These are the best episodes of South Park ever, across all seasons of the show.
South Park has been on the air for over 20 years now, and in that time it’s established itself as one of the most iconic animated shows of all time. With its low production aesthetic and no limits humor, it’s garnered a passionate fanbase, while its quick production turnaround time means it constantly has its finger on the pulse. It definitely isn’t for everyone, and while they do take swings at all comers (an approach which itself has been criticized), creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have occasionally acknowledged overstepping the mark. It’s a series with a lot of high points, and here are the 25 best. If you’re in the US, you can stream South Park for free on Comedy Central’s website. It’s also available to stream on HBO Max. In the UK, South Park airs on Comedy Central, and it’s streaming on Amazon Prime Video and Netflix. South Park tells a lot more tech-based stories these days, and in this episode, internet advertising has run amok. Sponsored Content also features a staunch political debate between Hillary Clinton, Garrison and Caitlyn Jenner. The main story, though, is the start of yet another three-act arc, this time on political correctness in media – with political correctness in general a running theme throughout this entire season. Like a few other episodes later on,Black Friday is actually part of a trilogy, along with A Song Of Ass And Fire and Titties And Dragons. They’re all great, but here we’re going with the first instalment. It’s all about a Black Friday sale, with one half of the town looking for a PS4 and the other half for an Xbox One. By the end of the trilogy, it’s a full-blown war, but here it’s the calm before the storm as the residents of South Park choose their sides. Poor Randy, in his new job as a mall security guard, doesn’t realize he’s about to be caught in the middle. One of the first ‘big concept’ episodes for the show, you can see from this premise how it offered a foundation for more outlandish episodes later. Cartman gets $1 million from his grandmother’s inheritance, and uses it to buy a theme park. His success causes Kyle to lose his faith in God, but Cartman’s financial troubles quickly bring his faith back. There are some great visuals within the theme park, and the show’s gross-out huimor is alive and well in this episode. A great example of South Park’s straightforward storytelling done right. This double header is essentially one whole episode, so we’re counting both parts as one entity. It sees Family Guy preparing to feature the Muslim prophet Mohammed in an episode, leaving the USA fearful of retaliation, even prompting Cartman to go to Hollywood to leverage the network into cancelling Family Guy. It ends with an infamous title card after the network refused to air South Park’s own depiction of Mohammed, and has become infamous both for this and its genuinely mean-spirited take on Family Guy. These days, everyone knows what to expect from South Park, so it takes something really extreme for it to wind up in the headlines. With Band In China – which was actually banned in China – South Park’s mocked Xi Jinping’s regime and garnered their most controversy in years. It goes after China’s aggressive censorship of Western media, and the way huge conglomerates seemingly compromise in order to profit in the Chinese market, with Randy heading to China for a business deal, but ending up in jail. Two very disparate plots here, which isn’t usually South Park’s style, but it works brilliantly in Medicinal Fried Chicken. The A-plot sees Randy become desperate to partake in the medicinal marijuana movement, giving himself testicular cancer just so he can reap the herbal benefits. Eventually, he ends up with space hopper-sized balls. Meanwhile, in a heavy Scarface parody, KFC are banned from South Park, leading to Cartman setting up a black market fried chicken business in the episode’s B-plot. Here, Butters buys a kiss off a girl after the rest of the boys discover he’s never kissed anyone. From here, Butters has a brainwave and realizes he could become a businessman dealing in kisses; soon after, he’s a fully fledged pimp. In his new line of work, he finds himself entangled with an undercover cop who’ll go to any length to expose the prostitution racket in South Park.
