“South Park” is bidding adieu to its short-lived but buzzy Season 27.
The sixth episode of the year, which airs Wednesday on Comedy Central, marks the first episode of Season 28, a spokesperson from the network confirmed to The Times. (The episode will stream on Paramount+ Thursday.)
The reason behind the decision to end Season 27, which was originally expected to have 10 episodes, is unclear. But fans of the long-running satire will still get four additional episodes this year, if “South Park” co-creator Matt Stone and Trey Parker stick to the schedule they outlined. Fans had been speculating about the start of a new season after seeing television listings that coded Wednesday’s episode as the first of Season 28.
The new episode, titled “Twisted Christian,” follows a possessed Cartman, who “may be the key to stopping the Antichrist,” according its brief description. A short teaser also shows the students of South Park Elementary engaging with the viral “67” slang, an essentially meaningless phrase that has taken over Generation Alpha.
The recent episodes have been drawing strong viewership and have, as always, poked fun at topical issues and political figures including President Trump, immigration raids, tariffs and the FCC. Even Paramount, which bought the global streaming rights to “South Park” this summer in a $1.5-billion deal, has been the butt of several jokes.
Season 27 had an unusual cadence of episodes, with the first two arriving on a weekly schedule, then biweekly before the arrival of the most recent episode (and the apparent finale of the season), which aired three weeks later on Sept. 25.
The second episode drew criticism for its parody of Charlie Kirk, the slain political influencer, despite the episode airing weeks before his death. Comedy Central, which is owned by Paramount, announced it will not air reruns of the second episode of the latest season after Kirk was fatally shot Sept. 10 in Utah. The episode can still be found on Paramount+.
The final episode of Season 27 was the first to air after Kirk’s death, but Parker and Stone told the Denver Post the delay was unrelated to its content: “No one pulled the episode, no one censored us, and you know we’d say so if true.” The pair issued a statement on Sept. 17 saying the episode wasn’t finished in time.
Future episodes of “South Park” will air every two weeks through Dec. 10.
Times TV editor Maira Garcia contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON — Bringing prominent White House support to the streets of Washington, Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday visited with National Guard troops at the city’s main train station as protesters chanted “free D.C.” — the latest tense interlude from President Trump’s crackdown in the nation’s capital. “We brought some law and order back,” the vice president asserted.
“We appreciate everything you’re doing,” Vance said as he presented burgers to the troops. Citing the protesters whose shouts echoed through the station, Vance said “they appear to hate the idea that Americans can enjoy their communities.”
The appearance, which also included White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, was a striking scene that illustrated the Republican administration’s intense focus on the situation in Washington and its willingness to promote an initiative that has polarized the Democrat-led city.
An estimated 1,900 troops are being deployed in D.C. More than half are coming from Republican-led states. Besides Union Station, they have mostly been spotted around downtown areas, including the National Mall and Metro stops.
An early morning accident involved an armored vehicle
The intersection of life in the city and a military presence produced another striking scene early Wednesday when an armored vehicle collided with a civilian car less than a mile from the U.S. Capitol. One person was trapped inside the car after the accident and had to be extricated by emergency responders, according to D.C. fire department spokesman Vito Maggiolo. The person was taken to a hospital because of minor injuries.
It was not immediately clear what caused the crash. A video posted online showed the aftermath of the collision, with a tan-colored armored vehicle twice the height of the civilian car with a crushed side.
“You come to our city and this is what you do? Seriously?” a woman yelled at the troops in the video.
Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said more than 550 people have been arrested so far, and the U.S. Marshals are offering $500 rewards for information leading to additional arrests. “Together, we will make DC safe again!” Bondi wrote on social media.
City officials work to navigate the situation
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser, trying to balance the constituency that elected her and the reality in front of her, acknowledged the changing situation in the city as she attended a back-to-school event with teachers and staff.
“This is not the same time, is it, that we experienced in opening school last year,” she said. Bowser said she would worry about the politics and told school employees that “your job is to love on the kids, teach them and make sure that they are prepared and to trust that I’m going to do the right thing for all of us.”
Despite the militarized backdrop, Bowser said it’s important that children “have joy when they approach this school year.” Public schools around Washington reconvene Monday.
The skewer-everyone cartoon TV show “ South Park,” which has leaned into near-real-time satire in recent years, this week made the federal crackdown fodder for a new episode. A 20-second promo released by Comedy Central depicts the character “Towelie” — a walking towel — riding in a bus past the U.S. Supreme Court building and White House, where armed troops are patrolling. A tank rolls by in front of the White House.
“This seems like a perfect place for a towel,” the character says upon disembarking the bus.
“South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone recently signed a reported $1.5-billion, five-year deal with Paramount for new episodes and streaming rights to their series, which began its 27th season this summer.
