As South Park fans are well aware, the show’s Season 27 premiere date has been delayed from July 9th to July 23rd. And creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone wasted no time in stating that this is all due to Paramount’s “shitshow” of a merger with Skydance Media, which is “fucking up South Park.”
In an apparent effort to save face, Comedy Central released a new poster for the season with its updated date. But instead of simply proclaiming that “South Park is Back!” the name of the show is obscured by faux graffiti reading “Jesus.”
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Sure enough, the image features Mr. Garrison’s fourth-grade class — including Stan, Kyle, Cartman, Kenny, Wendy and even DogPoo — posing for a photograph along with PC Principal and the familiar cartoon figure of Jesus Christ.
Jesus, of course, has been a prominent fixture in the world of South Park since day one, when he battled Santa Claus in the foundational animated short “The Spirit of Christmas.” Since then, Jesus has appeared in quite a few episodes, especially in the show’s early years, when he hosted his own public access talk show.
While Jesus was briefly seen in the South ParQ Vaccination Special waiting in line for his COVID shot, the famed deity hasn’t had a major speaking role in an episode since 2019’s “Snow Day,” in which he discovers the miracle of cocaine.
That being said, Jesus did show up in the 2024 video game South Park: Snow Day purely to lecture the kids for standing with Mr. Hankey after he was canceled for his problematic tweets.
But now it seems as though he may have a more prominent role in the upcoming season. Although it remains to be seen whether or not teasing Jesus’ return to South Park will move the needle at all for fans who are miffed that the already paltry batch of new episodes are being delayed by two weeks.
South Park’s social media accounts also followed up the disappointing news by posting a trailer — unfortunately, it was the exact same trailer that dropped three months ago, just with a new date slapped onto the end.
If the intent was to get people hyped for the season, resharing the trailer may have the opposite effect. South Park has historically been praised for its ability to quickly respond to real-world events. But this just reminds us that any finished material, about topics such as the avian flu and Trump’s threats to annex Canada, could potentially be even more dated by the time they finally hit the airwaves, thanks to this delay.
Hopefully they won’t pull a Futurama and give us a whole episode about NFTs.
