Isaiah J. Downing-Imagn Images
Audio By Carbonatix
The newest season of South Park was slated to premiere on July 9th before Comedy Central announced its decision to postpone things by a couple of weeks. That did not sit well with the show’s creators, who didn’t mince words while sounding off on the delay linked to a corporate merger that’s already spawned plenty of drama.
It’s been close to 30 years since Comedy Central found itself with a hit on its hands after South Park was released on an unsuspecting world in 1997 before quickly becoming one of the funniest—and most controversial—shows on television.
The animated program was the brainchild of Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the comedic geniuses who joined forces after meeting each other as undergrads at the University of Colorado before launching one of the longest-running programs in television history in addition to Team America: World Police and The Book of Mormon.
Parker and Stone have spent close to three decades keeping their finger on the pulse of what’s trending while turning out impressively topical episodes at breakneck speed, and while the Golden Age of South Park may be behind us, the show is still going strong ahead of its 27th season—one that will take slightly longer than anticipated to debut.
The first installment in the newest batch of episodes was supposed to drop on July 9th, but Comedy Central recently decided to push that date to July 23rd—a move that’s seemingly linked to a proposed merger involving Paramount, the network’s parent company, and the media conglomerate Skydance.
As Deadline notes, the streaming rights for South Park are currently in limbo after a preexisting arrangement with HBO Max expired toward the end of June. As the outlet notes, it appears the show is destined to end up on Paramount+, but Stone and Parker accused executives of meddling to interfere with potential non-exclusive agreements with other streaming platforms in a legal filing last month.
If there was any doubt the masterminds behind South Park are fed up with the backroom politics that continue to impact the show, Stone and Parker made it very clear that’s the case with the scathing statement they issued after the delay was announced, saying:
‘This merger is a s—tshow and it’s f—king up South Park. We are at the studio working on new episodes and we hope the fans get to see them somehow.”
The $8 billion merger is slated to be finalized on July 6th pending FCC approval, so here’s to hoping that ends up being the case.
Content shared from brobible.com.