South Park co-creator Trey Parker delivered a tongue-in-cheek apology to President Donald Trump following controversy over the animated show’s season 27 premiere.
The episode, which aired Wednesday, featured the president in a compromising scene with recurring character Satan. When asked about audience reactions during a Comic-Con International panel in San Diego, Parker responded with mock seriousness: “We’re terribly sorry.”
The White House issued a sharp response to the episode, stating: “This show hasn’t been relevant for over 20 years and is hanging on by a thread with uninspired ideas in a desperate attempt for attention.” The statement continued: “President Trump has delivered on more promises in just six months than any other president in our country’s history – and no fourth-rate show can derail President Trump’s hot streak.”
Parker participated in the panel alongside co-creator Matt Stone, Beavis and Butt-Head creator Mike Judge, and actor Andy Samberg, who co-created animated show Digman!
Since 1997, South Park has followed four schoolboys – Cartman, Kenny, Kyle and Stan – living in South Park, Colorado. The satirical animated series frequently targets authority figures and current events.
The Guardian’s Stuart Heritage described it as “South Park’s most furious episode ever,” noting the show’s closing voiceover about the president: “His penis is teeny tiny, but his love for us is large.”
Parker revealed that producers requested content modifications before broadcast. “They said, ‘OK, but we’re gonna blur the penis,’ and I said, ‘No you’re not gonna blur the penis,'” he explained.
The episode aired on Paramount+ following recent corporate developments. The US Federal Communications Commission recently approved a merger between Paramount Global and Skydance Media, first announced in 2024. This approval came weeks after Paramount Global agreed to pay $16m to settle a legal dispute with Trump over a CBS interview with former Vice-President Kamala Harris.
The timing also coincides with CBS’s announcement that The Late Show with Stephen Colbert will conclude in May 2026 after 33 years. Colbert has been known as one of Trump’s most vocal late-night television critics.
The South Park episode directly addressed the Paramount-Trump legal dispute, airing just hours after Parker and Stone signed a five-year deal with Paramount+ for 50 new episodes and streaming rights. Following a months-long bidding war between streaming platforms, the Los Angeles Times and other outlets reported the deal’s value at $1.5bn. New episodes will first appear on Comedy Central before streaming on Paramount+.
In the episode titled “Sermon on the ‘Mount,” Trump sues the town of South Park, prompting recurring character Jesus to advise settlement: “You guys saw what happened to CBS?… Do you really want to end up like Colbert?”
Rolling Stone’s Alan Sepinwall praised the episode as “glorious,” noting it addressed “Trump’s obsession with using lawsuits to silence media and political opponents, ChatGPT, the injection of religion into America’s public schools, government censorship, and corporations caving to pressure.”
Hollywood Reporter’s Kevin Dolak called the premiere “shocking” and “hilarious, and as expected, controversial.”
Parker admitted uncertainty about future content direction. “I don’t know what next week’s episode is going to be,” he told the panel. “Even just three days ago, we were like, ‘I don’t know if people are going to like this’.”
In 2017, Parker acknowledged the show had fallen into a “trap” of weekly Trump-focused episodes. “We’re becoming: ‘Tune in to see what we’re going to say about Trump.’ Matt [Stone, co-creator] and I hated it but we got stuck in it somehow,” he told The Los Angeles Times. He expressed desire for the show to return to its original focus of “kids being kids and being ridiculous and outrageous.”
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