‘F—k This, Man.’ Someone Once Asked The South Park Creators How The Show Would End, And They Had The Best Response

In 2011, South Park aired the mid-season finale of its fifteenth season, and I wondered if it was potentially going to be a surprise end to the show. While still featuring fart and poop jokes, "You're Getting Old" showcases a shocking depth about maturing tastes, and I questioned if it was intended as a send-off. This thought ended up being super wrong, as there have been nearly a dozen more seasons since then (not even including specials), but one has to wonder... what does the end of South Park actually look like?

Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the long-running show's creators, addressed that question back in 2015 during an interview with IGN's Podcast Unlocked, and their response was perfectly on-brand. They don't have any kind of grand plan for what the end of South Park looks like; instead, they're basically just waiting for the series to die a natural death. Said Parker,

I think it’s going to end with a fizzle, for sure. I think it’s just going to end with some dud, and we’re gonna go, ‘Fuck this, man!’ and walk away.

South Park has been airing on Comedy Central since 1997, and while distribution has changed greatly since the early years (now, we get six-episode seasons paired with specials made exclusively for Paramount+ subscribers), the show itself has continued doing what it does best: simple animation is mixed with topical discourse and crude, cringe-heavy humor.

With a laugh, Matt Stone added that the decades-spanning series won't be ending with fireworks:

Some sort of whimper. Either drop the mic, get sued, get thrown off cable television.

One can excuse a lack of future planning in part because of how South Park has traditionally been made: unlike most animated shows, episodes are produced as seasons air so that the material can be as relevant to the zeitgeist as possible. Another part of the equation, however, is that the show's creators have always just been waiting for somebody to tell them to stop, and that stop sign has never been manifested. Trey Parker added,

We always thought it. We’ve thought that for 18 years. We’re like, ‘Alright, we’ll they’re gonna, like, they’re going to just fucking cancel us, for sure!’ We’ve been waiting to get cancelled for 18 fucking years!

South Park has been consistently embroiled in controversy since the show premiered, and yet, nothing has ever been so bad that it resulted in cancellation. Given all of the horrific and dark material that has been featured in the series, it's hard to imagine that a line exists for the writers to cross at this point.

At present, fans are continuously waiting for more South Park as we haven't seen new episodes or new specials since May 2024 and the airing of the streaming special South Park: The End Of Obesity.

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Eric Eisenberg is the Assistant Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. After graduating Boston University and earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism, he took a part-time job as a staff writer for CinemaBlend, and after six months was offered the opportunity to move to Los Angeles and take on a newly created West Coast Editor position. Over a decade later, he's continuing to advance his interests and expertise. In addition to conducting filmmaker interviews and contributing to the news and feature content of the site, Eric also oversees the Movie Reviews section, writes the the weekend box office report (published Sundays), and is the site's resident Stephen King expert. He has two King-related columns.