South Park turns 20 on Wednesday and has the potential to rightfully claim its title as the greatest cartoon series of all time. But in all fairness, they've never relinquished the throne! Let that sink in for a bit. The show that was ahead of its time, the cartoon schools and parents didn’t want you to watch. The raunchy cartoon that introduced muff cabbage, snuke, red rocket, giant douche, turd sandwich, molestering, gingers, cheesing, meek rob, jakovasaurs, negroplasty recently introduced the world to the extremes of P.C. culture, and most importantly social issues.
Yes, Google it baby, South Park been brackin since 1997.
Creators Matt Parker and Trey Stone stick to how they’ve always done it, six days to air, six days to draw up and come with a show to delight with on Wednesday night; sometimes barely making it or not even making it. That’s what keeps the show’s momentum, the ability to stay fresh, current, and offend. It's entertainment, and often agreeable on some of the most sensitive social subjects that go on in the world, they are not afraid to see how far they can go. Blame Comedy Central for only airing certain episodes once, or the image of Muhammad, The subjects they’ve touched have covered all bases of human interaction and social issues that dominated the media, from Terri Schiavro, sex change twice, homosexuality, Scientology and backlash from Scientology, terrorism, Mormons, gun control, celebrities, racial slurs, cooperation, networks, religion, and enterprises, you name it and they’ve done it. Even getting academy awards for a film as well as episodes, oh yeah they made a film a long time ago and its one of the best musicals of all time.
They’ve done it for about three decades now, and seem to have not even touched its golden era yet. However, it might just reach golden era status with back to back seasons taking advantage of its new serialized format. This changed the game for the creators as well as fans starting last season. It is important to note that the show had flirted with the concept of having overarching themes in between seasons; “imagination land”, “console wars”, the “coon and friends.” Needless to say, It was brilliant, from introducing everybody to yaoi, to showing what could happen if Donald Trump was elected president of a country, to creating a parallel to Mr. Garrison to him, politically correct culture, to deflategate, the Islamic State, Caitlyn Jenner, defending print journalism, trolling, and the difficulties of click bait and ads.
As Jay-z states, “steel irons steel” and that made the show better. Heading into season 20, you can already tell they plan on taking this upcoming season to greater heights. They’ve already attacked both presidential nominees, but if an episode ever stayed true to this current election it’s the episode of voting between a turd sandwich and a giant douche. They also have another opportunity to do an election episode, they’ve done about four, but this upcoming election could possibly set up the most whacky, controversial, election episode, Trump or Hilary, giant douche and turd sandwich, it could make America great again.
But as you can see in this teaser for 20, they are attacking the subject that is on everybody’s mind, Colin Kapernick sitting out the national anthem. Other athletes followed this past weekend, creating a movement and taking a stand. Not only do they poke fun at Kapernick but they attack the issue head on, with cops. What better way to incorporate the biggest social issues in America; the national anthem, cops, athletes using their medium as a voice of reasoning. South Park is back.
This is only the sample size of what to expect for season 20, and it shows it’s about to be great. From social issues, to satire, this is about to be a magical season. South Park rarely disappoints, so this Wednesday grab the popcorn and get ready to see how highly they offend the world. That quiet mountain town returns and lets hope they continue the growth of character development with the parents as they did last season and have the four original gangsters of South Park protect the city just like they did last year.
South Park go be the GOAT, numbers don't lie, check the scoreboard!
