South Park: The Most Important Satire Ever Made

Sometimes South Park can get a bad rap. With some of the jokes told in its 26 year run, it's not difficult to see why. South Park is both ruthless and persevering. With 326 episodes in its catalogue, there are few issues the long-running satire has failed to explore - and comprehensively.

From climate change and homelessness to homosexuality and politics to religion and death, it's driven full speed ahead into so many of the most serious controversies of our time. It's a versatile enough show that this sentence takes a hundred different forms. From pandemics and Twilight to High School Musical and Kanye West to Billy Mays and medicinal marijuana, the show has taken a stab at nearly every target that's emerged within my lifetime.

I'll try another. From Nascar and Facebook to Jersey Shore and Game of Thrones to Somalia, Apple and privacy, South Park has been utterly relentless in its refusal to avoid the biggest, strangest and most controversial developments that have emerged since the twin towers fell and even well before.

Many may not realize this, but following the earth-rippling terrorist attack, South Park was among the very first shows to comedically address the events that had happened that day. The episode's scathing political commentary and the looney-tunes-esque portrayal of one of its characters pursuing Osama Bin Laden earned it an Emmy nomination. It not only addresses, but satirizes, the paranoia that sent people into spirals and airports into frenzies.

For those unaware of the power that an animated satire with fart jokes can have, it's an episode worth watching. But it's hardly the only time in which the long-running adult cartoon has affected the outcome of events in the world around it.

South Park has rarely shied away from controversy. With the show's bold willingness to confront and expose the hypocrisies of politics and religion, even going so far as to depict the Islamic Prophet Muhammed, there's hardly a hot button issue that it hasn't tackled. And in its ability to garner the attention of politicians, celebrities, and all of the public figures that they continue to eviscerate, it stands in a place that truly no other show does.

South Park is far from the typical animated TV show for adults and the thoughtful commentary that it goes to such painstaking lengths to offer on nearly every arising issue distinguishes it from the Family Guy's and Rick and Morty's of the animation world.

That South Park has continued on to this day gracing satirical tidings on issues like the streaming wars, QAnon, vaccination, Queen Elizabeth and TikTok, speaks volumes about Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the two creators of South Park, and their childlike refusal to quit poking fun at the people and problems of the world.

It's not often enough that South Park gets the credit it deserves for managing to offer this unceasing brand of satire throughout the years. Their tireless writing staff has been animating those paper cutouts throughout five American presidencies. Their tenure on television stretches back nearly as far as The Simpsons.

In spite of its long running status on TV, though, it's a show that's been largely defined by the time constraints under which each episode is written. Perhaps one of the most remarkable achievements of South Park is that it's managed such soaring comedic heights even as each episode has been brought to life in under a week. Unlike almost any other show on television, in a painstaking attempt to stay present with the issues at hand, each episode of South Park is written within the 6 day lead-up to each new episode's airing.

And while the show has seen its small share of duds throughout its enduring stay on Comedy Central and arrival onto the scene of streaming, they're few and far between in a show whose very nature is to deep dive thoughtfully and satirically into a world of ever-changing problems.

South Park stands not just as one of the greatest and most tenacious animated shows ever made, but one of the most important shows to grace our television screens since before even the turn of the millennium. That the show so often gets relegated into a category of "fart jokes" and "potty gags" in the minds of many when it's been routinely offering some of the most thoughtful commentary on so many of the most important dilemmas of our time is, frankly, tragic.