Trump gets the ‘real face’ treatment in blistering ‘South Park’ satire

President Trump has mocked Stephen Colbert’s cancellation and even sued 60 Minutes. Still, the writers of South Park don’t seem too worried about potentially becoming his next target.

After skipping the 2024 election season, Comedy Central’s long-running animated show is back on air for its 27th season, just in time to cover President Trump’s second term in office.

While the series—whose creators just closed a $1.5 billion streaming deal—has not shied away from mocking pop culture and political figures in the past (previous iterations of Trump as president include Mr. Garrison, a schoolteacher who later runs for president against Hillary Clinton and wins), the creators are directly targeting the current president this season, going so far as using his real face in place of their traditional animated renderings.

In a short 22 minutes, the episode touched on some of the most controversial recent events in the past few weeks, including tariffs on Canada, the Jeffrey Epstein case, the Paramount-Skydance merger, and CBS’s cancellation of The Late Show. To top it off, a scene of the naked president features a small penis (albeit a cartoon one), twisting the knife even more.

Comedy Central, the cable TV channel on which the series airs, is owned by Paramount Global.

Real-life faces are back

Skipping a caricaturized version of the president, South Park opted to use a real image of Trump, cut open like a marionette when speaking, although the artistic choice is famously not new.

In the past, the show has opted for real-life-picture cutouts of certain celebrities and public figures—including some infamous ones. The series website describes such portrayals as “more of a personal decision” from the show’s creators.

According to fan roundups collected online, the celebrities and public figures who have been featured with their real-life cutouts include Ben Affleck, Tony Danza, Christina Aguilera, Jeffrey Dahmer, Gene Siskel, Princess Diana, Adolf Hitler, Walter Matthau, Allen Ginsberg, Tiny Tim, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, John F. Kennedy, John F. Kennedy Jr., Mao Zedong, Michael Landon, Jerry Garcia, Saddam Hussein, Mel Gibson, Jimmy Stewart, George Burns, and now, notably, Donald Trump.

In addition to bringing back the marionette-like real-life cutout, the show also revived its in-bed-with-Satan trope. Trump is pictured undressing before climbing into bed with the Devil, an apparent ode to the show’s 1999 film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, which featured Saddam Hussein in a similar situation.

Not everyone is happy about the episode

While many users on social media have praised South Park‘s season debut, those in support of the president seem less content with the episode.

“South Park has gone woke. They must go broke,” reads a typical response on X.

As expected, the current administration is also not delighted with the show’s creative direction. Taylor Rogers, a White House spokesperson, told Entertainment Weekly that the “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.”

Trump has yet to directly respond to the episode.