Trey Parker and Matt Stone are on a roll this week. Ahead of South Park season 29, the creative duo announced that they’re changing the name of the show to South America – but the joke isn’t just about trolling Trump’s Lake America saga. The announcement comes after a particularly eventful run for South Park, which has spent its latest seasons taking some brutal swings at Donald Trump and his administration (who can forget that explicit parody PSA from the POTUS’s “teen-tiny penis”). And this weekend, it all paid off when the show won its first Emmy since 2013 – and fifth for Outstanding Animated Program – for season 27’s razor-sharp episode ‘Sermon on the ‘Mount’. To gear up for Season 29 – which premieres on Comedy Central on Wednesday, September 16th – Parker and Stone are up to their old tricks. The duo announced this week that they’re changing the name of their long-running show to South America. View this post on Instagram A post shared by South America (@southpark) This is clearly a dig at Trump’s recent decision to rename Lake Ontario as “Lake America”. The president first floated the change amid his escalating trade war with Canada last month, before signing an executive order officially adopting the new name in the US. Apple and Google then updated their maps to reflect the change for American users – hence Parker and Stone sarcastically crediting the tech giants’ “bravery and patriotism” as the inspiration behind South America. But while the Trump joke is pretty obvious, there’s another line in Parker and Stone’s announcement that’s arguably much more savage. Trey Parker and Matt Stone take shots at ‘Paramount – a Skydance Capitulation’ The South Park creators also appear to take a pretty big swipe at the company that signs their checks, Paramount Skydance, over its controversial dealings with the Trump administration. ‘South Park’ creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone kept it short and sweet with their deadpan response to the reaction over last night’s very topical Season 27 premiere | #SDCC 2025 pic.twitter.com/vccHPfjhkz — Deadline (@DEADLINE) July 25, 2025 Here’s Parker and Stone’s full statement: “Inspired by the bravery and patriotism of Apple and Google, we are changing the name of South Park to SOUTH AMERICA. We especially want to thank our parent company Paramount – a Skydance Capitulation.” The “Skydance Capitulation” line is where things get particularly interesting. To capitulate basically means to give in or surrender to an opponent or demand. You see, Parker and Stone have a long and fairly messy history with Paramount, but tensions really boiled over last summer when the studio was waiting for approval of its $8 billion merger with Skydance Media. At the time, South Park was simultaneously trying to negotiate a new streaming deal. Parker and Stone’s company accused incoming Paramount president Jeff Shell of interfering with potential streaming suitors including Warner Bros. Discovery and Netflix. In their letter, they alleged that these companies were directed to change certain elements in their contract in a way that would benefit Paramount. Skydance denied any wrongdoing and maintained it had the right to approve major contracts under the terms of its agreement to buy Paramount. Things got so messy that Parker and Stone threatened legal action and publicly declared: “This merger is a sh*t show and it’s f**king up South Park.” The dispute also contributed to season 27 being pushed back. South Park continued mocking its own parent company Credit: Paramount+ Eventually, everybody made up… financially, at least. Parker and Stone struck a reported $1.5 billion, five-year deal with Paramount in July 2025, covering 50 new episodes and bringing the show’s enormous back catalogue to Paramount+ in the US for the first time. The Paramount-Skydance takeover was approved shortly afterwards and closed in August 2025, with Skydance boss David Ellison taking charge of the newly combined company. But that definitely didn’t stop South Park from biting the hand that feeds it. Just before the Skydance deal was approved, Paramount agreed to pay $16 million to settle Donald Trump’s lawsuit over a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris. The settlement attracted criticism because Paramount was simultaneously awaiting regulatory approval for the Skydance takeover, although the company denied the settlement had anything to do with securing approval. Credit: Paramount+ South Park subsequently mocked this controversy in the season 27 premiere, with Jesus warning the kids about Trump’s litigiousness. “You guys saw what happened to CBS? Well, guess who owns CBS? Paramount,” he says. “You really want to end up like Colbert?” So when Parker and Stone now call Paramount a “Skydance Capitulation”, there’s quite a bit packed into those two words. It’s a play on the company’s new Paramount Skydance identity, but it also appears to hint that their parent company has been capitulating, in regard to both the Skydance takeover and its dealings with Trump. But, you know, this is South Park we’re talking about. The beauty of satire is that you can hide an awful lot behind a very well-worded joke. For all the latest film and TV updates and hot takes, like our Facebook page. Featured image credit: Instagram/South Park/Paramount+ Post navigation Next story
