South Park’s midseason shines in relevant, timely topics and offbeat humor

South Park has quickly become an American icon and reigns supreme as Comedy Centrals key animated programming.

Nneoma Igwedibie

South Park has quickly become an American icon and reigns supreme as Comedy Central’s key animated programming.

Tyler Sesan, Features editor

Comedy Central’s cherished cartoon comedy South Park reached its midseason mark after November 12th’s Wednesday night airing.

“They have had a strong season so far. My favorite episode would have to be the simulator episode just because the ending could not have been more perfect for halfway through the season. It is just a great show and never fails to make me laugh,” sophomore South Park fanatic sophomore Emmett Schindler said.

The most interesting nugget about the show occurs within the writers’ studio. South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker actually create each episode within a six-day span before airing the episode on the seventh day. The two creators occupy many characters’ personalities and stand as the masterminds behind all the funny voices from the show as well. Even when South Park began in 1997 with little recognition, Parker and Stone made their episodes from construction paper cut outs and brought an ongoing successful energy to South Park. Today, South Park has 254 episodes across 18 seasons, and continues to create each episode under the tiniest time window.

Up until the current season, South Park would air the first seven episodes during the fall semester, then air the concluding seven episodes the following spring. Now, Comedy Central decided to string all 14 episodes together.

The seventh episode featured a simulation game that the boys played. South Park featured Cartman up to his usual antics, making fun of Butters and tricking him into thinking he took part in an actual video game simulation with the Oculus Goggles on. South Park fans can predict what happened: he got grounded. But the ending stood out to viewers, as all four boys were shown as their people characters and not in cartoon form. Then a hyperactive Butters comes running into the scene screaming, ‘Hey guys, I’m not grounded anymore!’

Another hysterical South Park gem this season was the first episode about the Washington Redskins’ recent name controversy. Cartman began his own start up company named the Washington Redskins, since he saw that name as the best one. The purpose of the Washington Redskins served no purpose. Cartman stated, “This Company receives your donations for doing absolutely nothing for you!”

“I love what South Park has done this season. The past few seasons haven’t been as funny and they sort of fell off a bit, but this season brought back the old South Park I know and love. These episodes are hilarious,” senior Ronak Mody said.

South Park’s combination of crude humor and random plots make each episode popular. However, what most do not realize is that every episode holds a deeper meaning, to highlight the problems and controversies in society and media, even if the humor itself seems random and even crass at times.