My question to you guys here is :
Do you like watching South Park? If not, why?
I understand that the jokes in it can rub a lot of people the wrong way especially when they make fun of religious groups, race and current day first world problems.
Personally I’ve enjoyed the show ever since I watched earlier seasons on DVD years ago. I just find the humor and some of the moments give you that shock kind of laughter “They really put that in there??”
So what’s your view? Do you watch it? Do you hate it? You thought of watching it?
Let me know!
(You should change your title to be the question)
I personally love it. It’s not the cleanest of humor, but it’s just a pure satire of our society, and I love it. The show has changed as it’s aged, it goes up and down, but I love how they’re not afraid to call out bullshit we put up with. Season… 22 how every scene starting on the school had gunshots and children screaming? Hilarious to me, because it’s so ridiculous how we just put up with school shootings. It’s outrageous, and it’s meant to offend, and idk I just appreciate it.
When everyone else is trying to appease corporate committees and shareholders, Southpark just says fuck it and writes what they want.
When everyone else is trying to appease corporate committees and shareholders
Counterpoint: The money South Park makes by pissing people off directly impacts Comedy Centrals profits. It’s in Comedy Central’s best interest to have South Park be offensive, because attention and engagement is more important in the modern world than whether or not people actually like something. Capital doesn’t give a damn about how they appease corporate committees and shareholders, as long as money is being made: South Park makes money hand-over-fist being offensive. There’s literally been an unending stream of copycat “offensive adult animation” ever since South Park hit the air. They’re emphatically not sticking it to the man. They are the man.
South Park is almost 30 years old. They are the industry. They are still around because they make money. If they actually offended the sensibilities of corporate committees and shareholders, they wouldn’t still be on the fucking air. Both Matt and Trey individually have wealth valued at well over half a billion dollars. Add them both together and you have a billionaire. But sure, they’re still somehow “subversive” with money coming out their fucking ears.
Which I would say is a position they have lucked themselves into honestly. We all know, the viewers, that the more risky you are as a show the more captivating it can be, which I think southpark proves. They took a lot of risks, and got themselves into this spot where it’d be ridiculous of CC to get rid of them now because they are a cash cow. New shows however, corporations never connect the dots and tell them things are too risky, to take the safer more bland route, and of course they are shocked when they don’t do as well.
There’s literally a stream of cartoons with intent to offend as many people as possible. They’re all trash, but let me see how many I can look up real quick starting with dumb shit like Brickleberry or Paradise PD.
Like, literally being as offensive as possible is the entire fucking schtick of Adam Corrolla’s Mr. Birchum, which just came out.
Honestly, the ones that are try-hard offensive fucking fail miserably. There’s a lot of them. Stop pretending that taking risks is all it takes. You also actually have to have a pulse on social issues, which the South Park creators simply no longer do. People can be offensive and not funny. In fact, it’s way easier to just be offensive than it is to be offensive and funny. Most only succeed at being offensive.
Companies want content that enrages people because they know that people get more involved with content they hate than content they love. They absolutely pour money into South Park copycats that try to go “anti-woke.”
A travesty we aren’t getting more seasons of Paradise PD and Farzar.
The “both sides are cartoonish idiots” take got a bit old once I was no longer an edgy middle schooler
Started strong, ending weak, like most things that stay on the air far beyond their Best By date.
Matt and Trey got old and turned into the same kind of curmudgeons they used to mock.
It happens to everyone, especially when they’ve had fame and money and stop being the punk rock weirdos in the biz. They aren’t the young upstarts pointing out the absurdity of the business anymore, they’re the financial lynchpin of Comedy Central. They’re as important to revenue as shit like the Daily Show. Whether they want to admit it to themselves or not, they’ve grown to become what they hated. As artists working for a big corporation, they represent The Industry.
They don’t think of themselves at the rich corporate tools, but they are whether they think they are or not. The run-ins they’ve had with the staff at Casa Bonita speak to it as well. They’re not actually listening to their workers. Further, no word on whether the people at Casa Bonita are allowed to unionize. Wouldn’t be surprised if Matt and Trey are outright against unionization. “Why would you want to unionize when we’re offering $30 an hour?” Because at some point you can just change your mind about it, like you’ve already changed your mind on your employees once already.
