Why South Park’s Riskiest Episode Didn’t End Up Causing A Controversy

Summary South Park's episode with record-breaking profanity surprisingly failed to shock viewers or prompt controversy.

Season 5, episode 1, "It Hits The Fan," aired uncensored despite featuring one swear word 162 times.

The episode highlighted the double standard in TV censorship, comparing comedy and drama acceptance.

Although one episode of South Park seemed precision-engineered to shock viewers, this outing ironically went largely unnoticed upon release. South Park has always been controversial. Since the series began life in 1997, South Park’s ribald satire and tasteless sense of humor have earned the ire of moral guardians the world over. Some of South Park’s worst episodes deserve the criticism they received, like the witless, transphobic season 23, episode 7, “Board Girls.” However, many of the show’s outings shocked viewers solely for the sake of fun. Long before South Park season 27, one such outing backfired.

South Park’s co-creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker were accustomed to controversy by the time the show’s fifth season began. The show was met with outrage when South Park started airing thanks to its gory violence, frequent foul language, and gross-out humor. Although a lot of South Park’s most controversial moments came later in the show’s history, by season 5, there had been calls for the series to be censored and banned. Even South Park’s movie spinoff Bigger Longer and Uncut struggled with the MPAA, with the creators repeatedly resubmitting the movie before they could secure an R rating.

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South Park Season 5 Episode 1’s Profanity Didn’t Shock Viewers

“It Hits The Fan” Featured One Swear Word 162 Times

Ironically, one episode of South Park that seemed destined for infamy failed to shock audiences when it aired. Season 5, episode 1, “It Hits The Fan,” wasn’t the scandal South Park’s creators anticipated despite its record-setting levels of profanity. An episode that focused on television censorship, “It Hits The Fan” featured one swear word 162 times, or an average of once every eight seconds. Despite this, the episode garnered few complaints from Standards and Practices and aired unedited. Stone and Parker were frequently challenged for smaller infractions, but “It Hits The Fan” somehow managed to avoid courting controversy.

Throughout the ‘90s, the once-tight standards of American television censorship had loosened somewhat.

This may have been indicative of the changing norms of television in the early ‘00s. Throughout the ‘90s, the once-tight standards of American television censorship had loosened somewhat and this only became more prevalent in the early ‘00s. Some of South Park’s riskier storylines still shocked viewers, but the show was gaining equally edgy competitors like Family Guy by the time season 5 began. Within a few decades, South Park’s comedy had grown so acceptable that some countries aired dubbed reruns of early episodes as early as 6 pm. As Stone and Parker themselves have noted since, times changed.

Why This South Park’s Episode’s Fate Was So Ironic

South Park’s Creators Anticipated Pushback For Season 5 Episode 1

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It was highly ironic that “It Hits The Fan” didn’t cause any of the controversy that the show’s creators expected since South Park’s sweariest episode was about ridiculous overreactions to real-life TV swearing. In “It Hits The Fan,” the titular town’s denizens find that they can't stop repeating the same offensive word when a TV show features the controversial swear. A moral outrage springs up throughout South Park as the citizens keep spontaneously repeating it, leading to all manner of comedic silliness. This was an obvious parody of common justifications for TV censorship, but the episode aired completely uncensored.

South Park had dealt with countless attempts at censorship over the years, so it makes sense that the show’s creators were familiar with outraged viewer feedback. However, although South Park’s long history is full of controversies and scandals, audiences simply didn’t take the bait this time around. In the DVD commentary for the episode, Parker and Stone noted that Comedy Central executives were equally nonplussed. To their surprise, the network wasn’t sure about a draft of the episode that featured the swear word a handful of times, but approved a draft where it was uttered over 150 times.

The episode did still allow South Park to make a point.

South Park’s Sweariest Episode Highlighted A Real Double Standard

Boundary Pushing Content Gained More Praise In TV Dramas

Custom image by Milica Djordjevic

While “It Hits The Fan” might not have caused as much controversy as its creators may have expected, the episode did still allow South Park to make a point. Shows like NYPD Blue were praised for their grittiness whereas South Park was criticized for its obscenity, leading to the unfair presumption that self-serious drama was inherently more artistically valid than comedy. This understandably irked the show’s creators, so much so that the series which features the offensive word in South Park’s episode is simply titled “Cop Drama.”

This parody allowed South Park’s creators to point out that television viewers and critics alike tended to have two separate sets of rules for comedies and dramas when it came to censorship. Some of South Park’s classic episodes have no meaningful message or point, but “It Hits The Fan” was right to note that giving dramas more leeway from censorship sets a bad precedent. This could be used to silence satirists by claiming their work is frivolous, something South Park’s critics have attempted before and since season 5's sweary premiere.