South Park co-creator Matt Stone said it wasn’t censorship that caused the delay in the release of Season 27, Episode 5, which was supposed to air on Sept. 17.
Stone, along with South Park co-creator Trey Parker, has used Season 27 as a platform to lampoon President Donald Trump, his policies, members of his administration and his MAGA supporters throughout the first four episodes of the Comedy Central series, which returned to the cable channel on July 23.
In addition to mocking Trump, Season 27 Episode 1 also leaned into Paramount Global with criticism over how CBS’ Late Show with Stephen Colbert was canceled and would be wrapping up in 2026.
Episode 2, which was released Aug. 3, poked fun at Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Vice President JD Vance and conservative activist and podcaster Charle Kirk.
After Kirk’s assassination on a Utah college campus on Sept. 10, Comedy Central pulled the episode from its cable lineup, but it remains on Paramount+. In the aftermath of Kirk’s assassination, ABC talk show host Jimmy Kimmel said during his Sept. 15 show, “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”
The controversial comments got Kimmel’s talk show pulled from the air indefinitely, leading to cries of censorship throughout the entertainment industry. On Monday, the Walt Disney Company, which owns ABC, announced that Kimmel’s show would return to the air on Tuesday.
While Parker and Stone issued a note over social media on Sept. 17 over why the release of Episode 5 was being postponed for a week, a nagging question in the media over whether South Park was being targeted for censorship was addressed by Stone.
“No one pulled the episode, no one censored us, and you know we’d say so if true,” Stone told The Denver Post on Friday. “We just didn’t get it done. When you always cut it close, sometimes you mess up. That’s the price of being a procrastinator.”
Stone’s comment to The Denver Post is basically an extension of the note he and Parker posted on the show’s X account on Sept. 17, which reads, “Apparently when you do everything at the last minute sometimes you don’t get it done. This one’s on us. We didn’t get it done on time. Thanks to Comedy Central and South Park fans for being so understanding. Tune in next week!”
What ‘South Park’ Season 27, Episode 5 Is Going To Be About Is Unknown
There’s no question that all eyes will be on South Park Season 27, Episode 5 and whether it will continue its comedic skewering of President Donald Trump, et al., or take a week off from any political commentary.
At least through Monday evening, South Park’s X account hasn’t been updated since the note about the postponement of the Sept. 17 episode was posted. In all likelihood, the account will drop either a video teaser promo and/or a couple of images from the new episode on Tuesday and/or Wednesday at the latest, as it has prior to Episodes 1 through 4.
South Park Season 27 got underway on July 23 after Parker and Stone signed a $1.5 billion deal with Paramount Global. Part of the deal Parker and Stone made with the company was to produce 50 more episodes of South Park over the next five years.
Additionally, the deal called for the previous 26 seasons of South Park to move from HBO Max— where they’ve been housed for the last five years— to Paramount+.
South Park Season 27, Episode 5 will premiere on cable on Comedy Central on Wednesday night and will begin streaming on Paramount+ early Thursday.