South Park’s real crime was to think they were being subversive and not understanding that Capital doesn’t give a fuck about morals or ethics or who gets made fun of, they only give a fuck about money. If being subversive and making fun of everyone makes money then they’ll back it to hell and back, social consequences be damned. They don’t care if your dumb show makes people think dumb shit, and you don’t get to absolve yourself for it by saying shit like “we think people shouldn’t get their politics from our cartoons.” Sorry, they do get their politics from your cartoon, dumbfucks. You don’t absolve yourself of it by handwaving it away like the people are the problem and not the product you’re creating.
They don’t get to hide from the endless stream of copycat “adult” cartoons that all try to out-offend each other. They’re all trash and none of them have ever equaled what South Park originally brought to the table.
EDIT: Also, they went from being the guys who put all the episodes of their show online, for free, on southpark dot com to the guys who made a deal with Paramount to lock everything behind a paywall. If you want to bitch about how the corporate suits are making PIRACY WORSE because they fail to see that access to their content is a SERVICE PROBLEM, then maybe you need to accept that Matt and Trey are some of those corporate suits.
https://www.wired.com/2008/03/south-park-to-o/
In an appropriately glib statement, Parker and Stone said they were inspired to start the site when they got “really sick of having to download our own show illegally all the time. So we gave ourselves a legal alternative.”
Interesting how times change and now they’re simply money grubbing assholes that don’t care about locking content behind paywalls? Fuck em. They’re fucking corporate suits like anyone else now. Matt and Trey together have a wealth of over a billion dollars combined, but they don’t have enough money to put the episodes online for free anymore apparently… Suits.
Interesting how times change and now they’re simply money grubbing assholes that don’t care about locking content behind paywalls? Fuck em. They’re fucking corporate suits like anyone else now.
Little strong, but hey, I’m with you ultimately.
They don’t get to hide from the endless stream of copycat “adult” cartoons that all try to out-offend each other. They’re all trash and none of them have ever equaled what South Park originally brought to the table.
Yea, a lot of newer adult animations like say Brickleberry and Crash Canyon really suck. But South Park is just a part of that story. The Filntstones, Jetsons, Simpsons, Beavis and Butthead and King of the Hill all predated it and Family Guy, American Dad came out not long after.
Little strong,
I want to agree with you but the South Park IP is worth $1 billion and they made an absolute truckload of money selling the streaming rights to HBO/Paramount because in 1997 they included a clause in their contract that gives them 50% profits from “any non-television broadcast sources.” In other words: streaming. Every stream Matt and Trey are getting fully half the money. They’re literally fucking milking the living shit out of it.
Viacom briefly attempted to argue their way out of the clause, but in the end, Parker and Stone were successful in not only owning a 50% cut of non-broadcast revenue but also in having the right to distribute the show digitally as they saw fit. Once they saw their show being pirated non-stop on YouTube, Matt and Trey decided it would be pointless to fight the pirates, so they put every single episode online for free, earning millions from the digital ad revenue. They really started to cash in with the advent of streaming services like Hulu. When Hulu paid $192 million for 4 years of rights to the back catalogue, Matt and Trey each earned around $50 million. At the time, is was the largest streaming deal in history. In 2019 when the deal was up, HBO Max obtained exclusive streaming rights in a deal that was rumored to be worth $500 million-$550 million.
On August 5, 2021 it was revealed that Matt and Trey had signed a new six-year, $900 million contract with ViacomCBS. Under the deal Matt and Trey will produce six seasons of the show and 14 movies which will be exclusive to streaming service Paramount+.
The first seasons were great, good to re-watch. But it’s like they kind of gave up since season 10 or so. The characters, topics and the humor are all different now.
Now that’s a rare take. Usually the first 2 seasons are regarded as the worst and have very childish humour compared to later ones.
Season 10 is pretty much the start of peak South Park. It had the Cartoon Wars two parter and the iconic Warcraft episode. Also introduced ManBearPig and the “Nice” meme …
I think my least favourite season would be the 20th which is the whole Garrison as Trump story line. They really wrote themselves into a couple of corners with that one. Though the troll-trace subplot is amazing.
