Is South Park getting cancelled? Missed episode, explained

South Park fans were left disappointed as no new episode aired on Wednesday, September 17, 2025 night, breaking their usual weekly viewing routine and delaying the latest installment of the animated series. Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the show's creators, admitted earlier on the same day that they didn't finish the episode on time and that "this one's on us." 

They thanked fans and the network for "being so understanding," adding,

“Apparently when you do everything at the last minute, sometimes you don’t get it done.”

The duo uploaded the postponement announcement on social media platforms, including Instagram.

The show will continue to air on the upcoming Wednesday, September 24, 2025. The showrunners have recently agreed to make 50 episodes of their well-liked satirical cartoon for Paramount, reportedly for a total of $1.5 billion.

Recent controversies surrounding South Park season 27

It’s the question on everyone’s mind! pic.twitter.com/9ZYTpSeTwa

— South Park (@SouthPark) September 4, 2025

As is customary for South Park, season 27 has hit the ground running when it comes to satirizing real-world incidents and creating controversies. The show criticized President Donald Trump and Paramount in its debut episode under the new agreement, which aired in July. 

It made fun of the President's lawsuit against the studio over an interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris during the 2024 presidential election. Ahead of their planned merger with Skydance, Paramount caved and reached a $16 million settlement with Trump.   

The famous late-night show hosted by Stephen Colbert was canceled shortly after the settlement was made public. Colbert had regularly used his CBS program, which is owned by Paramount, to attack Trump, as many pointed out. The FCC approved the SkyDance merger weeks later.

The entire shenanigan was parodied in South Park’s season debut, which featured a plot where Donald Trump sues the town for $5 billion and Jesus advises residents to settle.

"You guys saw what happened to CBS? Yeah, well, guess who owns CBS? Paramount,” Jesus Christ says at the end of the episode. “Do you really want to end up like Colbert?”

South Park drew scrutiny after the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, as a recent episode showed Eric Cartman mimicking Kirk’s appearance and speech style while hosting a parody podcast.

Kirk had described being on the show as a "badge of honor" and expressed his enjoyment of the parody to Fox News. He claimed to have known about the show throughout his life and to be eager to see it.

"They seem to be an equal opportunity offender,"  Kirk told. "I mean look, they're going to obviously make fun of me ... but I think it's kind of funny." 

After Kirk's passing, Paramount removed the episode from "South Park" reruns, according to Deadline.

Instagram commenters speculated that the postponed South Park episode was already completed but creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone changed plans and rewrote it because of recent events.

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