South Park fans in Canada and Australia recently found that an important Butters episode had gone missing from Paramount+. Some Puerto Rican guy must have struck again.
As the end draws near on the contentious South Park streaming contract that split the franchise between two homes, Paramount+ and Max, the planned consolidation of the South Park catalog by Paramount Global is shaping up to be as controversial and complicated as the previous deal. Last month, Paramount co-Chief Executive Chris McCarthy announced to shareholders that the company’s flagship streaming service would soon become the exclusive home of the entire South Park library, but hours later, South Park fans and industry insiders alleged that Paramount+ would be scrubbing some classic episodes over content concerns and political pressure as the media giant inches toward a sale to Larry Ellison’s entertainment company Skydance.
While Paramount hasn’t formally acknowledged the allegations that they will be moving a dozen South Park episodes from the back catalog to the ban list, fears over streaming censorship only increased when one South Park fan in Canada recently realized that the 2001 classic “Butters’ Very Own Episode” is unavailable on Paramount+.
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If Butters’ first proper storyline can be erased from streaming, what classic episode won’t Paramount lock in a car and push into the river?
Earlier this week, one Canadian fan in the South Park subreddit raised the alarm to all his fellow buddies and guys that “Butters’ Very Own Episode” isn’t on Paramount+, writing, “I was literally going to watch this specific episode, and I don’t get why this one was pulled. It sucks that other great episodes were pulled but this was one of my favourites. Do Matt and Trey know their episodes are being pulled?”
The post prompted an Australian South Park fan to search their own Paramount+ library, and they also found that the episode was unavailable in their region, although, curiously, it was still available through Paramount+ on Amazon Prime Video.
Thankfully, American Butters fans can rest easy, as the iconic episode about South Park’s most optimistic and oblivious trauma victim accidentally unraveling his parents’ marriage and narrowly escaping murder by his mother is still available for streaming on Max — for now. If Warner Bros. Discovery doesn’t work out some kind of distribution deal with both Paramount and South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, it will be up to Paramount to decide if the episode deserves to live on and enjoy some buffalo wings at Bennigan’s.
Presumably, Paramount pulled “Butters’ Very Own Episode” from certain markets over South Park’s not-so-subtle accusations toward O.J. Simpson, John and Patsy Ramsey and Gary Condit, all of whom were suspected of murdering someone close to them but escaped any serious consequences. Perhaps these international South Park fans will finally see the return of an all-time great episode once Paramount, John Ramsey and Condit are done wrestling with their consciences.
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