South Park Laying Off of Donald Trump in New Season

After an entire season of riffing on, satirizing, lampooning and skewering candidate Donald Trump and then President-elect Trump, Trey Parker and Matt Stone are saying that they’re gonna lay off the Donald for South Park’s 21st season.

In an interview with Australia’s ABC News, Parker and Stone bemoaned that Trump getting elected made it more difficult to craft biting satire, and that real life is now funnier than anything going on in Cartman’s life.

“We were really trying to make fun of what was going on [last season] but we couldn’t keep up,” said Parker. “What was actually happening was way funnier than anything we could come up with. So we decided to just back off and let [politicians] do their comedy and we’ll do ours.” He later added, “They’re going out and doing the comedy. They’re already doing it, so it’s not like something you can make fun of,” while Stone said, “We’re having our head blown off like everybody else.”

Still, the new season doesn’t start for months, so the duo could change their minds since South Park does so often fly by the seat of its pants. Considering how topical the show has always been, it’s tough to imagine politics not slithering into a few episodes. If they could make childhood HIV, global warming, Saddam Hussein and pedophilia funny, they can probably mine a little more comedy gold out of the current administration.

You can read an excellent feature from Paste contributor Zach Blumenfeld about the increased topicality and decreased comedy in South Park season 20 here, and watch Parker and Stone’s ABC interview here.