On Wednesday, “South Park” rounded off its 22nd season with a bicycle parade — and President Donald Trump in handcuffs in front of the South Park police station. Technically it wasn’t Trump but Mr. Garrison, a former South Park Elementary teacher who ran for president as a Trump parody in 2016.
The latest season did not focus on Trump, but rather on tech. The Halloween episode focused on electric scooters from companies such as Lime and Bird. The last few episodes turned directly to Amazon and Jeff Bezos.
The Trump parody emerged as the main characters took part in a bike parade. The entire town is high on marijuana, and as the parade passes the police station, cops stand around Mr. Garrison, who smiles and waves his hand, showing the handcuffs.
The Comedy Central show has had a fraught history with Trump. When the Republican candidate won the presidential election in 2016, the showrunners had to recreate their post-election episode.
As Newsbusters’s Tom Joyce reported, “South Park” has never shown Trump in a positive light. In Season 21, they attacked the president as “very desperate” and “scaring children.” One episode urged Trump to tweet less in a hilarious “public service announcement” video. However, the show did admit that political correctness led to Trump’s election.
Joyce argued that the “Trump in handcuffs” moment had more to do with outlandish “South Park” humor than any impending legal trouble for the president. While the president’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations — apparently to implicate Trump — the president has a very good, if messy, legal defense. If the president does end up in prison, the evidence of crimes has not yet emerged.
Even so, the creators of “South Park” knew they would raise some eyebrows — and make some liberals’ hearts flutter — by putting the Trump parody in handcuffs.
That said, “South Park” has always thumbed its nose at America’s tight partisan categories. The creators are libertarian, and therefore mock both Republicans and Democrats.
This most recent season involves a great deal of mockery against political correctness, with “PC babies” becoming minor celebrities. The creators, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, claim to be Republicans, but their climate change message — “Al Gore was right” — and their mockery of religion place them a bit more on the liberal side. “South Park” has always been an equal opportunity political parody.
Watch the bike parade below (Trump in handcuffs emerges at about 4 minutes in).
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