SOUTH PARK PREMIERES THIS FALL WITH FEWER EPISODES…HERE IS WHY THAT IS A GOOD THING

South Park is set to return to Comedy Central with all new episodes starting September 25 probably @ 10pm EST. After years of South Park making one season  with 14 episodes and splitting it in half over the course of the year, the creators will instead give us 10 brand new episodes. After the jump we tell you why this is all good…

Do me a favor…look at our list of the best animated series as of June 2012, and then the revised list circa December. Got it? Good. Now look at South Park on both lists. Notice anything?? Yes, South Park was the best animated series of the year the first 6 months into the 2012 year, and then the show ended up as the number 3 best show by the year’s end. Why? Well, oftentimes I couldn’t help but notice Matt Stone and Trey Parker going back to the well a few too many times for plots using devices that have become a bit too cliche. Episodes featured run of the mill stuff like ‘Cartman does something wrong and Kyle has to stop him’ or ”Randy overreacts to something”. This could be as a result of a number of things like doing a shit ton of writing for episodes week after week all the while having to promote a smash-hit Broadway Show. You see, when most producers get a TV show successful they hire a bunch of writers to do different episodes, South Park doesn’t do it that way. At the end of the day, all 16 Seasons have been written by TWO guys…Matt Stone and Trey Parker.  Let’s face it, we writers get a block and when you have a deadline you’ll do what you have to meet it. Think of it like a toothpaste bottle and getting to the last little bit to the point where you just get a pair of scissors and cut off the top so that you can just scrape your toothbrush on the insides…THAT’S writer’s block.  It happens, we are all human.

Don’t get me wrong, I love South Park and 2012 laid claim to some of the series’ BEST episodes like ‘Obama Wins‘ and ‘A Scause for Applause’ but I also believe in the theory of quality versus quantity so I do think going from 14 episodes to 10 episodes will be a good thing in the long run as the Comedy Central mainstay finishes out its contract.  Hell, even Matt Stone in an interview with the Times corroborated this idea:

“Why did we do seven and seven to begin with?” he said. “We just sort of made that up. And we are switching to 10 for the same reason. It just sounded like a good number, and we won’t break up the year so we can more easily do other stuff.”

Let’s not forget that the guys had to do a whole bunch with the South Park game and that Matt Stone and Trey Parker have recently opened a new studio to work on other projects. Take all this into consideration and you can see why a single season of 10 episodes of South Park is a good thing.  The one other thing I took away from the premier date for the 17th Season of South Park is that the show is timed with the premiers of a bunch of new animated shows on Comedy Central, including Gajillionaires, Trip Tank, and a second season of the smash-hit series Brickleberry.  Also, lets not forget that Futurama is set to return this summer and that usually runs into the end of August sometimes a couple weeks into September. Oh yea, and Beavis and  Butthead, anyone??

Would love to hear some comments as to whether or not you think South Park is still going strong after all of these years…