Usually south park’s relevancy feels very fake and surface level to me, but it’s really something how trump and his base are actually, visibly much more enraged by this than they’ve been about any other criticism, any other show, any other enemy I’ve seen in the entire near-decade of his political career. Fucking South Park got to them more than the combined effort of a million other comedians, journalists, parodies, academic criticisms or protest efforts. Like it’s BAD. Like they want the creators in prison and want to consider this a hate crime.
What they actually do in this episode that has magas losing their shit, besides Trump dating Satan:
-The same voice and even distinct music they used for Saddam Hussein 26 years ago is used for Trump, with Satan complaining that Trump is exactly like his ex.
-Trump is depicted threatening to sue an artist for not painting him with a bigger penis than he actually has.
-The media is depicted as spinelessly holding back their true feelings about Trump to avoid getting sued.
-A B-plot has Cartman wanting to kill himself because he no longer feels “special” in an America that has become more hateful than he is.
-Jesus Christ is depicted as having also been silenced by a Trump lawsuit and lives in fear of saying anything bad about Trump out loud.
-Epstein is brought up of course.
-The episode ends airing a convincing AI deepfake of Trump stripping naked as he wanders through a desert, then his tiny floppy penis sprouts cartoon eyes and says “I’m Donald Trump and I approved this message.” This is the part magas believe should count as an actual felony crime, and funny enough also comes right after Trump gave a rambling speech endorsing AI and an executive order to protect it from liability.
It’s only been a day or two, and is now the first time in history that the white house is officially arguing with a tv show.
Not paying that much attention to the world of television and celebrities I did not know the broader context that Trump had sued Paramount over 60 Minutes, Paramount paid Trump a 16 million dollar settlement, and then it cancelled Stephen Colbert’s tonight show out of fear.
But that this all happened around the same time they had just purchased the rights to South Park for 1.5 billion (BILLION.) dollars.
So this is matt stone and trey parker daring both trump and their own network to shut them down after the latter invested a hundred times as much money in South Park as Trump originally shook them down for.
The order was for 50 whole episodes, and they labeled the Trump Deepfake as 1/50. We’ll see if they actually keep going with this and keep escalating it, which in my opinion would be the morally right thing to do. Trump would have to choose between enduring mockery he demonstrably can’t take and proving all their mockery more and more correct, while Paramount has to choose between enduring whatever punishment a raging manbaby POTUS brings down on them or proving how spineless they are AND losing a 1.5 billion investment. All after they cowered before Trump over a relatively measly few million.
as is so frequently the case, the story of a show's production is more interesting than the actual show
This is bad analysis though. Colbert was cancelled because nobody, and I mean not a single person I know, watches the late show anymore. Not because it's too political but because the writing is bad, it's basically a 5 minute monologue with the rest of the show just being advertisements or celebrity endorsements. It's a dying television format on its last legs. Why would you ever watch it in the era of YouTube, streaming, or roku? That is why basically every late show has been canceled.
Basically, if the Late show was sued, which I doubt it would have been but let's assume, there is no way for them ever to make up the lost money, for how little they were making from it anyways. South Park on the other hand, continues to have a cult following of dipshits even through the shitty comedy central streaming years. They've survived the streaming purges because of their moronic fan base, who will cough up plenty of money to continue watching the show. They are worth taking a punch in the dick for.
The show was ended, bari weiss was brought on to advice CBS on their political output, skydance promised to make more Israel and us friendly content, they paid Trump off and their merger was immediately granted. Like that all happened at the same time. Come on.
There are several ways forward than simply getting rid of a historic program like the Late Show if the problem is simply Colbert. Yeah, they wanted the merger, but they also wanted to cut out a dead weight program.
There are several ways forward, and they took multiple of them. Like why exempt this from the obvious trump appeasing agenda they are manifestly engaging in?
It wasn't something about trump? Huh, that's what I saw a lot of people saying.
I mean, makes sense. I used to look forward to the Colbert Show every week, but after a few episodes of the Late Show, I just stopped. It's not as funny when he's not doing the character.
Trump sued Paramount for something to do with giving Kamala more interview time, Paramount paid, then shortly after Colbert got canned. People assumed it was connected because he criticizes Trump, but it's much more likely that the show doesn't make money.
THE MERGER. THE MERGER MAN.
TRUMP WAS HOLDING UP THE MERGER RIGHT UP UNTIL HE WAS PAID OFF.
It was absolutely in part about the fact that Colbert got on trumpist nerves and the Trump government had to ok their upcoming merger. They brought in bari weiss as political commissar at the same time, agreed to make more "pro america" media and paid him a bribe all at the same time and all leading up to a merger the company desired.
Some people here have gotten too into dunking on libs
Colbert had the highest rating late night show and the only one with any growth