'South Park' mocks Trump all the way to the bank

President Trump’s newest high-profile foil is “South Park,” the long-running animated show that has been packing episode after episode with raunchy and sometimes violent jokes about the president and members of his Cabinet.

The mockery has been no-holds-barred and has included depictions of Trump in bed with Satan, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem shooting cute cartoon dogs, and Dora the Explorer giving a massage at Mar-a-Lago, Trump's resort Florida.

It has not gone unnoticed.

The Trump administration, seemingly in no joking mood, has issued angry statements attacking the show's creators and dismissing "South Park" as irrelevant and out of touch. 

Entertainment business and political observers, however, say the fight may be breathing new life into the politically incorrect satire program and providing the comedians behind it with more fodder for their weekly shows than ever. 

“This in some ways feels like two rival TV shows fighting with one another,” said Matt Sienkiewicz, chair of the Boston College Communication Department and an expert on pop culture and comedy.

“'South Park' is trying to do their old school style of critique of the government, and this government has gotten so cartoonish, the back-and-forth is what makes this so significant.”

The attacks on Trump also appear to have been good for ratings.

The show’s Season 27 premiere in late July earned Comedy Central its highest-rated episode since the late 1990s while social media platforms have been filled with clips from Season 27 in recent weeks.

The White House this week declined to comment on the show's sustained attacks, but a West Wing official sought to dismiss the show’s relevance after its season premiere late last month mocked Trump.

“The Left’s hypocrisy truly has no end — for years they have come after ‘South Park’ for what they labeled as ‘offense’ content, but suddenly they are praising the show,” a White House spokesperson told Variety at the time. “Just like the creators of ‘South Park,’ the Left has no authentic or original content, which is why their popularity continues to hit record lows.”

Last week, Noem tore into the show after it portrayed her face melting off due to heavy makeup.

“It’s so lazy to just constantly make fun of women for how they look. Only the liberals and the extremists do that,” Noem said.

The show’s creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, responded this week by publishing an alternate ending to last week’s episode on social media, showing Noem walking into a pet store and killing dogs inside with a gun. Noem received criticism last year after she revealed in a book she put a family pet down after a hunting trip.

Jim Mendrinos, a comedy writer and a producer at Gotham Writers Workshop in New York, suggested the Trump administration, by responding so forcefully, is handing Parker and Stone a gift.

“This administration has no sense of humor,” Mendrinos said. “And any good comic knows if you’re under somebody’s skin, you’re gonna burrow in. That’s the essence of roast comedy and that’s what they’re doing here.”

To be certain, “South Park,” has a long history of mocking prominent politicians and figures on the left, from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to former President Obama.

The program has sparked controversy and backlash from progressives on multiple occasions during its more than two-decade history on the air for its satirical representations of religious figures, extensive use of racist language and ribbing of climate change activists.

But the recent tension with the president and leading MAGA figures comes at a unique moment both in national politics and the business of entertainment.

Earlier this year, Parker and Stone signed a five-year streaming deal with Hollywood giant Paramount, which owns Comedy Central, worth more than $1 billion.

Paramount is facing increased scrutiny over its relationship with the president’s administration after promising to change CBS’s editorial direction and canceling “Late Night,” the show hosted by Stephen Colbert, a frequent Trump critic.

With its season premiere last month, “South Park” called out Paramount over a $16 million payment the company made to the president’s foundation to settle a lawsuit against CBS News, a deal that was seen by many as a capitulation to the administration made in order to secure its recent merger with Skydance. 

“Matt and Trey are incredibly talented,” Paramount’s newly appointed CEO David Ellison told CNN after the episode mocking his company aired. “They are equal opportunity offenders and always have been.”

Ellison’s tolerance for Stone and Parker’s attacks on Trump and even his own company could have something to do with the show’s newfound popularity.

Longtime observers of “South Park” noted the program has always carried a modest but dedicated following, fading from the public discourse during President Biden’s administration.

Some attribute this to a decline in linear cable viewership, the creation of more animated comedy shows on other networks and what some regard as a slower churn of political news over the last four years.

But with Trump’s return to the White House, “South Park” has seen a ratings boom.

“This whole thing has brought the spotlight back to 'South Park' in a way it hasn’t enjoyed in a really long time,” Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock, a researcher and editor who authored a book on the show’s impact on American pop culture.

“It seems there is a lot of dissatisfaction on the left with some institutions, including the news media, sort of soft-balling Trump and here’s 'South Park' taking off the gloves.”

How long the fight between “South Park” and Trump World lasts remains to be seen, but in the short term most observers agree Parker and Stone’s mission to take aim at the president is paying off in a big way.

“'South Park' has always been able to do things its own way by being light on its feet and the way they’ve worked their contracts,” Sienkiewicz said. “There’s a lot of freedom in the financial success they’ve had, and they seem to pick and choose their battles carefully. There are very few others in the entertainment space that can operate like they have.”