{"id":998984,"date":"2026-08-13T22:09:22","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T22:09:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/998984\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T22:09:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T22:09:22","slug":"south-park-vs-potus-why-its-always-funny-in-1600-pennsylvania-ave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/998984\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018South Park\u2019 Vs. POTUS: Why It\u2019s Always Funny In 1600 Pennsylvania Ave"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIt\u2019s hard to believe that South Park<\/a> turns 30 next year, having run through 28 seasons \u2014 with a 29th incoming \u2014 since Comedy Central debuted \u201cCartman Gets an Anal Probe\u201d 30 years ago this week in 1997. Everyone knows the show\u2019s core characters \u2014 10-year-old best friends Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman, and Kenny McCormick \u2014 but key to the show\u2019s success is its seemingly endless capacity to satirize the zeitgeist.<\/p>\n

\n\tSince it began, South Park has been a regular fixture at the Emmys, racking up 20 nominations and including five wins. This year, when one might expect its creators to be running out of ideas, the show received a record three Emmy nominations<\/a>, one in the traditional Outstanding Animated Program slot, one for Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance, and one for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics (the jaw-dropping \u201cChristian Woman,\u201d a white-trash holiday anthem whose singer gives a special shout-out to \u201cmy big fake tits and my Botox lips\u201d).<\/p>\n

\n\tSouth Park has always been famous for its willingness to provoke \u2014 as evidenced by the episode titled \u201cOsama Bin Laden Has Farty Pants\u201d, which aired just over two months after 9\/11 \u2014 but 2025\u2019s Seasons 27 and 28 were arguably their most inflammatory yet. As Paramount changed ownership, costing Stephen Colbert his job and almost doing the same to Jimmy Kimmel, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone threw caution to the wind with a sustained assault on Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s presidency.<\/p>\n

\n\tThough largely acclaimed, this new direction brought criticism from long-term fans, who didn\u2019t care much for this new \u201cpolitical\u201d direction. This confused Parker in particular \u2014 \u201cIt\u2019s not that we got all political,\u201d he said in an interview, \u201cit\u2019s that politics became pop culture.\u201d Indeed, it\u2019s clear that politics has always been a feature of South Park; indeed, the show has seen four presidents come and go in its lifetime, and one that came back again and is now refusing to leave.<\/p>\n

\n\tNevertheless, they downplay any suggestion that their new MAGA-baiting direction in any way favors the left. \u201cWe\u2019re just very down-the-middle guys,\u201d Parker told The New York Times. \u201cAny extremists of any kind we make fun of. We did it for years with the woke thing. That was hilarious to us. And this is hilarious to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHere\u2019s how South Park has reflected the changing landscape of America\u2026<\/p>\n

\n\tSouth Park looks kindly on William Jefferson Clinton, the 42nd president of the United States, but through a prism that doesn\u2019t reflect well on his legacy. The Bill Clinton that appears in the show is a kindly but somewhat seedy uncle figure, who made his first appearance in Episode 2 of Season 2: \u201cCartman\u2019s Mom is Still a Dirty Sl*t\u201d. As the mystery of Eric Cartman\u2019s father deepens, his mother Liane lures Clinton to bed in a bid to persuade the President to legalize abortion at 40 trimesters (i.e., ten years).<\/p>\n

\n\tThis is pretty dark even by South Park standards, but Clinton is relieved to hear that Liane is confusing abortion with adoption. Clinton popped up a few times more, notably in \u201cThe Red Badge of Gayness\u201d (1999), which saw Cartman join a historical re-enactment group and accidentally trigger events that lead to Clinton almost reversing the results of the Civil War. After his presidency, \u201cSexual Healing\u201d (2010) found Stan, Kenny and their na\u00efve friend Butters Stotch being labelled sex addicts after accidental exposure to pornography. Triggering the CDC, who are baffled by a recent wave of rich men who want to have sex with lots of women that aren\u2019t their wives, they boys are sent to re-education lessons alongside Clinton, Tiger Woods, David Letterman, Charlie Sheen and David Duchovny.<\/p>\n

