Trey Parker and Matt Stone Explain Why They Didn’t Dump Trump After One Episode As Planned

While they may have enraged some 10-year-old aspiring crypto grifters, the most recent batch of South Park episodes have largely focused on national politics. Specifically, every single show has prominently featured Donald Trump. Hell, his micropenis has seemingly gotten more screen time than Kenny this year. 

But that wasn’t always part of the plan. 

Trey Parker and Matt Stone recently spoke with The New York Times, and the South Park creators revealed that they never actually intended to tackle Trump in Season 27 prior to the Paramount-Skydance merger, which required the approval of the Trump administration and allegedly delayed the current season's premiere date.

“We just had to show our independence somehow,” Stone explained, pointing out that the “new taboos” around criticizing the Trump administration were pretty much irresistible. “Trey and I are attracted to that like flies to honey,” Stone said. “Oh, that’s where the taboo is? Over there? OK, then we’re over there.” Stone also stressed that the show hasn’t been censored. “I know with the Colbert thing and all the Trump stuff, people think certain things, but they’re letting us do whatever we want, to their credit,” he admitted.

The original plan was just to bring in the Saddam Hussein-coded Trump for the season premiere and move on. But that was before the duo found a “vein of comedy” with the character and opted to continue to hammer the president. “We basically start with a song and we don’t know where the album’s going to take us,” Parker said of the South Park process.

Just because they’ve spent the better part of the season (make that seasons) roasting Trump, JD Vance, Pam Bondi, Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller, doesn’t mean that Parker and Stone have swung to the left. “We’re just very down-the-middle guys,” Parker noted. “Any 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.”

While they’ve discussed scrapping the MAGA plotlines for more traditional stories focusing on South Park Elementary’s students, Parker explained that “there’s no getting away from this,” adding, “It’s like the government is just in your face everywhere you look. Whether it’s the actual government or whether it is all the podcasters and the TikToks and the YouTubes and all of that, and it’s just all political and political because it’s more than political. It’s pop culture.”

This sentiment can be felt in the most recent episode, “The Woman in the Hat,” which ends with Stan telling Kyle, “I guess there’s just no really going back to the way things used to be.”

“Things will get back, Stan,” Kyle responds. “I know it’s hard to see right now, but things will go back to normal. And in the meantime we just have to make the most of where we are.”

Not unlike Kyle, Parker ended the interview on a somewhat optimistic note, speculating that South Park will outlast Trump’s stranglehold on the culture. “You know, next year will be different,” he told The TImes. “If there’s one thing we know, it is that our show will be a lot longer than theirs.”