South Park Season 20 premieres tonight, September 14 at 10 p.m. on Comedy Central. The iconic animated show makes its triumphant return at a time when American television could use it the most.
First airing on 1997, the premiere of ‘South Park’ caused outrage across the United States and the world for its extensive use of coarse language and profanity for comedic purposes. While the first few seasons of ‘South Park’ were a fresh take on comedy in TV, the latter seasons of the show provided much more than that.
The series creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker progressively found a new voice for the show, making it as much a comedy as a space for commentary on American society. Season 20 comes amidst a presidential election process in the United States and ‘South Park’ promises to ruthlessly take on the issue.
South Park has evolved to cause even more outrage
‘South Park’ has taken a seemingly simple premise and setting, and stretched it beyond the limits of our imagination for 20 seasons now. At first, audiences laughed at the contrast between four innocent little kids in a small Colorado town and the foul, bloody, and surreal situations they found themselves into.
However, as the show progressed, it found brilliance in a few episodes per season. Stone and Parker gave us iconic moments in the show like the portrayal of Prophet Muhammad, the school mascot election, and their series on Scientology following the departure of Isaac Hayes (the voice of Chef) from the show.
The latest seasons have seen ‘South Park’ storytelling craft perfected, with season-long arcs that make reference to past events across all episodes. Most recently, the show did this with its take on political correctness in the United States and Randy Marsh secretly being the pop artist Lorde.
What can we expect from ‘South Park’ Season 20?
The show is set for a strong start this Wednesday night. Comedy Central has teased that the season premiere will tackle on the NFL controversy of Colin Kaepernick and his recent protests in support of the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement.
Most notably, the San Francisco 49ers quarterback refused to stand for the national anthem at a football game earlier this month.
‘Member Berries’ will feature a rendition of the national anthem with lyrics praising Kaepernick for his bravery, in what is likely to be the setup for one of the season’s primary themes.
Since ‘South Park’ is coming back from a nine-month break between seasons, Matt Stone and Trey Parker missed out on all the presidential primaries process and some of the presidential race itself. Luckily, we can expect Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump to be an essential subject in upcoming episodes, most likely tied up with the ‘Black Lives Matter’ controversy taking over South Park.
The show’s creators produce on an insane six-day schedule to draw from life itself as the show goes on. The presidential race won’t prove to be a problem for ‘South Park’ since it has covered it live twice already for both Obama presidencies in 2008 and 2012.
‘South Park’ Season 20 will air on Wednesdays on Comedy Central and will run for ten episodes only. An agreement with the TV studio is in place to keep ‘South Park’ running until season 23 and up for more renewals.
Source: South Park Studios