\n\tClinton\u2019s last appearance came after his wife Hillary\u2019s shock defeat in 2016; in the episode \u201cOh Jeez\u201d literally a day after the election, Clinton appears at South Park Elementary, doing a duet with Bill Cosby \u2014 two years before he was imprisoned for aggravated indecent assault \u2014 and advertising a mysterious \u201cGentlemen\u2019s Club\u201d.<\/p>\n

\n\tClinton\u2019s star turn, however, came in the 1999 feature South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, in which the flatulent Canadian comedians Terrance and Phillip outrage the parents of South Park with their foul-mouthed hit comedy Asses of Fire. Clinton retaliates by abducting Terrance and Phillip and threatening to execute them, signaling his intent to invade Canada. In response, Canada bombs the Baldwin brothers, who all live in the same Hollywood mansion, and Stan leads a rescue mission to free Terrance and Phillip as the world teeters on the brink of destruction by Saddam Hussein, who orchestrates his master plan from the bowels of hell.<\/p>\n

\n\tBush Jr. made his entrance to South Park with a walk-on part in what\u2019s still the show\u2019s most controversial episode, \u201cSuper Best Friends\u201d (July 2001), which has since disappeared from most streaming services. The episode involves illusionist David Blaine descending on South Park and dazzling the boys with his street magic. Blaine, however, is the head of a sinister cult, and when President Bush refuses to grant his followers (\u201cBlainetologists\u201d) tax-exempt status, Blaine tells them to drown themselves in the Reflecting Pool in Washington DC. Luckily, his evil plan is thwarted by the Super Best Friends, a coalition including Jesus Christ, Krishna, Laozi, Budda and \u2014 in case you were wondering why it\u2019s so hard to find online \u2014 the prophet Muhammad.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a similar vein, Bush has a slightly larger role in \u201cMystery of the Urinal Deuce\u201d, which documents the aftermath of an errant number two in the boys\u2019 toilets. As the identity of the culprit becomes the talk of the school, Cartman immerses himself in 9\/11 conspiracy theories, believing that the terrorist attack was actually an inside job staged by the Bush administration. Bush and his cabinet emerge at the end, however, to reveal that this conspiracy theory is itself a conspiracy, one perpetuated by the government. \u00a0\u201cPeople need to think we\u2019re all-powerful, that we control the world,\u201d explains Bush. \u201cIf they knew we weren\u2019t in charge of 9\/11, then we appear to control nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCompared to Clinton, Bush seems to get off fairly lightly during his tenure, undergoing a makeover from the Queer Eye for the Straight Guy team in \u201cSouth Park is Gay!\u201d (2003), which sees the whole town turning metrosexual. But Parker and Stone had other plans for him, namely the eight-episode meta-sitcom That\u2019s My Bush!, which brilliantly parodied traditional American sitcoms like Benson and The Jeffersons with contrived plots, laugh tracks from a supposedly \u201clive studio audience\u201d and a catchy theme tune (\u201cHe\u2019s the president in residence\/He\u2019s kind of in charge\u2026\u201d). Timothy Bottoms starred as Bush, who gets into scrapes such as mistakenly taking ecstasy instead of aspirin, hosting a pro-choice dinner at the same time as an anti-abortion event, and accidentally firing a space laser at Austria. It was first aired in April 2001 and canceled four months later.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tL-R: John McCain and Barack Obama<\/a> on \u2018South Park\u2019 in 2008<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tComedy Central \/ Everett Collection<\/p>\n

