South Park’s new season debuted with jokes about CBS, the “Epstein list,” and Trump literally in bed with Satan, in a screamingly bold shot at its parent company. The episode, which aired just days after Paramount renewed the show for a reported $1.5 billion, could create fresh headaches for Skydance, which still needs federal approvals for its takeover of Paramount.
In the episode, Trump sues the town of South Park for $5 billion and #resistance townspeople are urged to settle by a cartoon Jesus Christ. “You guys saw what happened to CBS?” Jesus says. “Do you really want to end up like Colbert?” (The late-night talk show was canceled last week, a move that the network attributed to low ratings but that critics have interpreted as a retreat from edgier political humor.)
The town settles for $3.5 million and promises to run some pro-Trump PSAs, a better financial deal than CBS cut when it paid $16 million to settle Trump’s $10 billion claim over its editing of a 60 Minutes segment. It’s John Oliver’s running AT&T “business daddy” gag, but with higher stakes.