South Park is back tonight, and we know very little about the episode. We now know a little bit about why we know so little about the episode.
On Wednesday, Comedy Central released the Sept. 24 episode’s title and logline. “Conflict of Interest” will see Kyle and Cartman “at odds when a prediction-markets app gets popular with their fellow students,” it reads.
And that’s it.
Robinhood and Kalshi are examples of popular prediction-markets apps where you can trade on various future events. Another, PredictIt, is focused on politics. Polymarket has a popular politics hub as well.
Even during this particularly cagey season of the long-running animated comedy, Comedy Central/Paramount+ have shared episodic teaser clips with the media for consumption and sharing. But not this time. Why? A source with knowledge of the situation tells The Hollywood Reporter that series creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker want the episode to be “as much of a surprise as possible” — so no clip for us.
Feel free to speculate wildly, of course. Guesses almost couldn’t go overboard if they tried — much of this season has been dedicated to the double entendre, “Trump is fucking Satan.” (The show depicts a ridiculous President Trump as being in a sexual relationship with the devil, but also …)
Yes, season 27 goes particularly hard at MAGA and the religious right — even for South Park.
South Park was supposed to air a new episode last week, but at the last minute, Parker and Stone released a statement announcing a delay. “We didn’t get it done in time,” they wrote, in part.
“Apparently when you do everything at the last minute sometimes you don’t get it done,” they wrote. “This one’s on us. We didn’t get it done in time. Thanks to Comedy Central and South Park fans for being so understanding. Tune in next week!”
It is not known if tonight’s episode is last week’s delayed episode — very few details are being shared, even within Comedy Central.
Last Wednesday marked one week since the assassination of Charlie Kirk, a popular conservative pundit whom South Park parodied earlier this season. The second episode of the 27th season saw Eric Cartman become a right-wing podcaster in the style of Kirk, who toured college campuses debating progressive students.
Cartman later attended an awards show that gave out “The Charlie Kirk Award for Young Masterdebaters.”
Kirk loved it. After the episode aired, Kirk posted a TikTok calling the episode “hilarious” and noted “South Park gets this right.”
“We have a good spirit about being made fun of. This is all a win,” the Turning Point USA founder said. “We as conservatives have thick skin, not thin skin, and you can make fun of us and it doesn’t matter.”
Stone and Parker (and Comedy Central) have not said if the anticipated Sept. 17 episode’s delay had anything to do with Kirk’s Sept. 10 murder on a Utah college campus.
This season, South Park has been taking a week (or even two) off between episodes. The schedule going forward has new episodes planned for Oct. 15, Oct. 29, Nov. 12, Nov. 26 and Dec. 10. South Park episodes air at 10 p.m.
Early in the season, the biggest controversies surrounding South Park revolved around Comedy Central parent company Paramount’s perceived capitulations to the Trump administration and David Ellison’s perceived interference in a new South Park streaming deal. The season 27 premiere was pushed until South Park got a new deal and the government got out of the way of the Paramount-Skydance merger.
South Park debuted on Comedy Central in 1997. Along with Parker and Stone, Anne Garefino and Frank C. Agnone II are executive producers. Eric Stough, Adrien Beard, Bruce Howell and Vernon Chatman are producers; Christopher Brion is the creative director of South Park Digital Studios.
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