Here’s Why Trump Respects ‘South Park,’ According to This Comedian
Donald Trump always has a nasty thing to say about the comedians who ridicule him. His Truth Social account is littered with examples. On Jimmy Kimmel: “His ‘talent’ was never there. Why would they want someone back who does so poorly, who’s not funny, and who puts the Network in jeopardy by playing 99% positive Democrat GARBAGE.”On Stephen Colbert: “I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings.”
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On Seth Meyers: “His ‘show’ is a Ratings DISASTER. Aside from everything else, Meyers has no talent, and NBC should fire him, IMMEDIATELY!”On Jimmy Fallon: “Fallon will be gone. These are people with absolutely NO TALENT, who were paid Millions of Dollars for, in all cases, destroying what used to be GREAT television.”But what about South Park? No comedy show has been more brutal to our sitting president, and yet, that Truth Social account is strangely silent about his animated doppelganger. Why doesn’t Trump punch back with equal fury?
It may have something to do with that $1.5 billion Matt Stone and Trey Parker recently scored to make more South Park episodes, guesses comedian Patton Oswalt. “Nothing shuts Trump up like money,” Oswalt said this week on the Last Laugh podcast. “He can argue that Stephen Colbert isn’t getting the ratings and isn’t making the money, even though the show is brilliant.”“South Park, not only does it make an insane amount of some money, it gets insane ratings,” Oswalt said. “And Trump can only be so angry at that, because what Trump ultimately will respect, even if it doesn’t respect him, is something where the numbers are through the roof, and the money is through the roof.”“Bad ratings!” is one of Trump’s go-to insults, a slap that harkens back to his The Apprentice days when Nielsen numbers ruled. But, said Oswalt, “it’s not that Stephen Colbert is slipping in the ratings, it’s that the whole infrastructure of late-night television is slipping.” In the streaming era, ratings are less relevant, though no one seems to have told Trump.
It doesn’t matter how cutting the satire is on South Park, or how brilliant the jokes can be on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. Those aren’t Trump’s metrics for success. “All he can think of in terms of, look at this guy’s numbers, look at their numbers, and that’s the only way he sees the world,” Oswalt says. “So something that is as massive and as undeniable as South Park, both in quality, which people like you and I can see, but then in numbers and money, which Trump can see, he just falls silent.”It’s a good thing for Trump that late-night ratings will never climb to their previous heights. “If Colbert was making South Park money and getting South Park eyes on him,” Oswalt noted, “Trump wouldn’t know what to do.”
