South Park to cut back on Donald Trump jokes
The creators want to return to the “bread and butter” of the show with kids being “ridiculous and outrageous”
South Park is going to do less Donald Trump gags from now on, one of its creators has said.
Trey Parker, who voices four of the main characters – including teacher Mr Garrison who embodies South Park's President Trump parody – said the forthcoming series would have fewer Trump gags after having recently fallen into the "trap" of becoming a show dedicated to mocking the US leader.
"We fell into the same trap that Saturday Night Live fell into, where it was like, 'Dude, we're just becoming CNN now',” he told The Los Angeles Times.
"We're becoming: 'Tune in to see what we're going to say about Trump'. Matt [Stone, the show’s co-creator] and I hated it but we got stuck in it somehow.
"This season I want to get back to... the bread and butter of South Park: kids being kids and being ridiculous and outrageous, but not 'did you see what Trump did last night?'
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"We probably could put up billboards - 'Look what we're going to do to Trump next week!' - and get crazy ratings. But I just don't care."
One of South Park's most popular Trump jokes is one where he is trying to get out of the election, having realised he is not qualified to be in the White House...
On whether he thinks Trump is funny, Parker said: "He’s not intentionally funny but he is intentionally using comedic art to propel himself. The things that we do — being outrageous and taking things to the extreme to get a reaction out of people — he’s using those tools. At his rallies he gets people laughing and whooping.
"I don’t think he’s good at it. But it obviously sells — it made him president."
Saturday Night Live is lauded for Alec Baldwin’s Trump impressions, which it has promised to continue this autumn. Here in the UK, meanwhile, Channel 4 satire The Windsors welcomes the US leader to its Royal Household.
South Park creators had previously said that that the US President was too difficult to parody, as with Trump in the White House, "satire has kind of become reality".
