South Park’s bizarre transition from a traditional TV show that puts out more than six episodes a year into a more sporadic “event” series has largely been a consequence of external factors—most notably the big, complicated, and very ugly legal battle still being waged between Paramount, South Park Digital Studios, and Max owners Warner Bros. over who gets exclusive access to which of the show’s latest “episodes.” The upshot for us, though, is that the long-running series can kind of sneak up on you sometimes, meaning that something like the new trailer for South Park: Joining The Panderverse, released earlier today, can hit you with no time for preparation and, woof, yeah, this one is a lot.
The basic gimmick, at least from the teaser, is that the South Park boys have been replaced with adult women of color, in what may, or may not, be some kind of nightmare that Cartman is having. (That’s according to the official plot synopsis, which reveals that the episode will also be tackling AI, which the show’s recent 26th season also tackled with an episode whose script was partially credited to ChatGPT.) The Spider-Man-referencing title suggests that the show will be offering its take on increasing calls for diversity in mainstream media (or at least allegations that said calls are cynically exploited by studios to make money), and, hey, do you get these pounding headaches in the front of your skull while watching this stuff? We get these pounding headaches, in the front of our skull.
Anyway, the really important thing to remember here is that this is not a new South Park episode, movie, or special, because all of those words would get Paramount+ in even more legal trouble than it’s already in. This is an exclusive event, which will event exclusively on Friday, October 27.