For those unaware of the risky, and some would say insane, production schedule of the popular animated adult cartoon “South Park,” here’s how it works: every Friday, a roughly 30-person staff that has worked on the show since its inception meets to write the episode that will air the following Wednesday.
That’s right, the entire show is written, animated and voiced in just six days. It’s because of this, that the events on election day were particularly stressful for the staff of South Park Studios.
Like most of the world, the crew expected Hillary Clinton to win the presidency. So, unlike the 2012 election where they wrote an episode (Season Fourteen’s “Obama Wins!”) that could have been easily changed depending on who won, for this election they wrote an episode that specifically focused on Clinton winning. That’s when the changed up happened.
When the poll results came in, to keep with the topicality of the show, the crew was forced to re-write, re-animate and re-voice the entire 22-minute-long episode in less than 24 hours. They managed to pull it off, replacing what would have been an episode focused on Bill Clinton being the “First Gentleman” with him traveling to the South Park school to teach the boys about being a gentleman. While remnants of this plot are leftover in the re-written piece, most of the entire episode was changed.
While this seems like a small bump in the road for the now 20-year-old show, it shows just how strange this election cycle has been for everyone. Most of Hollywood has spoken in favor of Secretary Clinton, but “South Park” has managed to stay relatively center, refusing to even use the real names of the candidates in their episodes, simply referring to them as “Turd Sandwich” and “Major Douche.”
The thoughts of the writers on the entire election can be interpreted from the way this season has satirized the idea of nostalgia. The person “to blame” for the discourse is J.J. Abrams, for rebooting so much of our culture and inserting “Member Berries,” a small fruit resembling grapes that allows the townsfolk of South Park to forget the troubles of present times and just ‘member the good old days.
Despite the entire hiccup in production and the election kerfuffle, this week’s episode- changed from “The First Gentlemen” to “Oh Jeez”- still manages to crank out a classic, biting line for the series. As the family of young Stan sits to eat after the results come in, his father says “Well gang, aren’t you excited? America is finally going to be great again.” Shelly, Stan’s sister replies with “No Dad! This country is gonna suck for another four years!” Mr. Marsh simply stares into space and replies with “Come on Shelly, we’ve made so much progress. After all, we’ve proved that, in America, women can do anything. Except become President.”
Photo Courtesy of South Park Studios and Viacom Media Networks.