\t\tThe Barack Obama Years (2009-2017)<\/strong>\t<\/p>\n

\n\tParker and Stone are known for leaving everything until the last minute, as documented in the 2011 film 6 Days to Air, which pulls back the curtain on the pair\u2019s seemingly chaotic creative process. These instincts came in handy in 2008 when Parker noticed that the schedule for the 12th season of South Park meant that the 12th show would premiere on the day after the election. As a result, \u201cAbout Last Night\u2026\u201d borrows heavily on real-life events, including verbatim swathes of Barack Obama\u2019s victory speech.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe episode is, in some senses, one of South Park\u2019s most political, since it accurately reflects the pair\u2019s ambiguous relationship with the subject. Half of South Park is ecstatic (\u201cHere comes the change everybody! Everything is going to be awesome now!\u201d) while the other half is horrified (\u201cIt\u2019s all over. The country as we know it is about to change. We\u2019re all dead\u201d). Needless to say, Parker and Stone quickly got bored with the subject, adding a subplot that saw Obama teaming up with his apparent nemesis John McCain to dig a tunnel from the Oval Office to the Smithsonian and steal the Hope Diamond.<\/p>\n

\n\tLightning struck twice when Obama was re-elected in 2012, and in an episode shown the day after his win, Obama\u2019s victory is shown to have been orchestrated by Cartman. Eerily foreshadowing Donald Trump\u2019s obsession with vote-harvesting, \u201cObama Wins!\u201d begins with Cartman posing as a small child on a whirlwind tour of swing states, stealing all the votes for the opposition. Over dinner at Red Lobster, Morgan Freeman drops in to narrate what\u2019s been going on: Cartman has been hired to rig the election by the Chinese government, who demand the rights to the Star Wars franchise in return. Unluckily for Cartman, Mickey Mouse turns up in Boba Fett\u2019s spaceship to thwart Cartman\u2019s plan to blackmail the Chinese into letting him play Luke Skywalker\u2019s son.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGarrison in as Season 20 episode of \u2018South Park\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tComedy Central \/ Everett Collection<\/p>\n

\t\tThe Donald Trump Years Part One (2017-2021)<\/strong>\t<\/p>\n

\n\tParker and Stone have been accused of cynicism, but the fact that they seemed blind-sided by Donald Trump\u2019s first term in office suggests otherwise: The November 2016 episode \u201cOh Jeez\u201d \u2014 which, again, aired the night after the election \u2014 was originally predicated on the idea of Bill Clinton becoming \u201cFirst Gentleman\u201d as his wife took the world stage. It was quickly scrapped, with Stan\u2019s liberal father Randy ruefully noting, \u201cWe\u2019ve learned that women can be anything, except for president.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPrior to that, Trump had appeared briefly in 2001\u2019s \u201cThe Entity\u201d as a Dragon\u2019s Den-style businessman, but only as a nod to his success in The Apprentice. Nowadays, he seems the perfect butt for the South Park team\u2019s jokes, but, at the time he was a reality TV personality, which were fast becoming ten a penny. Thinking that Trump would be a flash in the pan that would date the series, they created a proxy instead: Mr. Garrison, a teacher at South Park Elementary, who has appeared in the show since the beginning. Mr. Garrison has been through a lot in the years since; his puppet teaching aid, Mr. Hat, turned out to be a member of the Ku Klux Klan, and in Season 9 he became Janet for a while before de-transitioning and finally coming to terms with the fact that he is gay.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the September 2015 episode \u201cWhere My Country Gone?\u201d, however, Mr. Garrison began spouting populist barroom politics, demanding a wall be built to keep out illegal Canadians with their \u201cdirty families and stupid music\u201d. Mr. Garrison\u2019s policies strike a chord with the American public, who elect him and his running mate (Caitlyn Jenner) in a surprise upset. Unlike Trump, however, Mr. Garrison is uneasy with fame and actively self-sabotages his success. Holding rallies, however, is addictive, and during a spring break at Myrtle Beach with his partner, Rick, Mr. Garrison passes a MAGA merchandise store and falls back on old habits, sneaking out to rally while Rick is asleep.<\/p>\n

