The seventeenth season of the animated television series ''
South Park'' was announced on May 10, 2013 that premiered on
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 programmin ...
on September 25, 2013 and ended on December 11, 2013. The season satirized various topics and cultural institutions including ''
Minecraft
''Minecraft'' is a sandbox game developed by Mojang Studios. The game was created by Markus "Notch" Persson in the Java (programming language), Java programming language. Following several early private testing versions, it was first made pub ...
,''
the George Zimmerman murder trials,
the 2013 mass surveillance disclosures, and the HBO television fantasy drama, ''
Game of Thrones.'' The season received generally positive reviews, with criticism mainly aimed at the start of the season and much praise going to the Black Friday trilogy, which was hailed by IGN to be the show's best multi-arc series since the
''Imaginationland'' trilogy. The series continually maintained high ratings throughout the season.
Production
The season consists of 10 episodes, as series creators
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. ...
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 ...
decided to scale back and have one uninterrupted season, as opposed to two 7-episode runs, as had been the format since
Season 8
A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and pol ...
.
Bill Hader
William Thomas Hader Jr.''Finding Your Roots'', January 26, 2016, PBS. (born June 7, 1978) is an American actor, comedian, writer, and producer. He is the creator, producer, writer, director, and star of the HBO dark comedy series ''Barry'' (201 ...
, a former ''
Saturday Night Live
''Saturday Night Live'' (often abbreviated to ''SNL'') is an American late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC and Peacock (streaming service), Peacock. ...
'' cast member, began working full-time on the show as a staff writer.
Due to a power outage at the studio, episode 4 ("Goth Kids 3: Dawn of the Posers") missed the deadline and aired a week later than scheduled.
Episodes
References
{{South Park episodes, 17
2013 American television seasons