'South Park' Didn't Get Political — 'South Park' Got Lazy | Amber Harding

I remember when I used to look forward to new episodes of South Park.

For nearly 30 years, Trey Parker and Matt Stone have made the funniest, smartest, most irreverent show on television. It was fearless, it was unpredictable, and it mocked everyone — left, right, celebrities, activists, the entire country of Canada. But it always kept the focus on the equally insane and lovable characters of South Park.

And then this season happened. This season, where every single episode is consumed by an obsession with President Donald Trump.

According to a new New York Times interview, the show's creators say the show has become fixated on Trump because "politics became pop culture," because "new taboos" emerged, and because "the government is just in your face everywhere you look."

But the problem isn't that South Park started making fun of Trump. The problem is that South Park stopped making fun of anything else.

And worse, it stopped being South Park.

South Park: Satire Or Just The Same Joke On Repeat?

Let's get something out of the way right now: Conservatives aren't suddenly "triggered" because the show is roasting Trump. Please. Some of the funniest episodes ever came from the orange-faced Mr. Garrison-as-Trump era, which lasted nearly five seasons.

A couple of years ago, they even did an episode where Mr. Garrison relapses in a Trump merch store in Myrtle Beach. Even Trump voters laughed their asses off.

Mock Trump all you want. But at least make it funny.

In this new season, Trump appears as himself. He's sleeping with Satan, he's expecting a "butt baby," he has an affair with Vice President JD Vance, and every single episode repeats the same joke about the president's "tiny penis."

It's not taboo or edgy. It's not even clever. It's just lazy.

You can only say "Trump has a tiny penis" so many times before it stops being comedy and starts sounding like Keith Olbermann is having another mental breakdown on Twitter.

And the creators' explanation doesn't justify the creative decline.

In the NYT interview, Parker and Stone try to explain why the show has gone all-in on Trump: "It’s not that we got all political," Parker said. "It’s that politics became pop culture."

Did it? Just now? Because we had four whole years of vegetable Joe Biden and cackling Kamala Harris dominating headlines, and South Park never touched it.

Stone added that the creators are attracted to taboos "like flies to honey."

Ok. But none of that actually excuses the fact that the writing has become one-note, and the show's actual characters — the boys, Randy Marsh, all the crazies in the small Colorado mountain town — are treated like an afterthought.

Parker and Stone say strangers keep approaching them to praise the show this season. These are people "who would not normally watch South Park." 

Meanwhile, Parker admits longtime fans are asking him, "When are you going to bring the boys back and stop doing all this political stuff?"

And that's exactly the issue. The show they're making now isn't for the fans who carried South Park for 28 years. That's their prerogative as the show's creators. But it's our prerogative to hate it, too.

This Isn't The Show We All Fell In Love With

At the end of the article, Parker and Stone refer to this as their "disco era," saying they'll eventually get "sick of" Washington." Parker adds, "Next year will be different," and says simply, "We just got to do this for now."

But no, they don't "got to do this."

They're being paid $250 million per year — an absolutely mind-blowing figure — because people love South Park. Not because people want a 22-minute anti-Trump fan-fiction circle jerk every week.

(Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

And, trust me, I know. On the off chance that Trey Parker or Matt Stone ever ran across this column, they'd laugh and then wipe their happy tears with their $1.5-billion contract. They don't care what I think. They don't care what any of their fans think.

These last nine episodes have made that perfectly clear.