South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker have responded to the White House’s scathing reaction to the pair’s latest episode, which heavily mocked Donald Trump.
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The first episode of the long-running animated series in two years, titled Sermon On The Mount, aired on Wednesday (July 23), and took a number of personal shots at Trump, depicting him with a micro-penis and showing him in bed with Satan.
The US president was depicted with an actual photo of his face superimposed on an animated body, and the episode also made jabs at the rising Canadian tariffs, as well as the recent cancellation of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.
This prompted an angry response from the White House yesterday (July 24), with spokesperson Taylor Rogers saying: “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. 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.”
Last night, Parker gave his response to the backlash at a panel at San Diego’s Comic-Con International. “We’re terribly sorry,” he said with a deadpan-comic stare (via The Guardian).
Later, Parker also revealed how the pair had to battle with their producers over one particular detail in the episode.
“They said, ‘OK, but we’re gonna blur the penis,’ and I said, ‘No you’re not gonna blur the penis,’” Parker revealed.
Stone then explained that it was agreed that eyes would be put on the penis instead.
“If we put eyes on the penis, we won’t blur it. That was a whole conversation with grown-up people for four fucking days,” he added.
Towards the end of the episode, an AI-generated deep-fake version of Trump was also shown wandering naked through the desert. It showed him collapsing, and his penis began talking and said: “‘I’m Donald J. Trump and I endorse this message.” A voiceover then added: “Trump! His penis is teeny-tiny, but his love for us is large.”
The new season comes just days after it was confirmed that the satirical show will no longer be available to stream in the UK, or anywhere outside the US, amid a disagreement between the show and its broadcaster.
This was due to tensions following a merger between studios Paramount (South Park’s broadcaster) and Skydance. It caused the show’s season 27 premiere to be pushed back from July 9 to July 23, and prompted Parker and Stone to criticise the merger via the comedy’s official X account.