Two of America’s sharpest comedy institutions just hit pause in the same week: ABC yanked Jimmy Kimmel from the air in the wake of the MAGA freakout stemming from the murder of Charlie Kirk, and South Park delayed its brand-new episode.
Is there a connection here from the standpoint of the Matt Stone and Trey Parker South Park brain trust? Let’s dive in.
Here’s what’s happened over the last few days
- “ABC announced it was suspending Jimmy Kimmel Live! indefinitely after comments Kimmel made about Charlie Kirk’s killing led a group of ABC-affiliated stations to say it would not air the show,” The Guardian reports. “They are censoring you in real time,” California Gavin Newsom assessed about what the Republican Party is doing with relation to free speech in the United States.
- In a very rare move, South Park Season 27, Episode 5 was delayed “hours before airtime,” via USA Today.
The chilling effect on free speech just got chillier
Arch conservative activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated by an assailant authorities say does not appear tied to any formal group. The alleged killer, Tyler Robinson, appears to have no clear ideology other than hatred radicalized by spending too much time in dark corners of the Internet.
Nonetheless, Trump, Vance, and MAGA world are taking the opportunity to prosecute their case against what they perceive as “leftwing radicals” wherever and whenever they can.
Let’s be clear here that beyond Jimmy Kimmel – a wealthy and vastly talented comedian and talk show host – and South Park, the Big Picture of this story is the United States’ further drift into autocracy.
And part of the Autocracy 101 playbook is a crackdown on free speech as well as intimidation and spreading of fear over what happens when you speak against the ruler or reigning oligarchy.
What’s really at stake on the business side: the Nexstar/TEGNA merger
Ever since Trump got reelected, business leaders ranging from Mark Zuckerberg to Jeff Bezos to Elon Musk have been falling all over themselves to prove fealty to MAGA, bending the knee to borrow the term from Game of Thrones.
A key reason why Jimmy Kimmel Live is not airing new episodes at the moment as scheduled is due to Nexstar’s pending $6.2 billion merger with TEGNA. The very short version here: this is local TV station stuff that you have no reason to care about other than the fact that Nexstar is the entity that precipitated Kimmel getting pulled off the air.
“Nexstar strongly objects to recent comments made by Mr. Kimmel concerning the killing of Charlie Kirk and will replace the show with other programming in its ABC-affiliated markets,” Nexstar said in a statement.
Full disclosure: I once worked for Nexstar on the digital side, and politics never overtly came up at any time while I was employed there.
South Park fan frenzy kicks in
Because of how important and potent South Park remains as a satirical and comedic force in American culture, fans predictably went nutso online over the new SP episode not airing as scheduled.
And meanwhile, Reddit threads are speculating about everything from production screw-ups to Parker and Stone rewriting the script in real time to eviscerate the hypocrisy and disingenuousness behind Jimmy Kimmel Live getting pulled off the air.
Check out Pop Thruster’s Best 100 TV Shows Ever to see where South Park landed amid the best television shows of all time.
South Park’s masterful fast-turn machine
Most casual fans don’t realize the South Park team can crank out an episode from blank page to Comedy Central broadcast in mere days. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend the 2011 documentary, 6 Days to Air, which showcases Matt, Trey, and crew’s meticulous yet manic process to take an idea and quickly turn it into animated, demented genius.
Bonus: we get to see a young and grinning Bill Hader as part of the writer’s room.
So what happens next?
I’m frankly too depressed to get into “what happens next?” from the perspective of U.S. politics right now, so let’s speculate about what may be going on from a South Park standpoint.
We know that South Park remains a beacon of comedy and truth telling (just ask Al Gore, Matt Damon, and other liberal icons who have been skewered by Matt and Trey over the last 30 years!) along with other stalwarts as Jon Stewart and John Oliver.
Comedy Central has stated that the new South Park episode has been “pushed back by one week,” so presumably we’ll get the show’s take on the Kirk assassination and its aftermath soon.
How hard will it hit the “third rail” of digging into Kimmel getting yanked and – yet another explosive topic – Trump’s alleged connection to the Jeffrey Epstein files?
I’m setting my 6 Days to Air countdown timer right now.