After a two-year break, “South Park” returned Wednesday night with an episode that took aim at Donald Trump and Paramount.
Just one day before the episode aired, Paramount Global, which owns Comedy Central and CBS, announced a five-year, $1.5 billion deal with series creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker. The ink had barely dried when Parker and Stone brutally mocked the company that signed the check.
In the episode, Trump sues the town of South Park for $5 billion after they criticize his presidency. Similar to Paramount and ABC, the townspeople eventually settle for $3.5 million and are forced to create “pro-Trump messaging.” The ad they cut is a sequence of Trump wandering naked through the desert, his “teeny-tiny” penis the subject of repeated ridicule.
In addition to the shocking ad, the season premiere included scenes of Trump in bed with Satan. Parker and Stone had used a similar storyline to mock former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
The episode’s parallels with real-world media storylines were clear. After settling with Trump for $16 million over claims CBS News deceptively edited a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris, Paramount faced backlash for allegedly capitulating to the president’s demands. Days after Stephen Colbert criticized the settlement on “The Late Show,” CBS canceled his program. The network has claimed the move was a purely financial decision.
Throughout the episode, Trump is presented as someone whose sole recourse to criticism is the threat of a lawsuit. This trigger-happy litigiousness is lampooned in a satirical “60 Minutes” segment in which CBS-style anchors nervously report on protests against “the president, who is a great man.” The show also makes references to Trump’s tariffs, his effort to defund NPR and the ongoing controversy around the so-called “Epstein files.”
The Trump White House fired back following the episode.
“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,” White House Spokesperson Taylor Rogers told Rolling Stone. “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.”
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