Almost nine years ago in the early days of this blog, I wrote about the decline of The Simpsons which was my favourite television show growing up. I pointed out then that the show had declined in quality significantly around Season 10 and despite this, had continued for another fifteen. At the time I wrote it, I had assumed it would be cancelled within the next few years but I was very wrong and just this year it has been renewed for another four seasons which will take it to forty years on broadcast television.
As I also state in the same post, it has carried on well beyond its cultural relevance as I still have never failed to “get” a reference to the show because they are always from seasons through the 1990s which most people of my generation are familiar with. I don’t know anybody who watches it today and I am only reminded that it exists when it comes into the news from time to time.
In the late 1990s, South Park became a hit and could be seen as the successor to The Simpsons. People might prefer to point to King of the Hill, The Family Guy or Matt Groening’s own Futurama but it was South Park that had the more comparable success; especially as it reached beyond the United States. Similarly to The Simpsons, it had a run of about a decade where I regularly watched it. As a young and morally uncertain teenager, it’s deliberately offensive social iconoclasm certainly appealed to me. And it is South Park that I’ve very lately noticed, has also lasted much beyond it’s cultural relevance.
South Park was certainly not the mostly family friendly sitcom that The Simpsons was. It’s early success came almost completely through it’s shockingly crass themes and content that at the time, certainly pushed the boundaries of what was considered acceptable on television. It may be hard to believe now given how much broadcast standards have relaxed but it really was quite shocking when it first appeared in the late 1990s. If one were to go back and watch the pilot episode, it would seem crude with regards to both the content and the animation but it certainly grabbed the attention of a great many teenagers and young adults who had grown up with The Simpsons.
While it’s shocking content brought it the initial attention, it did mature somewhat and was for a time a frequently clever social satire that would go after any target that caught the creator’s attention. Unlike The Simpsons, it was much simpler to produce with the creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker doing most of the voice work, writing and (at least early on), the animation. They had additional voice actors including Isaac Hayes as Chef, Mary Kay Bergman for most female roles but the show was still very much their own and in many ways — still is.
Also unlike The Simpsons, it quickly capitalised on its success with a film subtitled ‘Bigger, Longer & Uncut’. The creators made it a musical and the song ‘Blame Canada’ was even nominated for an Academy Award for ‘Best Original Song’ which Robin Williams memorably performed on awards night. Many thought that the show’s success would be short lived and perhaps the creators did to in developing the film just a few years after the series began but it lasted beyond this. One reason for this is because though developed in the 1990s, it remained relevant into the new millennium especially after the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks and all that followed that whether geo-politically or socially.
Although often dealing with political and social issues, Parker and Stone were not people to be pigeonholed and any public figure that tried to do so could well find themselves depicted very unflatteringly on a future episode. I won’t then try to do the same but it is at least obvious that they’re neither conventionally religious nor easily placed on a simplistic left/right political spectrum. Whatever their actual convictions, it was good for the show that they generally remained ambiguous; as this kept the satire raw as one could never be sure who they would target next. And this is why I’ve seen people from all over the place post different clips from the show approvingly. Some of those might consider the show as a whole to be reprehensible but still enjoy and agree with certain observations it has presented over the years.
What put the show in mind was that it was in the news recently because of a “joke” about Donald Trump. I didn’t want this post to seem like it was just reacting to this and so I thought it was necessary to provide more context; especially as I’ve expressed enthusiasm for his presidency on this blog a number of times. I haven’t watched any of the recent seasons and was surprised to learn that the most recent episodes I remember date back to 2008 with some exceptions including a clip I used for a post recently. I don’t quite recall exactly when but I did stop watching it but it was around this time and this represents a similar time frame to the peak in relevance of The Simpsons. 2008 also happens to have been another significant year for the United States with the Obama presidency representing another paradigm shift (mostly with regard to social issues), and so it is little surprise South Park‘s cultural relevance largely also ended around this time too.
While this might seem like no more than my own observations, the most recent news actually supports this. I have only seen still images but it references a joke from the 1999 film depicting Saddam Hussein and Satan as sodomites. This time Donald Trump takes the place of the Iraqi dictator who was executed in 2006 after the second US invasion in 2003. This joke is so old that there are people in their twenties who probably don’t even know who Saddam Hussein is and though I haven’t watched the show regularly for fifteen years, I immediately caught the reference from a still image.
Apparently conservatives are annoyed about this but I think this outrage is inorganic. From what I understand, the show has made fun of Trump for years without anyone really paying much attention and it has been generally consistent with attacks on various public figures. I really couldn’t care less whether it has ever attacked the two preceding presidents and can only recall a couple of references to Clinton and Bush. It is the repeat of a decades old joke that people my age are still familiar with that indicates the show is now long past it’s prime. Similar to The Simpsons, it would have been much better to retire it around Season 10. Now, much like The Simpsons, it will go out with a whimper with only the show’s early years lingering in popular memory.