From the minds of Trey Parker and Matt Stone, utilizing construction paper and crass comedy, South Park has become a definitive and polarizing pillar of modern comedy television, following the misadventures of four boys in the Colorado town of South Park, and the colorful characters they encounter along the way. Spanning back to 1997, the series has produced a staggering 26 seasons (and counting) throughout its run, securing 18 Emmy Awards from 92 nominations in that time, and producing many brilliant seasons of comedy television.
South Park is almost always at its best when it blends scorching social commentary with an irreverent love of crude humor to hit the hard-at-home truths of American society in the most offensive and controversial ways possible. From early seasons loaded with faultless episodes taking aim at celebrities and entertainment, to more recent seasons with overarching political stories, these are the best South Park seasons, ranked.
South Park
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Release Date August 13, 1997 Cast Trey Parker , Matt Stone , April Stewart , Mona Marshall Seasons 26 Studio Comedy Central 13 Season 15 (2011)
Number of episodes: 14
Season 15 of South Park is noted by fans to be more introspective than previous seasons, as it takes a look at the show's impact on the fans and the world. A noteworthy episode in the season is "You're Getting Old," following Stan as he turns ten and starts seeing everything around him as literal crap. The scene of Stan's parents' separation, needle dropped by Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide," is a stark departure from the show's usual comedic chaos.
Despite its introspective tone, the laughs are still plentiful in Season 15. "The Last of the Meheecans" finds the boys playing a border patrol game that hilariously spirals into a biting social commentary on immigration. The episode masterfully balances humor and sharp wit, with Butters' absurd transformation into "Mantequilla" becoming an instant fan favorite. This episode exemplifies South Park at its best — equal parts outrageous and thought-provoking.
12 Season 3 (1999)
Number of episodes: 17
By the time Season 3 of South Park premiered in 1999, the show had already solidified its reputation as a groundbreaking animated series. Season 3 continued the show's trajectory of irreverent humor and satirical flair, driving the momentum of the previous season. A particularly memorable episode is "Rainforest Shmainforest," which sees the boys joining a choir group and flying to Costa Rica. The episode is a satirical take on environmental activism and cultural ignorance, with its unforgettable musical number, "Don't Cut Down the Rainforest."
"Sexual Harassment Panda" is another gem from Season 3. It takes a look at the issue of sexual harassment in schools by introducing a mascot named Sexual Harassment Panda and looking at the subsequent legal battles. The episode's humor and relevance resonate even today, which goes to show how timeless South Park is.
11 Season 7 (2003)
Number of episodes: 15
In Season 7, Kenny, the gang’s perpetually doomed friend, returns from his cosmic hiatus. His absence in Season 6 left fans clutching their Cheesy Poofs in existential despair. Culturally, South Park was a reflection of the early 2000s, a time marked by political upheaval and rapid technological advancements. The show mirrored these changes, often skewering the absurdities of contemporary life.
One of the most celebrated episodes from Season 9 is "Casa Bonita." The South Park episode follows Cartman's elaborate scheme to secure an invitation to Kyle's birthday party at the beloved Mexican restaurant Casa Bonita. A masterclass in character-driven comedy, the episode highlights Cartman's manipulative nature. It climaxes in an unforgettable scene where he finally arrives at Casa Bonita, his dream destination, only to be immediately apprehended.
10 Season 6 (2002)
Number of episodes: 17
The earliest seasons of South Park featured an overabundance of toilet humor and corporeal comedy, which does continue to be defining of the series' tastes, but there was a definite maturing in the writing and the manner in which it targeted the subjects it satirized. Season 6 looms as the precipice of this evolution, maintaining South Park's gross-out comedy and shock value gags, but also boasting some of the series' most downright brilliant episodes.
"The Simpsons Already Did It" has a refreshing self-awareness as the creators parody their own genre and acknowledge the genealogy the show both belongs to and skews away from. "The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers" was a hilarious classic that remains one of South Park's highest-rated episodes, while "Bebe's Boobs Destroy Society" humorously explores the challenges of growing up. Season 6 also marked the first appearance of Butters' now famous alter-ego, Professor Chaos.
9 Season 10 (2006)
Number of episodes: 14
While a bit of a mixed bag, Season 10 of South Park undeniably features many episodes that exhibit the scathing social commentary of the series in fine form. Making fun of self-aggrandizing virtue signalers, "Smug Alert" was a popular entry that has remained relevant over the years while the award-winning "Make Love Not Warcraft" dealt with the potentially dangerous appeal of online gaming in a way that makes it one of the series' most beloved installments.
Other popular episodes include "Hell on Earth 2006", which saw Satan throw a Halloween party documented on an episode of MTV's My Super Sweet 16, and the two "Cartoon Wars" episodes taking aim at fellow animated comedy Family Guy without missing a beat. Additionally, it also featured some of South Park's surprisingly wholesome moments across its 14-episode run.
8 Season 9 (2005)
Number of episodes: 14
Not dissimilar to Season 10, South Park's ninth season is defined by its greatest and most daring episodes. It saw the series rise to a new level of controversy with the twelfth episode, "Trapped in the Closet," which followed Stan, who with his remarkably high "thetan" levels, is accepted into the Church of Scientology and revered as the reincarnation of L. Ron Hubbard. Despite the religion-centered South Park episode generating significant backlash and even resulting in long-time star Isaac Hayes leaving the series, it has come to be viewed as a true classic within the series.
Season 9 also contains such great episodes as the Emmy-winning "Best Friends Forever" and "The Death of Eric Cartman", another heralded South Park classic which ranks highly on IMDb's user rating system. Overall, the season is celebrated as one of South Park's best for its unrelenting endeavor to take real-world issues of the time and flip them inside out with the show's trademark sense of irreverent, pointed comedy.
