Although South Park pokes fun at everyone and everything, it's still impressive to see one of the show's funniest holiday specials poke fun at its own origins. Waiting for South Park The Season 27 release date was exceptionally long, but there's a justification for that. South ParkCo-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone said Vanity Fair that they didn't have any new, funny satirical take on the 2024 election, so they chose to stay out of the news cycle and pick up in 2025. That may have been a little disappointing, but it wasn't unheard of.
South ParkThe film's creators centered several episodes around their real-life creative struggles. The premise of Season 8 Episode 11, “Quest for Ratings,” came from the pair running out of ideas for the show while working on Team America: World Policewhile Season 15 Episode 7, “You're Getting Old,” was a poignant acknowledgment of the show's shift in style and tone. It remains to be seen whether South Park Season 27's Donald Trump parody will reference the show's creators running out of ideas for political satire, but a classic Christmas special bodes well in that regard.
South Park Season 4 Christmas Special Mocked “The Spirit of Christmas”
The show started as an animated Christmas e-card
Season 4, Episode 17, “A Very Crappy Christmas” finds the South Park boys creating a show that is suspiciously similar to South Park in a bawdy parody of the show's real-life beginnings. South Park originated from a short film that Stone and Parker made in 1992 and later remade in 1995, titled “The Spirit of Christmas.” Both versions of the short featured Santa Claus battling Jesus Christ, but it was the second, more polished effort that became one of the Internet's first viral videos in 1995. A phenomenally popular e-card, “The Spirit of Christmas” spawned South Park.
“The Spirit of Christmas” led Comedy Central to pick up South Parkpilot in 1997.
The show's tasteless humor, copious blood and profanity, and social satire are evident even in this initial short, but everything else is a bit unfamiliar. Although most of the gang appears and Kenny is even killed, the main characters' voices are notably different and their personalities are not yet well defined. Although later South Park Christmas specials would be much more polished and elegant, “The Spirit of Christmas” even led Comedy Central to catch on South Parkpilot in 1997. This event is hilariously parodied in “A Very Crappy Christmas” by the gang's short film.
“A Very Crappy Christmas” shows how much South Park has changed
Everything from Cartman's voice to South Park's animation is different
In “A Very Crappy Christmas,” Mr. Hankey does not appear and remind everyone about the spirit of Christmas as he had in previous years. Taking matters into their own hands, the South Park boys set about making a Christmas special to remind the town's inhabitants what the season is all about. Of course, their special is titled “The Spirit of Christmas” and is done with cut-out animation, and the clips from the short that viewers see at the end of the episode are lifted directly from Stone and Parker's second short.
However, South ParkThe Christmas episode of doesn't stop there. South Park mocked its own production process pointing out the inefficiency and difficulty of working with cut animation and having Stan dub Cartman's voice, a nod to the character's voice change between the short and the series proper. Stan and Kyle also ship the half-finished short to South Korea so they don't have to complete the animation themselves, a joke about the industry's dependence on labor from that market. By doing this, South Park pointed out how many changes the show made between the original short and season 4.
“A Very Crappy Christmas” also parodied South Park’s first Christmas special
Hankey returned for a brutal reunion
As if poking fun at the show's humble origins wasn't enough, South Park also spoofed its first Christmas episode in “A Very Crappy Christmas.” In Season 1, Episode 9, the infamous “Mr. Hankey, the Christmas poop,” Kyle met a talking turd who gently reminded him and the rest of South Park about the meaning of Christmas after Kyle's Judaism left him feeling left out during the holiday. “A Very Crappy Christmas” revealed that Mr. Hankey has fallen on hard times since debuting on the series.
Even South Park's previous Christmas episodes aren't safe from the show's satirical barbs.
From his despondent children to his alcoholic wife, Mr. Hankey's life is in a dark place when “A Very Crappy Christmas” begins. Of course, by the end of the episode everything will be resolved, but the opening joke is a hilarious reminder that even South ParkThe previous Christmas episodes themselves are not safe from the show's satirical barbs. In the merciless world of South Parkeven the show's origins and its previous Christmas episodes can be mocked mercilessly for the sake of festive fun.
Source: Vanity Fair