’ll be doing proper seasons again in addition to these exclusive bits.
Something about this one being a Paramount Plus exclusive bugs me; Remember when Kyle called out the anti-bullying movie for being so important yet not being free to watch?
Wild guess: The parts of this special that skewered anti-vaxxers will be a little more popular here than the parts that skewered self-righteous certainty that your own mores are the vanguard of all advancing human ethics.