The season premiere mocked the president’s body in a raunchy manner and depicted him sharing a bed with Satan.
Whitehurst, Brown and Megerian write for the Associated Press. AP writers David Bauder and Michelle Price contributed to this report.
Media giant Paramount Global is trying to avoid a streaming future without Cartman, Stan, Kyle and Kenny.
As Paramount struggles to complete a key merger, the company is in the midst of a protracted negotiation to extend one of its biggest and most important franchises: the long-running foulmouthed cartoon “South Park.”
Paramount’s $900-million overall deal with “South Park” creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker doesn’t expire for another two years. New episodes run first on Paramount’s basic cable network Comedy Central.
But efforts to renew that venture and bring the show to the Paramount+ streaming service have hit a major snag, according to three people familiar with the discussions who were not authorized to speak publicly.
The situation highlights deep tensions and disagreements as a trio of executives try to manage Paramount until the company’s sale to David Ellison’s Skydance Media, which has the right to approve or deny large deals such as the “South Park” pact under covenants made with Paramount.
Paramount leaders are desperate to lock down “South Park’s” streaming rights in the U.S. and abroad. They’ve long been frustrated by a licensing arrangement made six years ago by the previous regime that sent “South Park” to rival HBO Max, owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. That deal expires this month.
“South Park” is one of Paramount’s most important shows. Along with “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,” the four boys and their celebrity-skewering ways put Comedy Central on the map for basic cable viewers, taking on hot-button issues from Scientology and the War on Terror to the royal family and the Trump administration.
During a May earnings call, Paramount co-Chief Executive Chris McCarthy — who runs Paramount’s media networks as well as Showtime and MTV Entertainment Studios — told investors that “South Park” episodes would begin streaming on Paramount+ in July.
However, Paramount hasn’t nailed down the streaming rights to “South Park,” according to the three people familiar with the conversations. Since earlier this year, Paramount has made at least one offer to Parker and Stone as an early extension of their overall deal.
The company also wants to secure rights to stream the 333 episodes of “South Park” on Paramount+.
Some of the knowledgeable people expect “South Park” distribution fees to be valued at more than $200 million a year.
But Skydance hasn’t signed off, believing the deals to be too rich, according to the sources. Paramount executives believe the show is worth the big bucks, given the show’s enduring popularity and legacy.
Representatives for Paramount and Skydance declined to comment.
Hollywood agent Ari Emanuel, whose firm WME represents Parker and Stone, defended Paramount and Skydance’s handling of the situation on Friday by phone.
“Nobody has rejected anything. They are just doing their analysis,” Emanuel told The Times in a brief interview. “We’ve got offers from other distributors. Everybody wants this show.”
Skydance’s $8-billion takeover of Paramount has been in a holding pattern for months as the two companies wait for federal regulators’ approval. Skydance, backed by tech mogul Larry Ellison and RedBird Capital Partners, is eager to take over the storied media company.
They intend to bring increased financial rigor to Paramount’s operations, other sources have said. Paramount and Skydance have told Wall Street the deal will bring $2 billion in cost savings, with half of that coming in the first year.
Deadlines are looming. The new season, the program’s 27th, is scheduled to debut July 9 on Comedy Central.
Unless Paramount strikes a deal with the creators by June 23, the company risks losing the franchise’s streaming rights because Parker and Stone could shop the show to other interested streamers, such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video or Hulu. However, sources cautioned that negotiations could go past the June deadline and that the parties expect a deal to get done.
Represented by their longtime attorney Kevin Morris, who is leading the current negotiations, the duo carved out the internet rights nearly two decades ago. They formed a joint venture with Paramount (then known as Viacom) called South Park Digital Studios. That decision proved highly lucrative for Parker and Stone, also known for the hit Broadway musical “The Book of Mormon.”
Paramount runs the joint venture with Stone and Parker, sharing control of the streaming rights to the show that launched in 1997 on Comedy Central, although the duo can veto streaming deals they find unfavorable.
Companies are typically not supposed to wade too deeply into another firm’s affairs. Federal antitrust laws prohibit so-called gun-jumping, when an acquiring company begins calling the shots before a deal’s official closure. But Paramount agreed to accept Skydance’s input on big-ticket expenditures while the two sides wait for the deal to close.
The “South Park” streaming rights negotiations also have been complicated by a lawsuit brought two years ago by Warner Bros. Discovery. That company accused Paramount of violating terms of its 2019 licensing pact for “South Park,” after Warner paid about $540 million for the show’s streaming rights.
Paramount and the “South Park” creators developed specials featuring the four animated boys in a fictional Colorado mountain town to stream exclusively on Paramount+. Warner argued the move violated its licensing deal. HBO Max declined to comment.
