‘South Park’s Black Friday Arc Was Inspired by a Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s Real Frustration With This Show
Black Friday was never quite the bloodbath that news outlets have made it out to be – but that didn’t stop South Park from turning the capitalist pseudoholiday into an epic battle back in season 17.The three episode-long arc found the town of South Park going berserk over new video game consoles and the much-coveted “Stop Touching Me Elmo” doll.
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While the climatic box store fight incorporated real life news footage of Black Friday sales, the show’s primary satirical target was Game of Thrones, which was in its third season at the time. In addition to the fact that the core group of boys spend their days pretending to be GoT characters, Randy takes a seasonal job as a mall security guard, which turns out to be a Night’s Watch-esque order led by a grizzled, scarred commander.
As Trey Parker and Matt Stone revealed on the episode’s DVD commentary, this storyline began as a way to recycle cut jokes from the South Park: The Stick of Truth video game, which was similarly centered around the boys’ fantasy cosplay. “We actually ended up using really nothing that was thrown out from the video game because this just became… totally its own idea.”
And the Game of Thrones elements, it seems, were borne out of the duo’s genuine annoyance with the HBO series. “We had talked (for) a long time about doing a Game of Thrones thing,” Parker said, noting that they were fans of the show while “also being frustrated by it.”“At the end of season one it’s just like, ‘Oh now there are these little baby dragons, well I’m definitely watching season two because I want to see what they do,’” Parker explained. “And then getting to the end of season two and going, ‘Ok, they’re really – okay, they’re still coming.’ And also, ‘Oh the zombies are coming.’ And then getting to season three and then going, ‘Okay, well the dragons are still coming and the zombies are still coming.’ It’s starts to feel a little bit like Lost, where it’s like, ‘you don’t even know what the fuck’s going on do you?’”Stone only watched the show because Parker recommended it. “I really liked it. And then I was like, ‘Oh these dragons, that’s pretty fucking sweet. I want to see what’s coming up in season two.’ And then Trey’s like ‘No, they're not really (in it).’”
Stone also pointed out that South Park routinely makes fun of “new blockbuster movies that sacrifice story and character and real drama and real ideas and real emotions so they could more and bigger special effects in,” but on the other hand, Game of Thrones “goes so far the other way, where it’s just a big soap opera and there’s no special effects, you’re like, ‘Put some fucking dragons (in), man.’
“C’mon dragons or zombies. One of them,” Parker agreed. These gripes are what led the pair to write author George R.R. Martin into the show, promising Butters pizzas that never ever arrive. “That was actually the first stuff we came up with,” Parker recalled. Based on the timing of the episode’s airdate, they decided to tether the parody to the town’s November shopping madness. “Black Friday sounds like something out of Game of Thrones,” Stone reasoned. “I mean, it sounds like some kind of foreboding thing.”
Of course, Game of Thrones ultimately did deliver on the dragons and zombies in its final seasons. But a lot of people are still waiting for that one big pizza George R.R. Martin promised everyone.
