Politics wasn\u2019t meant to be the focus of the latest seasons of \u201cSouth Park<\/a>\u201d but President Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s seemingly boundless influence on America made it impossible to avoid.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIt\u2019s pop culture. It\u2019s not that we got all political. It\u2019s that politics became pop culture,\u201d creator Trey Parker told The New York Times<\/a> in an interview with co-creator Matt Stone published on Saturday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Though Stone and Parker deliberately delayed the show\u2019s 27th season to avoid the mess that was the 2024 election, \u201cSouth Park\u201d couldn\u2019t resist riffing on the MAGA macrocosm when it returned this summer after a two-year hiatus.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n For one, the chronically subversive creators said \u201cnew taboos\u201d around bad-mouthing Trump had them \u201cattracted to that like flies to honey.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n But behind the scenes, the president\u2019s influence also loomed as Parker and Stone were locked in negotiations with Paramount at the same time the entertainment giant\u2019s proposed merger with Skydance<\/a> made it essential for them to stay in the White House\u2019s good graces.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n It was at that point they decided centering their first episode on Trump would be a way to \u201cshow our independence somehow,\u201d according to Stone.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Mere hours after Stone and Parker signed a five-year, $1.25 billion contract with Paramount, \u201cSouth Park\u201d returned with an episode that mocked the swing from the identity-forward politics of President Joe Biden<\/a>\u2019s era to life in Trump\u2019s America.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWe\u2019re just very down-the-middle guys,\u201d Parker said of their political perspective. \u201cAny extremists of any kind we make fun of. We did it for years with the woke thing. That was hilarious to us. And this is hilarious to us.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n As the first months of Trump 2.0 offered no shortage of horrors and absurdities, \u201cSouth Park\u201d had plenty of material, anchoring the plot of seasons 27 and 28 in the president\u2019s relationship with a brawny but sensitive Satan, who is pregnant with his child.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Tackling all things Trump has been a boon for \u201cSouth Park\u201d ratings, with viewership doubling from its 2023 numbers, according to Nielsen.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Though White House representatives called the show\u2019s Trump pivot a \u201cdesperate attempt for attention,\u201d the creators said \u201cSouth Park\u201d doesn\u2019t need chaos in the capital to keep itself relevant.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Telling the Times they\u2019ll move on from the MAGA-verse once they\u2019re \u201csick of it,\u201d Parker said, \u201cIf there\u2019s one thing we know, it is that our show will be a lot longer than theirs. So, we just got to do this for now.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The duo previous acknowledged the creative pitfalls of tackling politics while talking about why they moved away from Trump plotlines in an interview with the Los Angeles Times<\/a> in the wake of the 2016 presidential election.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"In](\"https:\/\/img.huffingtonpost.com\/asset\/69135a5e150000de669c2db8.jpg?cache=lkOp6gBjPU&ops=scalefit_720_noupscale&format=webp)
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