South Park ''South Park'' is an American animated sitcom created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone and developed by Brian Graden for Comedy Central. The series revolves around four boys Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman, and Kenny McCormickand th ...

'' is an American

animated Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most anim ...

television

sitcom A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ne ...

created by

Trey Parker Randolph Severn "Trey" Parker III (born October 19, 1969) is an American actor, animator, filmmaker, and composer. He is known for co-creating ''South Park'' (since 1997) and ''The Book of Mormon'' (2011) with his creative partner Matt Stone. P ...

and

Matt Stone Matthew Richard Stone (born May 26, 1971) is an American actor, animator, filmmaker, and composer. He is known for co-creating ''South Park'' (since 1997) and ''The Book of Mormon'' (2011) with his creative partner Trey Parker. Stone was interes ...

for

Comedy Central Comedy Central is an American basic cable channel owned by Paramount Global through its network division's MTV Entertainment Group unit, based in Manhattan. The channel is geared towards young adults aged 18–34 and carries comedy programming ...

.Tom Shales, "'South Park' Falls Flatulent", ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'' (August 13, 1997).

LexisNexis LexisNexis is a part of the RELX corporation that sells data analytics products and various databases that are accessed through online portals, including portals for computer-assisted legal research (CALR), newspaper search, and consumer informa ...

. Retrieved April 30, 2009. The series came from a pair of animated shorts titled '' The Spirit of Christmas'', and was originally developed for the

Fox Broadcasting Company The Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly known simply as Fox and stylized in all caps as FOX, is an American commercial broadcast television network owned by Fox Corporation and headquartered in New York City, with master control operations an ...

. Eventually, Fox refused to air the show, which was later picked up by Comedy Central. The first episode of ''South Park'' aired on Comedy Central on August 13, 1997. Intended for mature audiences, the show has become infamous for its crude language and

dark Darkness, the direct opposite of lightness, is defined as a lack of illumination, an absence of visible light, or a surface that absorbs light, such as black or brown. Human vision is unable to distinguish colors in conditions of very low lum ...

surreal humor Surreal humour (also called surreal comedy, absurdist humour, or absurdist comedy) is a form of humour predicated on deliberate violations of causality, causal reasoning, thus producing events and behaviours that are obviously illogical. Portrayal ...

that

lampoon Lampoon may refer to: *Parody *Amphol Lampoon (born 1963), Thai actor and singer *''The Harvard Lampoon'', a noted humor magazine ** ''National Lampoon'' (magazine), a defunct offshoot of ''Harvard Lampoon'' ***National Lampoon, Incorporated, a 20 ...

s a wide range of topics. The story revolves around four boys—

Stan Marsh Stanley Randell William Marsh is a fictional character in the adult animated television series '' South Park''. He is voiced by and loosely based on series co-creator Trey Parker. Stan is one of the series' four central characters, along with ...

Kyle Broflovski Kyle Matthew Broflovski is a fictional character in the adult animated television series ''South Park''. He is voiced by and loosely based on co-creator Matt Stone. Kyle is one of the series' four central characters, along with his friends Stan ...

Eric Cartman Eric Theodore Cartman, commonly referred to by his surname Cartman, is a fictional character in the adult animated sitcom '' South Park'', created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone. He is voiced by Parker, and is one of the series' four main chara ...

, and

Kenny McCormick Kenneth "Kenny" McCormick is a fictional character and one of the four main characters in the adult animated television series ''South Park'' along with Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, and Eric Cartman. His often muffled and incomprehensible speec ...

—and their bizarre adventures in and around the eponymous Colorado town. Episodes of ''South Park'' have been nominated for a variety of different awards, including three

Annie Award The Annie Awards are accolades which the Los Angeles branch of the International Animated Film Association, ASIFA-Hollywood, has presented each year since 1972 to recognize excellence in animation shown in cinema and television. Originally desi ...

s (with one win), two

Critics' Choice Television Award The Critics' Choice Television Awards are accolades that are presented annually by the Critics Choice Association (CCA). They were established in 2011, and the first ceremony was held on June 20, 2011, and streamed live on VH1.com. The fourt ...

(with no wins), 17

Emmy Award The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...

s (with five wins), 3

TCA Awards The TCA Awards are awards presented by the Television Critics Association in recognition of excellence in television. There are eleven categories, which are presented every summer towards the end of the organization's summer press tour. Due to ...

(with no wins), and received a

Peabody Award The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program, named for the American businessman and philanthropist George Peabody, honor the most powerful, enlightening, and invigorating stories in television, radio, and ...

. The first twenty-three seasons have been released on DVD and

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...

, in addition to several compilation DVDs.Song, Charles. News posts dated June 26 and 27, 2001. In: On September 12, 2019, the show was renewed up to the 26th season. On August 5, 2021, Comedy Central announced that Parker and Stone signed a $900 million deal for extending the series to 30 seasons through 2027. The deal also included 14 new original movies for

Paramount+ Paramount (from the word ''paramount'' meaning "above all others") may refer to: Entertainment and music companies * Paramount Global, also known simply as Paramount, an American mass media company formerly known as ViacomCBS. The following busin ...

, with two new movies being released yearly starting in 2021. Parker and Stone would later state that the projects would not be feature films, and that it was

ViacomCBS Paramount Global (doing business as Paramount) is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate owned and operated by National Amusements (79.4%) and headquartered at One Astor Plaza in Midtown Manhattan, New York. I ...

who decided to advertise them as movies. Subsequent advertising and branding in press releases from Paramount+ frequently uses the term "exclusive event" instead, indicating that these are more properly classified as

television specials A television special (often TV special, or rarely television spectacular) is a standalone television show which may also temporarily interrupt episodic programming normally scheduled for a given time slot. Some specials provide a full range of ent ...

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Series overview

Episodes

Season 1 (1997–98)

Season 2 (1998–99)

Season 3 (1999–2000)

Season 4 (2000)

Season 5 (2001)

Season 6 (2002)

Season 7 (2003)

Season 8 (2004)

Season 9 (2005)

Season 10 (2006)

Season 11 (2007)

Season 12 (2008)

Season 13 (2009)

Season 14 (2010)

Season 15 (2011)

Season 16 (2012)

Season 17 (2013)

Season 18 (2014)

Season 19 (2015)

Season 20 (2016)

Season 21 (2017)

Season 22 (2018)

Season 23 (2019)

Season 24 (2020–21)

Specials (2021)

Season 25 (2022)

Specials (2022)

Season 26 (2023)

Home media

Notes

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:South Park Episodes

Episodes Episodes may refer to: * Episode An episode is a narrative unit within a larger dramatic work or documentary production, such as a series intended for radio, television or streaming consumption. The noun ''episode'' is derived from the Gree ...

Lists of American sitcom episodes