'South Park' Joke Accidentally Led To Hundreds Of Misdialed Calls

Over its 23 seasons, South Park has never shied away from calling out real people out by name, taking them to task for perceived misdeeds. (They also sometimes use their powers to help those in need.) But a gag on their latest episode one innocent party to be grossly inconvenienced.

It all went down during “Basic Cable,” the penultimate episode of their most recent season. As per The Hollywood Reporter, an in-show commercial asked viewers to call a certain Colorado phone number, imploring streaming services to contact South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone about acquiring the rights “The Scott Malkinson Show,” as well as other fake programs within the 23rd season. Sure enough, intrepid viewers who jumped to their phones were rewarded with a message from Parker, offering up said shows.

Alas, humanity isn’t perfect. Many people misdialed, and misdialed in the same way. An unidentified Colorado resident said the number was unfortunately close to his or her work number.

“Over the past two days, I have gotten 200+ phone calls and people leaving me random messages,” the FB post reads. “We just figured out the connection today when one of the guys that called actually engaged in conversation instead of giggling like a teenage girl and hanging up.”

The South Park team caught wind of the mix-up, and made sure to remind people of the correct number.