Within the Season 27 premiere of South Park, creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone did a lot, however maybe a very powerful factor they did was bear in mind what punching up appears to be like like. Taking purpose at President Trump in a means that appears actively tailor-made to piss the present administration off, “Sermon on the ‘Mount” performs like a direct dare to Paramount to cancel the present, or for our authorities to make Parker and Stone’s lives very disagreeable the subsequent time they attempt to undergo airport safety. And by doing so, the pair have created a bit of subversive political artwork that looks like a real reflection of right now.
To ensure essentially the most delicate of liberals don’t really feel too touchy-feely about what’s to come back, the episode opens with Cartman livid that NPR, his favourite comedy concerning the woes of the world, has been cancelled — not solely that, however it’s the ultimate loss of life knell for the idea of “woke,” and he’s devastated by it. Additionally, Jesus is again within the faculties, bringing (amongst different issues) a message of warning about creating subversive comedy precisely just like the present we’re watching.
However the actual meat of the episode is simply vignettes about Trump, because the present goes tougher on him than it did on Saddam Hussein: animating his face like a Canadian, depicting him and Devil as lovers, and repeatedly exhibiting the sitting President’s tiny pee-pee. And that’s earlier than the airing of an AI-generated “pro-Trump” PSA which ends the episode, by which an more and more bare Trump wanders the desert for our sins earlier than collapsing on his again — a tiny penis puppet rising to declare that he approves this message.
Associated Video
Whereas South Park episodes premiere on Comedy Central first (no simultaneous streaming out there on Paramount+), Parker and Stone wished to make it possible for the PSA could be out there instantly for everybody no matter cable subscription: Therefore the reveal of the HeTrumpedUs.com URL on the finish, bringing you to a touchdown web page for the YouTube embed. You continue to have to look at the video on YouTube as a consequence of its mature content material, however immediately releasing the PSA to the web is the actual exclamation level on their message — in addition to an insurance coverage coverage towards any post-premiere censorship.
Who is aware of how Andrew Jackson would have reacted to an episode making enjoyable of him like this, however definitely our most thin-skinned fashionable President like it will have some ranting to do on Reality Social. It’s the form of transfer you make after signing a $1.5 billion deal for the present’s ongoing streaming rights — a deal that Paramount signed on the similar time it cancelled the Late Present with Stephen Colbert and promised the FCC that it will do away with its DEI applications. Oh, and you may’t neglect the the $16 million 60 Minutes settlement that Colbert known as “an enormous fats bribe” — simply days earlier than his cancellation discover got here in.
South Park was imagined to premiere on July ninth, a date that bought pushed to this week for causes that the group claimed had been as a result of ongoing Skydance merger. However their assertion was imprecise on specifics as to why that was. It’s pure hypothesis to counsel {that a} issue within the delay was that Parker and Stone wished their streaming deal locked down earlier than the season premiere aired. However it will make sense.
Everybody may need their very own definition for the minimal concept of “fuck it” cash, however $1.5 billion feels prefer it positively qualifies. (Particularly on high of the already ridiculous sum of money Stone and Parker have made since their humble animated sequence grew to become a world phenomenon.) It’d be fascinating to understand how that deal was structured — and what sorts of protections are in place in the case of the present’s means to mock whoever they need, at any time when they need.
One criticism that’s dogged Parker and Stone lately is that their excessive monetary success has maybe made them unable to ship the identical stage of scathing commentary that they’ve prior to now. Nevertheless it looks as if this second in historical past has put some further gas of their tank, gas they’re able to burn, particularly as their cash and success provides them energy and security in what looks like an more and more unsafe time. That is their “fuck it” second, and the season premiere ensures we’ll be being attentive to what comes subsequent. It was crass, brutal, and precisely what 2025 deserves.
South Park is streaming now on Paramount+.