Will the Rest of Comedy Develop ‘South Park’s Backbone?

For its 27th season, South Park came out of the gate swinging. It portrayed Donald Trump as a tiny-penis-having, temper-tantrum throwing sex pest who even the devil didn’t want to have sex with. The episode quickly dominated the internet, prompting the White House to issue a formal statement calling the show irrelevant. 

That response, and the general right-wing meltdown didn’t soften South Park’s second episode. If anything, the jokes felt even more razor sharp. First, there was an entire bit dedicated to accusing Charlie Kirk of stealing Cartman’s shtick. Then, the bulk of the episodes involved a series of ICE raids; this was particularly relevant as the Department of Homeland Security used a screenshot of the trailer as recruitment material on X. 

It’s hard to see how anyone watching the show in hopes of ICE being portrayed as an even moderately competent or valuable law enforcement agency was satisfied by watching the episode. Led by a puppy-murdering, Botox-melting Kristi Noem, the loser cadre of ICE agents raided a Dora the Explorer concert and then the biblical heaven, before retreating to a Fantasy Island-ified Mar-a-Lago. 

At Mar-a-Lago, we see Trump’s tiny penis again, as well the first appearance of fat-face JD Vance. Vance can be seen carrying around a bottle of baby oil, at one point offering to oil Satan’s asshole. The real “holy shit” moment is when we see that Dora the Explorer was sex trafficked at Mar-a-Lago. 

All of it felt bold in the context of the rest of the comedy we have addressing Trump. The late-night shows waited too long and did too little in their big stand against the president, and it's given Trump the upper hand for too long. Most comedy programming in the U.S. has felt like it was scared to take the big swings that South Park has taken in the first two episodes of Season 27. It’s part of the reason that satirizing the president has been impossible. The jokes have tried to remain somewhat respectable and in-bounds while Trump’s behavior has strayed so far outside of it.  

Look at the Trump on the roof jokes, for instance. The jokes felt tame, and therefore irrelevant, because the late-night hosts were speaking in abstracts about Trump’s alleged involvement with Epstein. The bulk of comedy regarding Trump has failed to land because there’s been an absence of courage to get as depraved as the subject of the jokes. 

But that’s why South Park excels. The show isn’t just making a joke about the one dog that Kristi Noem admitted to shooting. They’re alleging that this grotesque woman is running around shooting dogs all of the time. They aren’t being coy about whether or not Donald Trump has been involved with trafficking children. They’re painting a portrait where Trump is trafficking the actual Dora the Explorer. Trump isn’t just evil, he’s in bed with Satan and even Satan is getting tired of it. 

These jokes aren’t trying to go high when they go low; Trey Parker and Matt Stone are getting down in the mud and slinging it right back. It’s cathartic to watch, but most importantly, it’s actually funny.