Two years after the HBO Max deal, Paramount struck a new accord with Parker and Stone for $900 million, sealing their partnership and ensuring new episodes of “South Park” would be made. That deal runs to 2027, although Paramount executives have offered to extend that arrangement for several years.
Paramount has long intended to shift the show to Paramount+ as soon as the HBO Max deal expires.
The various parties have long envisioned a scenario where domestic and international rights would be shared by at least two different streaming services. Although neither partner would have exclusive rights, the current trend in television is for studios to maximize revenue to help pay for expensive programs, like “South Park,” while maintaining some streaming rights.
Paramount also has been dealing with another crisis that has been complicated by the Skydance merger. The company has sought to settle President Trump’s $20-billion lawsuit claiming subsidiary CBS News deceptively edited a “60 Minutes” interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris, an allegation CBS denies.
Trump’s case hasn’t been resolved, and the Federal Communications Commission has been slow to review Skydance’s proposed takeover of Paramount, extending the deal review.
The Skydance transaction has been pending at the FCC since last fall, leaving Paramount executives in limbo.
Unlike generations of Mexican children before and after him, actor Pablo Cruz Guerrero didn’t grow up watching the hugely popular sitcoms created by Roberto Gómez Bolaños, the late writer, producer and performer better known as “Chespirito” or “Little Shakespeare.”
It’s a wonder, considering that at peak, Gómez Bolaños’ family-friendly programs were watched by over 300 million people worldwide, and they remain pop culture pillars across Latin America — even in Portuguese-speaking Brazil — 50 years after they first aired.
The programs’ influence also extends to the U.S. among diasporic communities, enduring through reruns that periodically introduce his characters to new viewers. The catchphrases Gómez Bolaños penned have also become ingrained in the vernacular of many countries.
His most popular creation, “El Chavo del Ocho,” centers on an orphan boy (which he played) living in a courtyard apartment complex filled with peculiar neighbors. Then there’s “El Chapulín Colorado,” a satirical take on tights-wearing superheroes, where Gómez Bolaños plays an inept though goodhearted paladin (chapulín means grasshopper in Mexico).
That Cruz Guerrero, 41, wasn’t familiar with these landmark shows or characters is all the more shocking because he’s now embodied Gómez Bolaños in the new bioseries “Chespirito: Not Really on Purpose” (“Chespirito: Sin querer queriendo”), streaming on Max starting Thursday with new episodes weekly.
Pablo Cruz Guerrero stars as Mexican comedic writer, producer and performer Roberto Gómez Bolaños in Max’s “Chespirito: Not Really on Purpose.”
(Max)
The actor’s lack of nostalgic attachment for the universe of physical comedy, wordplay and social commentary that Chespirito created gave him a leg up when auditioning, he believes.
“I want to convince myself that this was the one thing that allowed me to gain objectivity about the story,” he says in Spanish during a recent video call from Mexico City. “Had I been a fan, I would have been ridden with nerves when approaching the character.”
It was casting director Isabel Cortázar who first saw Cruz Guerrero’s potential, and in mid-2023, asked him to audition for the part. “Before receiving her call, I would have never seen myself as Chespirito,” he says. “No one had ever told me before that I looked like him.”
Cruz Guerrero has been consistently acting for over 20 years in films (“El Estudiante,” “From Prada to Nada”) and TV. More recently, he played a memorable antagonist in the second and third seasons of Netflix’s “Luis Miguel: The Series,” another bioseries about the famed Mexican singer played by Diego Boneta.
As to why he didn’t watch Chespirito’s work during his childhood, Cruz Guerrero hypothesizes that because his parents lived in Los Angeles for three years before he and his siblings were born, they were more interested in culture produced outside of Mexico. Instead, they took them to the cinema, to outdoor concerts and museum exhibits.
Ironically, Cruz Guerrero has appeared on several Televisa productions over the years, the same storied network that produced Chespirito’s work.
“In middle school, I had a social and comedic disadvantage because many of my friends knew all of Chespirito’s jokes and imitated the characters’ voices, and I couldn’t follow along,” Cruz Guerrero says.
When offered a chance to vie for the role, he consumed as much Chespirito content as he could find online, whether it was of Gómez Bolaños playing his characters or interviews he gave.
“In middle school, I had a social and comedic disadvantage because many of my friends knew all of Chespirito’s jokes and imitated the characters’ voices, and I couldn’t follow along,” Pablo Cruz Guerrero says.
(Carlos Alvarez-Montero / For The Times)
The arduous audition process required Cruz Guerrero to appear every Tuesday for about seven weeks for a variety of tests. Beyond doing scenes from the episodes of “Chespirito,” each meeting would add more elements that got him closer to Gómez Bolaños: He tried on the costumes, interacted with the actors who would play his children, he shaved his beard and tried on the prosthetic nose, contact lenses and receding hairline required for the role.
