Now that South Park is in the middle of its 15th season on television, and after the spring finale “You’re Getting Old,” there is a lot of speculation circulating that the foul-mouthed fourth graders have reached the beginning of the end.
From a ratings standpoint, even though the animated Wednesday night rock isn’t getting the 3.5 million weekly viewers it used to, it seems Comedy Central will always have a primetime slot for creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone as long as they’re breathing – their contract stipulates they have to keep cranking them out into 2013, whether they like it or not. But if you do some analysis of the mid-season finale – and what South Park episode doesn’t require some analysis? – one can come to the conclusion that Trey and Matt might be yearning for bigger and better challenges.
In “You’re Getting Old,” Stan Marsh turns 10 and suddenly everything he once loved starts to look a lot like, well, ‘shit,’ if you will. Literally: in my favorite scene, Stan goes to a doctor for a medical opinion on why everything is suddenly so un-amusing to him. The doctor holds up two pictures: one supposedly an ad for upcoming Keven James’ film The Zookeeper, and the other a turd in a microwave. Stan sees the same picture twice, which leads to the doctor’s analysis: Stan’s disorder is nothing more than the fact that he’s matured into a ‘cynical a-hole.’ Nothing that Stan does can bring the 10 year-old any enjoyment anymore. This triggers Kenny, Kyle and Cartman to distance themselves from the negative Nancy. The show ends on a montage of downers, with no death from Kenny, no moral learned from Kyle, and no snide remark from Cartman. It’s the only episode in recent memory that ends on such a somber frame, as well as a cliffhanger into the Fall season.
The episode, itself, was essentially 22-minutes of poop and fart jokes –so, not necessarily one of the best of the 200+ episodes in the SP arsenal. In the early seasons of the show, South Park was able to rely on the depth of its potty-mouthed characters to deliver social and political satire. As the show grew up, it had to evolve. With a one week turnaround between conception and air date, the show’s strength was shown through its ability to mock pop culture, trainwrecked celebrities, and trendy products fresh in people’s minds; an episode with young’ns behaving badly just doesn’t have the same punch that it did back in the ’90s, without the Tom Cruise or Mel Gibson trash talk. 
There will always be buttons to press, limits to test, and records to break, but an envelope can’t be pushed after it’s already been shoved over a cliff.
My favorite season could very well be Season 11, which included parodies of 24, the film 300, Guitar Hero, “To Catch a Predator,” Jesus Camp, and included the groundbreaking “Imaginationland” trilogy, as well as the record-setting (and quite shocking) “With Apologies to Jesse Jackson” episode. Since then, some shows have been phenomenal, but the majority merely had their ‘moments,’ and many episodes were downright forgettable. But can you really blame Parker and Stone for the decline in the episode quality? Not many series can claim to have celebrated their 200th episode; hell, most shows struggle to get renewed for a second season.
When you have 6 days to create a 22-minute episode (where most shows have many more than that) you will run into several obstacles. Simply put, there isn’t always something going on in the world worth satirizing. And if you’ve already accomplished just about everything you could possibly do on cable television, with several hit films and a popular Tony-award-winning Broadway musical under your belts, wouldn’t you feel like things are getting old? What’s the ultimate goal? To outlast The Simpsons? There will always be new celebrities, hit films, companies, politicians, and crap reality shows to spoof, but in a world where everything has been done before, how much longer can Parker and Stone tolerate the cable television medium?
Perhaps “You’re Getting Old” marks a turning point for the long-running comedy. Maybe it’s going to be more dramatic and ‘real’ from now on. Maybe it will become more personal and reflective into the thoughts and lives of its creators. After all, there aren’t many words that haven’t yet been bleeped, deaths we haven’t seen, or shock value that’s left for us to absorb after all we’ve been through since August of ’97. When Stan talks about all of the upcoming films, pop music, video games and even food that is “all just shit” in last week’s episode, is it really just Trey being downright serious about his view of pop culture at our disposal, or is it his way of saying South Park isn’t as exciting as it used to be when it was 9 years old?
If you’re a South Park fan like me, you probably got sad as “You’re Getting Old’s” credits rolled without the trademark music, as it’s difficult to picture a world without the show. One can only hope the comedic geniuses can reignite some passion for the show before the Fall season, to find its stride once more. Episodes centered around Randy Marsh’s absurdity, Cartman’s scheming ways, and fresh-in-the-mind celebrity meltdowns will never get old in my book, so long as the fart jokes are kept to a minimum. And with Trey being the musical wizard that he is, some more musical numbers would be gladly welcomed. As long as the show is on air, I’m always going to tune in, expecting the best with the occasional letdown here and there. But at this point, I have more than enough respect for Parker and Stone that they don’t have to wow me every episode for me to keep their work near and dear to my heart; I’ll still love them, old or not.
Watch all 216 episodes here and you determine what South Park has left to tackle and accomplish.
