Just a few short years ago, many speculated that South Park would soon be singing its last profane song and poking fun at its final social issue. Now, with the show secure to continue airing through at least 2016, viewers can be sure that there will be plenty more of the little mountain town and its deranged inhabitants for years to come.
However, there are signs that the show may be ramping down slightly to accommodate its creators’ busy lives. Starting with the series’ seventeenth outing, South Park will only feature ten episodes per season – though with the added bonus of doing away with the customary mid-season break.
In an interview with The New York Times, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone shared that their signature cartoon will air a new season of 10 episodes uninterrupted this autumn. The reason for the change is far simpler than these sorts of television shakeups tend to be. Stone explained:
“Why did we do seven and seven to begin with? …We just sort of made that up. And we are switching to 10 for the same reason. It just sounded like a good number, and we won’t break up the year so we can more easily do other stuff.”
The two creators acknowledged that four fewer episodes and no season split will allow them to concentrate entirely on South Park for one intense portion of the year and leave the rest open to other creative endeavors. This is unsurprising given Parker and Stone’s recent mega-success with the stage musical The Book of Mormon. With production of South Park blocked off for ten specific weeks a year, the duo will have plenty of room to oversee the globe-spanning comedy-musical and to pursue any other new projects.
Part of the decision to shorten and compress South Park‘s upcoming seasons was the acknowledgment of new viewership paradigms that are slowly supplanting the old wisdom on how one should produce and schedule a season of television. Of this, Stone said:
“There is no appointment viewing anymore… In our first season, you had to show up on Wednesday nights at 10 p.m. on the Comedy Channel to catch the show. Now, I don’t even know where or how people watch our show. We sort of don’t really care about ratings. It’s more important to come up with work that will add to the library in a way that we’re proud of and will make people want to catch the show wherever they want to.”
Stone and Parker’s candor in the matter is certainly refreshing, but one has to wonder whether fans will accept the trade-off of fewer total episodes for a more compressed South Park experience. The show’s production has always flown by the seat of its pants, famously pumping out episodes from script draft to finished product a week or less. As of season 17, that spirit will be concentrated into a single, intense run at a time.
Will South Park aficionados adapt to a two-month long ration of new episodes every autumn, or will they demand a return to a season spread more evenly over the year? At the very least, the results of this new programming approach will be fascinating (and, hopefully, hilarious) to watch.
New episodes of South Park will return to delight and offend on September 25, 2013.
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Source: The New York Times [via Collider]
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Good. More quality less quantity.
Its funny cuz when south park used to have 17+ episodes a season, that’s when it was it’s funniest. These last few seasons haven’t been anything special in my opinion.
More quality? They are still doing an episode in under 7 days. The whole “they get to focus more on the show” is BS. Same amount of time per episode just lest episodes. Also with the seasons spread out a lot of the episodes were based on what was happening in the news it was nice to have it split up so they could grab big headlining news throughout the year.
As long as the 10 episodes per season are so incredibly funny that my sides hurt, I don’t mind fewer episodes.
In a regular season there’s always a few episodes that just aren’t funny to me, so if they stop doing those and make the funny ones even funnier, I can’t complain at all.
Cudos to South Park for southparkstudios.com I respect the hell out of everyone involved for keeping episodes free to air.
This show still airs?!
Bad sign. Their heart isn’t in it anymore. If they really believe that viewing habits have changed, then the concept of a season shouldn’t even exist. I only watch South Park on the Comedy central website, not on TV anymore, so I’m part of that changing demographic.
And I hate the long breaks. I’d rather have 1 new episode a month throughout the whole year for 13 episodes a month, than have a gusher of episodes on e after another, then a long stretch of nothing.
One a month for 13 a year? Do you have that calendar with Smarch in it?
an episode a month probably would be great quality in the long haul, but they just dont have the same fun doing this anymore and they want to travel worldwide or whatever most of the year. I can get that. They are people and they have the right to change their work life to suit their needs. I just think 10 episodes in a row isn’t good for the show or for them if they really think about it. That’s hell for 2-1/2 months instead of just their typical 7 weeks. That must be very tough for their crew and Trey who work late during that time. I can’t imagine they will want to continue this after season 17, and will find that the pop commentary will grow stale like the Simpsons, and will go back to half seasons. I know I miss South Park between seasons, and I’m sure other fans will be irritated waiting for just 10 episodes that will suffer in quality.
I’m surprised you didn’t mention their new production studio as a possible reason for opening more time for themselves. Either way as long as those two continue to produce awesome content I’ll be a happy fan.
Maybe cause last season was the worst.
Last season was by far not the worst. The first half wasn’t great, but the second half, minus that butters episode about Hawaii, was excellent.
I wonder what captain hindsight will have to say about this…
I’d rather have 10 good episodes a year for (possibly) another 7 or 8 years if it’s so they can keep the show going for a long term future than 14 episodes, some hit, some miss every year for 4 years until they get tired and end the show!
