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A screenshot of South Park renamed South America

The long-running animated satire "South Park" will be renamed "South America" for its 29th season.

(Photo: Comedy Central/Paramount/X)

South Park Skewers Trump, Big Tech Enablers With Name Change to 'South America'

The creators of the long-running animated show quipped that the move was "inspired by the bravery and patriotism of Apple and Google," which complied with the president's renaming requests.

For 28 seasons, viewers of one of history's most iconic animated television shows were greeted with the twangy, dissonant strains of a Primus-penned theme song with lyrics beginning, "Going down to South Park, gonna have myself a time." But that might be about to change.

That's because "South Park" creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker announced Tuesday that, for the Comedy Central series' 29th season, the show will be renamed "South America" in a dig at US President Donald Trump's unauthorized rechristening spree—in which the Gulf of Mexico is now the Gulf of America and Lake Ontario is Lake America—as well as the complicity of tech titans like Google and Apple that comply with the changes.

“Inspired by the bravery and patriotism of Apple and Google, we are changing the name of South Park to SOUTH AMERICA,” Parker and Stone said in a statement. "We especially want to thank our parent company Paramount—a Skydance Capitulation.”

In addition to renaming the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Ontario, Trump has floated changing the name of New Mexico to New America, a curious proposal given that both old and New Mexico—as well as everywhere from Greenland to Tierra del Fuego—are part of the Americas. He has also proposed rechristening the Strait of Hormuz the Trump Strait, even as Iran continues to control the vital waterway amid an increasingly protracted US-Israeli war of choice.

Apple and Google have adopted Trump's preferred geographic terminology on their mapping platforms, giving Parker and Stone an irresistible opportunity to lampoon both the president and the companies' obsequiousness.

It's far from the first time that "South Park" has turned Trump into a punch line. Recent episodes have reportedly incensed the president and some of his senior officials, including the Emmy-winning “Sermon on the Mount,” in which a comically under-endowed Trump has a romantic affair with Satan.

Last year, "South Park" went after both Trump and its own corporate parent after Paramount agreed to a $1.5 billion streaming deal with Parker and Stone. The season premiere depicted Trump suing South Park residents over protests, while the episode also mocked media organizations and corporations cowering in fear of presidential retaliation.

Paramount Skydance—whose CEO David Ellison is a Trump ally—could become an even larger media conglomerate if its Federal Communications Commission-approved $111 billion merger with Warner Bros. Discovery moves forward. A trial is scheduled for March.

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