When South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone locked in a reported $1.5 billion five-year deal with Paramount at the eleventh hour before their Season 27 premiere, the comedy duo were looking to assert their agency in an environment that would soon be upended by new parent company Skydance and CEO David Ellison. The result? A scathing debut aimed at President Donald Trump — whose approval was, ahem, paramount to the completion of the merger. Since that inaugural episode in late July, a steady stream of blistering satirical installments has not let up on the POTUS and key White House officials, from VP JD Vance to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.
In a new interview with the New York Times, Stone explained of the decision to mock the GOP leader: “We just had to show our independence somehow.”
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The scribe added that although audiences may assume some level of censorship behind the scenes — especially in a hostile media environment where Paramount’s CBS canceled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (defended by top brass as a purely financially motivated decision, the timing of which came after the host went after his home network) — that isn’t the case.
“I know with the Colbert thing and all the Trump stuff, people think certain things, but they’re letting us do whatever we want, to their credit,” Stone said of the lack of pushback. (In turn, Colbert has praised South Park for its censure of Trump, calling the show’s deepfaked PSA video of a naked Trump “an important message of hope for our times.”)
Naturally, the White House was seething over the matter, with Assistant Press Secretary Taylor Rogers telling Deadline post-premiere: “This show hasn’t been relevant for over 20 years and is hanging on by a thread with uninspired ideas in a desperate attempt for attention. President Trump has delivered on more promises in just six months than any other president in our country’s history – and no fourth-rate show can derail President Trump’s hot streak.”
Unfortunately for Trump and his administration, however, the relentless deluge of jokes has led to a ratings bump and renaissance of sorts for the long-running animated show.
It’s a winning formula that Parker and Stone will be sticking by for the time being.
“There’s no getting away from this,” Parker told the Times. “It’s like the government is just in your face everywhere you look. Whether it’s the actual government or whether it is all the podcasters and the TikToks and the YouTubes and all of that, and it’s just all political and political because it’s more than political. It’s pop culture.”