TV REVIEW
How South Park Used ChatGPT to Help Write an Episode
The show that changes with the times
South Park is a show like no other. Where so many shows and cartoons seem almost to exist outside of time, South Park stays rooted in the moment. That’s not to say, of course, that the children have actually aged. Apart from graduating from third to fourth grade, they’ve remained 10-year-olds as they’ve confronted everything from climate change to religion, to politics, to a giant mechanized Barbara Streisand.
In their near-perpetual commitment to the issues of the moment, the writers of the show have essentially boxed themselves in. To work within those restrictions, though, grants the show an ability to speak to current day issues in a way few non-news shows have even attempted.
The latest episode addressed ChatGPT, and it stands as a crowning example of what makes South Park so very brilliant. When COVID happened, South Park was there with an episode to make light of one of humanity’s darkest years in a century. When 9/11 happened, they were the first cartoon to comedically address the events of the day. To see South Park’s takes on some of the most momentous events of the last two and a half decades has always been entertaining, if nothing else. But at best, the long-running satire is able to offer…