\t\tThe Joe Biden<\/a> Years (2021-2025)<\/strong>\t<\/p>\n

\n\tCuriously, Joseph Robinette Biden \u2014 47th President of the United States \u2014 has never appeared in a significant role in South Park, having had his animated cameo cut from \u201cAbout Last Night\u2026\u201d. Instead, the only president that actually looks and sounds like a real-life South Park character has been glimpsed only once, and in a one-off special at that \u2014 in \u201cSouth ParQ Vaccination Special\u201d (2021), Biden\u2019s photograph can be seen on a deranged QAnon anti-vax conspiracy theorist\u2019s notice board, defaced with a pair of devil horns and a tail. There were fewer seasons during his presidency, so that may be why.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Donald<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tDonald Trump on \u2018South Park\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tComedy Central<\/p>\n

\t\tThe Donald Trump Years Part Two (2025-Present)<\/strong>\t<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen Donald Trump came back to the White House last year, Parker and Stone were ready for him. The 27th and 28th series, five episodes apiece, went after Trump with a vengeance, possibly emboldened by the show\u2019s freshly signed $1.5 billion deal with Paramount+. In a callback to the show\u2019s portrayal of Iraqi tyrant Saddam Hussein in the late \u201990s, and in contrast to its usual rough, cut-out aesthetic, Trump was presented as a photo-realistic montage of the real Trump, with a slit for a mouth and a squeaky high-pitched voice that didn\u2019t even try to sound like an impression.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe first episode of the Series 27, \u201cSermon on the \u2019Mount\u201d addressed the President\u2019s litigious tendencies by making a whole show out of them, starting with the closure of NPR. Trump\u2019s attempts to make schools more Christian doesn\u2019t go down well with the citizens of South Park, but Trump countersues them for $3.5 million, with a clause that the town must produce pro-Trump commercials. The first, a deepfake horror show, depicts a morbidly obese, sweaty Trump lumbering through an arid desert, ripping off his trademark suit and tie until he is naked except for his shoes and sock-suspenders. \u201cHis penis is teeny-tiny,\u201d says the voiceover, \u201cbut his love for us is large.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSouth Park was back with a bang, taking frequent trips to the White House and Mar-a-Lago, depicted as a Fantasy Island-style resort where a tiny J.D. Vance plays Trump\u2019s Herve Villechaize-like sidekick, excitedly shouting \u201cBaass! Baasss!\u201d whenever a plane lands. All of Trump\u2019s inner circle are in for a roasting as Trump conducts a brazen affair with Satan, somehow getting him pregnant. Meanwhile, Melania haunts the West Wing like a Japanese wraith, Peter Thiel sings self-aggrandizing songs about his deep knowledge of the Antichrist, Pam Bondi finds her nose covered in a strange brown ooze, and Kristi Noem, notorious for shooting her puppy dog Cricket, goes gun crazy in a Pets Galore store.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe reaction from the White House was strangely toothless \u2014 \u201cThis show hasn\u2019t been relevant for over 20 years,\u201d said a statement, \u201cand is hanging on by a thread with uninspired ideas in a desperate attempt for attention\u201d \u2014 but sources claimed Trump was seething. With Season 29 scheduled to start just two days after the Emmys on 16 September, all eyes while be on Parker and Stone to see what they\u2019ll do for an encore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s hard to believe that South Park turns 30 next year, having run through 28 seasons \u2014 with…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":998985,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[30],"tags":[49595,353895,11744,7096,69,47491,171,3755,82,27590,173,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-998984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-animation","tag-awardsfeature","tag-barack-obama","tag-bill-clinton","tag-donald-trump","tag-emmy-awards","tag-entertainment","tag-george-w-bush","tag-joe-biden","tag-south-park","tag-tv","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117090490135420493","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/998984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=998984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/998984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/998985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=998984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=998984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=998984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}