I don’t like the idea of 10 weeks of episodes per year. That leaves 42 weeks of interesting things happening in the world that won’t be satirized by Stone and Parker. My opinion is that the best episodes of the show are the ones that reflect current affairs. At least with the 7/7 split, events from the summer/fall are covered in one part of a season and the winter/spring events in the other. Now, we’ll be forced to see a year’s worth of events crammed into ten weeks…and stupid things in pop culture with their 15 minutes of fame will be long forgotten before South Park can truly make fun of it.
I’d be happier with a 5/5 split.
I’d be happy with a banana split…. And them going back to seven and seven…. Hey, a seven and seven sounds delicious right now…
It doesn’t really matter. I’ve been watching this show for 17yrs and never even noticed that they do a mid season brake until this article! I always catch it in reruns, DVD or netflix so I have no real concept of when the shows are coming out, and the topical pop culture stuff is still funny even if its not viewed at the peak of its popularity
They probably wanna get to the 20 season party. Wouldnt mind try finding that banned episode that had a death threat on the show creator’s head though.
Why is this show still in existence? i remember the 1st time i watched this show, i had to read a dictionary to make sure my intelligence was still in check.
i peed my pants
I can’t wait for Trey and Matt to break away from Comedy Central. What Comedy Central did to them and the time constraint they put on the studio really screwed up the last couple seasons.
Put this crap show out of its misery already. It should have ended years ago. This isn’t the early 2000s anymore, which is when the show was at its peak. Bow out gracefully. Learn from The Simpsons mistake.
sad thing The Simpsons still better than 90% of c rap on the tube
I have to agree with others that only 2 months of relevant pop commentary is going to screw up what makes south park great, and how does 10 weeks of non stop south park making gonna make the episodes better? if anything that will make it worse due to being completely drained and out of ideas. I’d rather have 5 episodes for 5 weeks and then a month or two break and then 5 more, to ensure that everything is fresh. At least though we don’t have the issue you get with drama show season breaks, where you cant even remember what happened last season. At least south park has a lot of rewatch value, and we can enjoy it in chunks with no continuity issues. I also disagree that South Park is getting worse… its’ not that simple. There are poor episodes from many seasons. I know “should have never gone ziplining” cracks me up, as I have gone ziplining before. I don’t get the Hawaii epsiode though… I guess Trey and Matt have a timeshare over there and they hate their neighbors or something.
I just want my boys back. Love them entirely. Can’t imagine life without them. I’m really disapoined they haven’t released new series this spring but I hope they are preparing something awesome
Well..this is sort of sad.
I looked forward to spring partly because March brings episodes of South Park..same for October..giving “Fall” one good reason for existence.
For me..the last 5 seasons have been the best. Like ‘Wacky Packages’..the rarest ‘sets’ were 12 through 16..also (sadly) the most expensive. But the fact is the art..the jokes..became more surreal..so clever and “chewy” they are simply masterpieces of social-political commentary and comedy.
So too..South Park seasons 11-16.
Sadly..many don’t get South Park..and too..many do not get the latest seasons. One NEEDS to have a firm background (arrogant as that sounds) in the culture to get the ideas and the jokes. One such example is season 12 (I think) “Major Boobage” in which Kenny goes nuts on cat urine. Only 1 person I spoke to “Got It” after the airing. Because SO many ‘Millennials” and “boomers” and of course “Gen Y Bothers” had not seen the Heavy Metal movie.
The ENTIRE premise was Lost on them and so many comments re. “it wasn’t funny..gall”..whined out into the ether.
South Park is annoyingly Masterful. I covet their Genius.
And I lament their excuses now that they are (capital ‘R’) Rich and wanting to do “other things with their time”..becoming the thing they joke about so often..sigh..
South Park is positively Therapeutic for many of us..but..like all good..nay scratch that..Great things it too must eventually be Gentrified..’Owned’ and manipulated and eventually “Privatized” and Corporatized into non-existence.
“..ample parking day or night..people shouting ‘Howdy Neighbor!’..”
This is a terrible idea. 10 episodes in ten weeks and the rest of the year nothing?!?! are you kidding me? I get that they want more time to work on other projects, but as many people have said, current events either wont be covered anymore, or they will be very outdated. As a fan i would much rather have an episode each month to look forward to instead of rushing through the season in two months, i mean come on. Also, as “me and my opinion” said, it will be pretty rough for everyone making the show to shovel out an episode a week with no breaks for 10 weeks. I just really hope they dont screw it up and make terrible shows. oh well, theyve made they’re decision, i guess we will just have to wait and see, (wait 6 more months that is) LAME
“Other creative endeavors”, right. They will be one hit wonders known only for South Park. Team America had virtually no impact on anything.
I love South Park though and am excited to see it around until at least 2016.
screw you guyes i,m going home
i think this is a good idea maybe there thinking of going back into films i remember the films they did from long ago like basketball or orgasmo i still have them on dvd they were great and really funny