While I admittedly haven't watched South Park with any regularity for a number of years, I continue to adore and admire the show with an undying affection. I'm not sure any TV series before or since has made me laugh as hard and as often as Trey Parker and Matt Stone's wildly-successful animated satire.
Speaking of which! It's the show's 20th season, do you feel old yet? I certainly do. But I take heart in the fact that we have such a great backlog of episodes to delve and re-delve into –among them some of the most controversial half-hours in TV history.
It shouldn't shock anyone that the majority of the series' most infamous episodes skewered religion, and it's actually pretty impressive just how many different faiths they've managed to offend, from Catholicism to Islam to Scientology. This is also demonstrative of the fact that Parker and Stone have always been equal-opportunity offenders, targeting a broad cross-section of the population for satire, and occasionally outright ridicule, during the show's nearly two-decade run.
Politically, their satire also cuts both ways; rare for tastemakers in liberal-leaning Hollywood, Stone and Parker are just as apt to spoof figures on the left end of the spectrum as they are on the right. As Stone put it once: “I hate conservatives, but I really f***ing hate liberals.” Honest!
To revisit some of South Park's most heated controversies, do yourself a favor and check our filthy-mouthed, outrage-baiting video retrospective above. (Hot Tip: If the thought of an animated Virgin Mary statue spewing blood out of her backside offends you, you probably want to skip this.)