This Comedy Series Won’t Be Targeted by Trump, Says Patton Oswalt [South Park]

Many followers of South Park are questioning why Donald Trump doesn’t assault the comedy collection regardless of the present’s frequent assaults and lampoons towards the president. Whereas Trump has been identified to focus on late-night hosts, like Seth Myers and Jimmy Kimmel, he has been comparatively silent on the animated collection created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone. That is regardless of one of many comedy’s episodes revolving across the president having an affair with Devil and creating the Antichrist (and that’s simply the tip of the iceberg). The satire is one thing that Trump doesn’t discover “humorous,” in line with former White Home Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci. Nevertheless, comic Patton Oswalt has an evidence for this seemingly uncommon contradiction.

When requested why the Trump administration lets South Park get away with its political comedy however has attacked Stephen Colbert for doing the identical, regardless of the animated collection “arguably going towards Trump more durable than anybody else,” Oswalt provided one robust purpose why that is in an interview with The Each day Beast.

“Nothing shuts Trump up like cash,” the comic defined. “He can argue that Stephen Colbert isn’t getting the rankings and isn’t making the cash, despite the fact that the present is sensible. Nevertheless it’s not that Stephen Colbert is slipping within the rankings, it’s that the entire infrastructure of late-night tv is slipping.”

As famous by Observer, main community late-night reveals have confronted a pointy decline over the previous eight years. On this interval, The Tonight Present Starring Jimmy Fallon fell from 2.8 million to 1.2 million, Jimmy Kimmel Reside! declined from 2.3 million to 1.8 million, and Late Evening with Seth Meyers dropped from 1.4 million to 923,000. The Late Present with Stephen Colbert, which can finish its run in Might 2026, has seen a drop in viewership by 26 %.

By comparability, South Park has practically doubled its viewership since 2023 in line with its creators, partly resulting from its emphasis on the Trump administration. Parker and Stone mentioned in an interview with The New York Occasions that this shift in focus wasn’t as a result of they “bought all political,” however as a result of “politics grew to become popular culture.” Attacking Trump had turn out to be “taboo,” so whereas the creators solely meant to have one episode in Season 28 involving the president, they expanded it in later episodes and found that that they had discovered a mine for comedy.

These excessive rankings, in line with Oswalt, have protected the collection from being focused by Trump on Reality Social and different platforms.

“And South Park, not solely does it make insane quantity of some cash, it will get insane rankings,” he defined. “And Trump can solely be so offended at that, as a result of what Trump finally will respect, even when it doesn’t respect him, is one thing the place the numbers are by way of the roof, and the cash is thru the roof.”

The comic believes that the president’s worldview revolves round what’s financially profitable and doesn’t embrace whether or not one thing is critically profitable.

He continued, “He can’t take a look at South Park and see how sensible it’s, and he can’t take a look at one thing like John Oliver and see how equally sensible it’s. All he can consider is by way of, take a look at this man’s numbers, take a look at their numbers, and that’s the one manner he sees the world. So one thing that’s as huge and as plain as South Park, each in high quality, which individuals such as you and I can see, however then in numbers and cash, which Trump can see, he simply falls silent.”

Oswalt concludes that if late-night reveals have been bringing within the rankings, Trump would maintain his tongue. “If Colbert was making South Park cash and getting South Park eyes on him, Trump wouldn’t know what to do.”