I know a bunch of people who lost interest over time around the same time as me, it’s when they had this season-long storyline. Not sure which season it was.
The kids act too adult now, Chef disappeared, other common characters are rarely there anymore or changed completely (Garrison turned into Trump?), then the weed stuff / Tegrity, Warcraft – all not that great IMO.
Well… Chef didn’t really disappear per sé…
That’s an interesting story to read about if you don’t already know
I disagree with you, but I’m upvoting anyway, because it’s refreshing to see preference for something else than the seasons “everyone” likes.
Huh for me the first few seasons can be rough to rewatch, but the later seasons are great.
I used to like it a lot… As a kid… As I’ve grown it seems more focused on being incredibly in the middle than ever actually making any sort of point…
Matt Stone and Trey Parker are just so incredibly "Enlightened Centrist* that it can be painful at times.
They have some good bits and some of their jokes have rightfully stood the test of time… But God damn… If you’re going to make a political show… Do something other than the most fence sitting thing possible!
I like it a lot. I thought the anti-vax episode was fuckin hilarious.
Also, “you got cocaine legalized?!” “I told you, it’s 2019, dawg.”
I’ve been watching it the day it came out in 1997 and while it had it’s ups and downs, the show still mostly holds up today. And even the brand new stuff still sometimes makes you go “They really put that in there??” which I think just shows how brilliant the show is.
South Park is brilliant and was ahead of its time when it first came around.
South Park is great. Most people I’ve ever talked to that hate it are conservative.
Which is funny because one of the most famous quotes when it comes to their personal political position is Matt stone with “I hate conservatives but I really fucking hate liberals”.
In the end all they are trying to do is just to be funny. And they nail that, even in the 3rd decade. They are the perfect example of an “equal opportunity offender”.
I tried doing some research into what these people like, and the only thing I found was Roseanne.
I think you’re right, they do (or did) like her. But she got parodied in “The Problem with a Poo” (S22E03).
I thought it was silly stupid fun when i was a teen
In my 20s i thought it was genius
In my 30s I think its “both sides are stupid” approach to everything is annoying and an immature stance in a world where one side is shit and one side is super mega ultra shit.
remind me in 7 years to tell you about totally different way i feel about it in my 40s.
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Yup. Although I have no clue what it’s release schedule is these days.
I think it’s 6 episodes and 2 specials a year now. The first one already dropped this year. “The End of Obesity”.
They had an Ozempic special as of late
Eh, it’s ok. I think I kinda got burnt out on South Park in college.
Love it. One example that springs to mind is calling out the NCAA.
“‘Student Ath-uh-letes’? Haha, that is brilliant, sir.”
i definitely watched it when i was a youngun, but i’m always surprised to hear it’s still running tbh
In general, yes. I’ve kept up since it first started airing, and it has its highs and lows, with some seasons better than others. But overall I like it.
Generally, I find that the best seasons were 5ish to 15ish. Before that it was a bit too simplistic and crude, and the joke about Kenny dying got old. After that there was a bit too much focus on politics. Sure, it always has to some degree, but I didn’t find the Tegrity Farms , PC Principal/babies, and President Garrison storylines that good.
One exception dto the above is that episode (I don’t remember when, or what the name was), where everyone started treating The Economy like some diety that they shouldn’t anger. It was a response to the 2008/2009 economic issues, so I guess it must’ve aired shortly after that. I just find the entire arc of that episode hilarious, from the economic forecasts and monetary values being dictated by a weird ritual involving a headless chicken, and to Kyle sacrificing himself by taking on all people’s debts.
Honorable mentions of episodes I really like: Casa Bonita, Awesome-O, Cartman dies, Good times with Weapons, The Coon (and the related episodes). And of course, the Game of Thrones parody. And I absolutely love the plot/naming twist of “The Big Fix”. And what was the name of that episode that is partially depicted in the style of a Blair Witch found footage, where Craig really doesn’t want to be part of the story/plot, but ends up as one anyway.
