Unfortunately the old adage “Trump is good for TV,” remains true. Whether it’s Epstein drama or threatening to pull late-night hosts off air, Trump has been the source of can’t-miss television. The same goes for the debut episode of South Park’s 27th season, according to new streaming data.
The Mirror reports that viewership for the show jumped by 258 percent following the release of the first episode on Paramount+. Across platforms, it was the number one show, beating out Untamed, The Osbournes and The Summer I Turned Pretty — I’m not sure if you’re clocked into The Summer I Turned Pretty, but the show is so successful it can afford Taylor Swift songs for the soundtrack. In this context, coming in at the top spot is pretty impressive, made more noteworthy by how well South Park is performing in comparison to previous seasons.
And while the average South Park fan’s enthusiasm for the show can’t be dismissed when it comes to this major jump in ratings, the real increase in viewers likely came from the subject matter and the response to it. Namely: In the first episode, titled “Sermon on the ‘Mount,” a tiny-dicked Trump ran around naked and bloated, trying to screw Satan.
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The material on its own was enough to draw in Trump haters. How cathartic it is to watch a man ruining everyone’s lives on a daily basis be portrayed as a small, tantrum-throwing man getting sexually rejected by the literal devil. South Park produced some of the most relevant and truly scathing comedy against our Diet Coke-loving tyrant, and it felt really good to watch someone take a long overdue “when they go low, we go lower” approach to him.
But as good as the jokes were, I don’t think Trey Parker and Matt Stone can really take credit for the great ratings. Unfortunately, this credit goes to Trump. In reaction to the show’s initial release, the White House released a statement saying, in part: “This show hasn’t been relevant for over 20 years and is hanging on by a thread with uninspired ideas in a desperate attempt for attention.”
After calling South Park irrelevant the statement went on to add: “President Trump has delivered on more promises in just six months than any other president in our country’s history — and no fourth-rate show can derail President Trump’s hot streak.”
The dubiousness of that statement aside, it seems like the world’s worst media strategy to directly name and address a television show in an official White House statement if you don’t want people paying attention to said show. By bothering to address it at all, Trump made it a story that media outlets like MSNBC, The Guardian and The New York Times had to cover. It cemented “Sermon on the ‘Mount” as essential viewing for the entire nation, not something your cousin might make you watch clips of on his phone.
Congratulations Trump, now 258 percent more people looked at your tiny pee-pee.
