Matt Stone and Trey Parker got the last laugh last night with a scathing, no-holds-barred takedown of Donald Trump and his surreal second-term presidency in the 27th season opener of South Park. The controversial half-hour mocked Trump’s tendency to threaten lawsuits against his critics (echoing real life incidents involving CBS and parent company Paramount), even went as far as depicting him in bed with series regular Satan (and making fun of the size of his penis and asking him about rumors involving his connection to the Epstein List).
In the episode, the president was also depicted in a deepfake PSA video, which was created by the South Park town to produce “pro-Trump messaging” and appease him to settle a lawsuit. The video features Trump stumbling across a desert while the narrator asks, “When things heat up, who will deliver us form temptation? Donald J. Trump.” The PSA wraps up by announcing “Trump, his penis is teeny-tiny, but his love for us is large.” The PSA links to a website HeTrumpedUs.com, which notes, “This parody contains synthetic media.” (Parker and Stone are behind a start-up company called Deep Voodoo five years ago, which uses deepfake technologies to depict realistic footage of humans.)
In addition, the controversial episode finds Trump threatening the Canadian Prime Minister to bomb Canada “like he did Iraq.” When he’s reminded that be bombed Iran, not Iraq, he responds, “Iran, Iraq, what the hell’s the difference!” The episode, which was titled “Sermon on the Mount,” also finds Cartman bemoaning the cancellation of NPR and Randy trying to stop Jesus from taking over their elementary school.
The arrival of the episode follows a much-reported big media news story involving Paramount Global (parent company of Comedy Central and CBS) which agreed to pay Trump $16 million in a settlement after the president filed a law suit, claiming that CBS News edited a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris to her advantage. All of this happened against the backdrop of Paramount seeking the go-ahead from FCC to finalize its $8.4 billion merger with Skydance Media.
When this episode of South Park was delayed by two weeks, from July 9 to July 23, the comedy series issued a statement on social media, blaming the Paramount-Skydance merger for the delay. “This merger is a shit show and it’s fucking up South Park,” said Parker and Stone. On the day of the Season 27 premiere, the creators announced they resolved their standoff with Paramount and signed a five-year extension of their overall deal worth around $1.5 billion. As a result, South Park got a 50-new episode order, and Paramount+ was able to stream all 26 past seasons of the show for the first time.
On Wednesday, Stone, said that he, Parker, and their team are grateful and thanked Paramount co-CEO and president of Showtime/MTV Entertainment Chris McCarthy and COO Keyes Hill-Edgar for their years of great partnership. “We are grateful for this opportunity and deeply honored by the trust placed in us. This is about more than a contract — it’s about our commitment to this organization, our teammates, and our fans. We’re focused on building something special and doing whatever it takes to bring championships to this city.”
The Paramount and Skydance merger is expected to close in or before October. New episodes of South Park air Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET on Comedy Central and will stream on Paramount+ the next day.
Update: In response, the White House assistant press secretary told The Hollywood Reporter: “The Left’s hypocrisy truly has no end – for years, they have come after South Park for what they labeled as ‘offense’ [sic] content, but suddenly they are praising the show. Just like the creators of South Park, the Left has no authentic or original content, which is why their popularity continues to hit record lows. 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.”
Thursday Night Comic-Con Panel Update: Matt Stone and Trey Parker appeared at a special adult animation panel at Comic-Con on Thursday early evening at Hall H of Comic-Con along with Mike Judge (Beavis and Butt-Head) and Andy Samberg (Digman!). The duo also received the Comic-Con Inkpot Award for Best Animation. When asked by the moderator about the response to their controversial episode, Parker joked, “We’re terribly sorry!” He also shared that the episode was put together only three days ago. “We were like, ‘I don’t know if people are going to like this.’ We were reading stuff in the newspaper, and were like, ‘Let’s put that in there!'” he said. “it’s always like, ‘so we love the episode,’ but that’s what happened. They’re like, ‘OK, but we’re gonna blur the penis.’ And I’m like, ‘No, you’re not gonna blur the penis.’” Added Stone: “We put eyes on the penis.” Parker said that he told the network “if we put eyes on the penis, we won’t blur it. And then that was a whole conversation for about four fucking days. It’s a character.”
Parker and Stone received Comic-Con’s Inkpot International Award for Excellence in Animation at the end of their panel.
Sources: Variety, Deadline, The Hollywood Reporter
Win 'Grave of the Fireflies' LE SteelBook! 