7 Season 13 (2009)
Number of episodes: 14
A constant target of South Park's satire over the years has been celebrity personalities and the entertainment industry at large. Few seasons have been as sharp in this regard as Season 13, with episodes like the premiere, "The Ring," which mocks The Jonas Brothers' purity rings and depicts Disney as being led by a foul-mouthed and greedy Mickey Mouse. However, the South Park episode that mocked a celebrity, "Fishsticks," is the defining episode of the season, unapologetically deriding Kanye West who misses the punchline of a talk show joke that becomes a national sensation.
Other notable episodes from the season include "The Coon" which parodies superhero drama as it follows Cartman's eponymous and problematic vigilante, "The F Word" which tackles the way offensive language is viewed and used in the modern day, and "Pinewood Derby" which brilliantly depicts the dangers of human greed. A season that honed in on contemporary American culture to great effect, South Park's 13th season has come to be viewed as one of its best.
6 Season 14 (2010)
Number of episodes: 14
Defined by the episodes "200" and "201" - a banned two-episode South Park arc that remains the single most controversial chapter in the show's history - Season 14 represents Parker and Stone pushing the boundaries to the absolute limit. Featuring 200 celebrity personalities the series had ridiculed before, the arc progresses as Tom Cruise, having been called a "fudge packer" by Stan, gathers other aggrieved stars to bring a class action lawsuit against the town of South Park, with the follow-up episode famously causing a stir when it depicted the prophet Muhammad.
Other noteworthy installments include "Sexual Healing," which addresses the way the world responds to rich men caught cheating on their spouses, and "You Have 0 Friends," which lampoons social media popularity. It also contains a three-episode arc centered on the boys' alter-egos as Mysterion and The Coon made a return.
5 Season 11 (2007)
Number of episodes: 14
Featuring the three-part arc of "Imaginationland," Season 11 provides a brilliantly executed parable that plays on the analogy that "terrorists have attacked our imagination, and now our imagination is running wild." Racing to get their imaginations under control, the episode features some of South Park's most hilarious cameos from Hollywood filmmakers and well-known fictional characters.
While the strength of the season is propped up by the "Imaginationland" arc, it also contains other great episodes like "Le Petit Tourette," in which Cartman fakes having Tourette Syndrome so he can say whatever he wants with consequence. "Cartman Sucks" was another strong episode from the season, while "With Apologies to Jesse Jackson" stands as one of the great Randy Marsh episodes which his mishap on Wheel of Fortune.
4 Season 12 (2008)
Number of episodes: 14
South Park enjoyed a continued run of success through the mid-to-late 2000s, with the show's twelfth season being one of the most well-rounded and consistently brilliant of the era and, indeed, of the entire show. It started strong with Cartman contracting HIV when he has his tonsils removed in the premiere "Tonsil Trouble." It followed it up with "Brittany's New Look" which, while characteristically crude and a dark South Park episode, surprisingly sympathized with Britney Spears and commented on the relentless media harassment she and many other celebrities are often subjected to.
The two-part "Pandemic" and "Pandemic 2: The Startling" used giant guinea pigs to mock the onset of found-footage horror cinema, while "Elementary School Musical" was a cathartic experience for those not admiring of tween musicals. Speaking of cathartic, "Breast Cancer Show Ever" proved to be one of the show's most rewarding episodes as Cartman's endless antagonism of Wendy results in a schoolyard beatdown.
3 Season 5 (2001)
Number of episodes: 14
By Season 5, South Park was truly outgrowing its infancy and taking on bigger, more daring stories within its episodes. Perhaps no greater presentation of this was "Osama bin Laden Has Farty Pants," the first episode of the series released post 9/11, which follows the four boys as they end up in Afghanistan, face to face with bin Laden, after accidentally boarding a U.S. military plane. The episode was nominated for an Emmy and is still regarded as one of the most important and brilliant South Park episodes for the manner in which it embodied the national mood at the time.
Season 5 also boasts IMDb's highest-rated episode of South Park ever in the form of "Scott Tenorman Must Die," which features Cartman at his most warped and evil. Other noteworthy episodes from Season 5 include "Butters' Very Own Episode," "Cartmanland," and "Kenny Dies."
2 Season 19 (2015)
Number of episodes: 10
As times have changed across the 21st century, so too have the creators of South Park sought to keep the series' ideas fresh and timely. While some more recent seasons haven't been fantastic in this regard, Season 19 was a delightful return to form, running with a loose continuity throughout the season as Mr. Garrison (who is voiced by Parker) becomes a presidential candidate after building a wall on the Canadian border while the boys' school lives are dominated by PC Principal.
The recent season of South Park has a thematic focus on the pitfalls of enforcing political correctness, the harm of gentrification, and the over-saturation of advertisements, all while continually skewering the 2016 election campaigns of both presidential candidates. It proved to be a hit with audiences and critics alike, with Season 19 scoring 100% on Rotten Tomatoes while boasting a very strong audience score on the website as well.
1 Season 8 (2004)
Number of episodes: 14
While it was relatively early in South Park's extensive run, the show's eighth season remains the pinnacle of the series as a perfect mix of crude humor and razor-sharp satire. In fact, it is astounding how many of the series' greatest-ever episodes appeared in Season 8, with the obvious highlight being the shockingly violent yet outrageously funny festive episode "Woodland Critter Christmas."
Beyond that masterful episode though, Season 8 also features "AWESOM-O," where Cartman's prank on Butters spirals out of control, and the anime-inspired classic "Good Times With Weapons," in which the boys have a little too much fun with ninja weapons. "Goobacks" was yet another standout episode from the season that produced so many South Park classics and is rightfully regarded as the best South Park season and one of the greatest seasons in the history of television comedy, animated or otherwise.
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