Posted by Trey Baird. Follow me on Twitter!

Spoiler Alert!!!

I’m going to discuss last night’s episode of South Park titled “The Ring” in this article, so if you don’t want to know what happened, don’t read!

“Jumping The Shark”

If you are unfamiliar with the concept of “Jumping The Shark”, it’s an overused cliché used by television nerds that have never made a series of their own, and it’s used to describe a point when a TV show has strayed from its original purpose. The phrase comes from an episode of Happy Days where a plot point was Henry Winkler’s character jumping over a hungry shark on water skis.

Back to South Park. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve heard about how it used to be so much better than it is now. I’ve heard it all. “They make fun of celebrities now, and I don’t like it!” “It’s not funny anymore, I liked it better when they tried to be funny” and “It’s too preachy now!”

Okay, first of all, they’ve always made fun of celebrities on the show, ever since the first season. Next, the matter of whether South Park is funny or not is completely your opinion. It is a different type of humor, and there are PLENTY of other shows on that are directed towards people who are ignorant, but South Park is directed towards people with a little bit of intelligence. And as far as being “preachy”, it is one of the few TV shows that doesn’t regurgitate either a conservative viewpoint (The Simpsons) or a liberal viewpoint (Family Guy). It presents a level headed, moderate viewpoint, and that offends a lot of people who want their opinions to be consistent with one of the major political parties. To put it simply, I haven’t met many Libertarians who dislike South Park.

Enough Complaining!

Personally, I’m tired of hearing people complain about this show. For some reason, people tend to debate this show more so than many other shows. Here’s the thing, if you don’t like it, then don’t watch it. Trey Parker and Matt Stone have grown a lot since they first started making the show, and it is a lot more sophisticated show than it used to be. Very few shows fail to change after 13 years on the air. If you like certain seasons better than others… well that’s why they release them on DVD, so you can watch them over and over again. And if you dislike South Park because of its content… well it’s never been portrayed as a children’s show, and has run a disclaimer at the beginning of every single episode.

Last night, the 13th Season of South Park premiered on Comedy Central. Knowing that I was going to write about it, I watched intently. And as I watched, I became very disappointed. I was disappointed in the fact that I chose to write my article about the Disney Corporation in the future, instead of earlier, because the episode put forward my exact sentiment about them. Disney is evil, corrupt, and if Walt Disney could see what his company had become, he would shake his head in disgust. And when they claim that Disney is trying to take advantage of Christians with their marketing of The Jonas Brothers, I agreed 100%.

It’s Still A Good Show

The Show still has all of the elements of good writing. You have fresh satire in the form of their portrayal of The Jonas Brothers and the current trend of “Purity Rings”, because as you know, the current generation of children have turned “obeying your parents and all listening to authority” into something “cool”. You have the ignorant intolerance of Cartman, and his insistence that a girl’s mouth is a vile and disgusting place. You have the dead on impersonation of Mickey Mouse, and his dominion over the Disney Corporation. And you have the classic death of Kenny, which carries more of an impact that it used to be, since it doesn’t happen in every episode like it used to.

Season 13 is off to a great start, and while I think that Season 12 wasn’t the high point in the series’ run, I feel that the show has always been light years ahead of many other shows that are currently being passed off as entertainment. Maybe the show doesn’t deliver as many laughs as a typical episode of Family Guy does, but there is definitely more effort being put into South Park than Family Guy, and the storylines are usually much more memorable in South Park. To the people who feel the need to debate Family Guy vs. South Park, why can’t you just realize that they are two completely different shows, and learn to either watch one or the other, or appreciate both for what they are?

Create your own South Park characterat SP-Studio.