And even then, as the weeks dragged on, Cruz Guerrero wasn’t certain he’d be picked, especially after sharing with the family of Gómez Bolaños, who are involved in the production, his neophyte status on everything Chespirito.
“I could read on their faces they were thinking, ‘Are we making the right decision with someone who doesn’t genuinely love our father’s legacy already?’” the actor recalls.
Ultimately, Cruz Guerrero won them over because he was able to closely replicate the mannerisms and voice of the real Chespirito. Gómez Bolaños’ physicality called to mind silent film era icons such as Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton.
“I felt like if I tried to play around with my feet and knees when I walked, not only did I lose a little bit of height to get closer to Roberto’s height, but it also put me in a position to feel a little more playful with my body,” says Cruz Guerrero while wiggling his arms.
Roberto Gómez Fernandez, Chespirito’s son, admits he initially had doubts about Cruz Guerrero. The show had been in the works for about four years at that point, two of which had been spent searching for the right actors to recreate Gómez Bolaños’ world.
Slowly, as Cruz Guerrero refined his performance and the makeup got him closer to Chespirito’s image, Gómez Fernandez became convinced they had found their man.
“I saw my father in him,” says Gómez Fernandez on a recent Zoom chat, “during complex situations in a scene and in a little wink or a glance that Pablo did.”
The family’s approval fueled him. “They would say to me, ‘I just heard my dad through you. I just had a conversation with my dad. I just shook his hand and gave him a hug,” says Cruz Guerrero, who recalls being deeply moved. “That empowered me to feel more in his skin and not feel self-doubt because of my previous distance.”
Once he officially landed the role, Cruz Guerrero immersed himself in Gómez Bolaños’ personal and professional life via his autobiography, “Sin querer queriendo,” which lends the series its title. It functioned as a link between the actor and the creator, who died in 2014.
“I was trying to establish a metaphysical dialogue through the words he had written and edited himself in the book,” Cruz Guerrero says. “I asked him questions, and I feel like we had very beautiful conversations thanks to the book.”
Many of the pointed questions that Cruz Guerrero sought answers to in the text revolved around fatherhood, namely the elusive notion of work-life balance.
“In our careers, there are moments of beautiful enlightenment where you’re creating and having a great time,” he says. “However, you’re also aware that you’re fulfilling a contract, and chasing financial compensation. This means that you’re investing time and energy and you often prioritize the professional instead of being at home and you miss your family.”
That struggle became rather personal for the actor during this process.
“I found out I was going to be a father for the first time the same week I found out I was going to play Roberto,” recalls Cruz Guerrero. “I wanted to absorb knowledge from him about his experience as a father and the experiences I was about to embark on playing him.”
While the series features moments where Cruz Guerrero dons the emblematic attire of Chavo del Ocho and Chapulín Colorado, the focus is on the real man behind them.
Andrea Noli, left, Miguel Islas, Paola Montes de Oca and Pablo Cruz Guerrero in a scene from “Chespirito.” The series is less about the characters Roberto Gómez Bolaños was famous for and more about the real man behind them.
(Max)
The book also served as the foundation for Gómez Fernandez and his sister Paulina to write the episodes’ screenplays. The two are also producers and were involved in every decision about the project.
For Roberto Gómez Fernandez, the challenge was for the series not to become a solemn, saintly tribute to the larger-than-life figure their father was.
“I had to remember that I wasn’t thinking about my dad, but about the character of Roberto Gómez Bolaños,” he says. “They weren’t real-life people because you have to transform them into characters, and sometimes you have to pull some strings to make the dramatic dynamics more effective.”
And yet, despite having fictionalized aspects, Gómez Fernandez believes that the series offers truthfulness about his father’s essence as a person.
“I think we achieved it, but along the way, we had to undress the character’s successes and failures, many of which had consequences in his life,” Gómez Fernandez says. “Some things turned out alright for him, but others went wrong, and he also hurt people.”
It’s not lost on Cruz Guerrero that someone like him, who didn’t previously revere Chespirito’s genius, wound up taking on the task of bringing his story to the screen.
“In moments of fear, insecurity and doubt, I would ask myself, ‘Oh, man, how did I end up here?’ And then it was all resolved with laughter because in front of me I would read the title of the show, ‘Not Really on Purpose,’” he says with a knowing smile.
After more than two decades mostly appearing in supporting roles, Cruz Guerrero is basking in what’s undoubtedly the most important credit of his career so far.
“I’m especially grateful to the family, who chose me to play this beloved character, who is obviously part of their personal story,” Cruz Guerrero says. “I live this moment with great gratitude, so thank you to Roberto Gómez Bolaños.”
