‘South Park’ Fans Thank Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the Resignation of Paramount’s Streaming CEO

If South Park wasn’t behind the latest restructuring of Paramount Global’s struggling streaming business, then why is the show's new boss named George Cheeks?

Late last month, President Donald “Saddam Hussein” Trump’s Federal Communications Commission finally approved the acquisition deal that will place Paramount under the umbrella of David Ellison’s company Skydance Media. After appeasing the President by paying out a $16 million bribe, er, “settlement” over his fight with 60 Minutes and firing one of Trump’s most prominent comedic critics by canceling The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Paramount is finally in the Commander-in-Chief’s good graces, and they can begin the process of reshaping the corporate infrastructure to fit Ellison’s new pro-Trump, anti-free-speech business model.

Yesterday, as Skydance prepared to overhaul one of the largest media companies in the world, Paramount Streaming President and CEO Tom Ryan announced his resignation and his intention to advise the incoming streaming team that will oversee Paramount+ and its offerings.

Lesson #1: Don’t piss off Trey Parker and Matt Stone, or else they’ll break all your streaming records by roasting you for a half hour straight.

In a Reddit thread about Ryan's departure, the top commenter attributed the move to Parker and Stone’s public feud with, and ruthless roasting of, their parent company based on the fact that it’s funny to do so. “With no actual evidence im giving credit for this to South Park,” the user wrote.

“You mean the deal where the next 50 episodes are already bought and paid for by Paramount whether they try to cancel South Park or not?” another commenter replied. “That deal? I’m going to have to agree with you then.”

Elsewhere in the thread, South Park fans postulated the terms of the South Park settlement and contract extension could have been a contributing factor toward Ryan’s presumable ousting, with one writing of the $1.5 billion South Park streaming agreement, “It was a fucking fantastic deal... for Matt and Trey. They win no matter what happens next. They could be cancelled this afternoon, and still got their bag.”

However, as Skydance pointed out when Parker and Stone were considering suing their parent company's prospective parent company, Ellison and his team had the right to veto any major contract offer made by Paramount while the two companies were waiting for FCC approval on their merger, so it wouldn’t make sense for Ryan to lose his job over a deal that the new bosses had to personally approve.

In all likelihood, Ryan leaving Paramount is one of those predictable moves that buyers make whenever one company acquires another that has uninspiring performance from certain branches of their business. South Park probably didn’t need to convince Ellison and Skydance that Paramount’s oft-criticized streaming operation needed a major overhaul, but I’m sure the Season 27 premiere didn’t help. 

Satan knows what fresh hell Parker and Stone will unleash on their new bosses during tomorrow night’s episode.