The Simpsons’ showrunner has said the new season will not tackle contemporary US politics in the way that South Park recently has.
The opening episode of the 37th season of the legendary sitcom premiered on Fox on Sunday night (September 28), with this run set to include the show’s 800th episode.
Matt Selman, who now oversees The Simpsons, spoke to Entertainment Weekly and was asked whether the show would dare to take the kind of provocative approach to the current political landscape that South Park has in recent months.
“When you write a show that doesn’t come out until 10 months after you write it, it kind of takes the pressure off, because who knows what the fuck we’re gonna be looking at in 10 months,” he said. “So like South Park, they make their show in a week, and even they can’t stay up to date on things.”
“More crazy shit goes down faster than even they can do it. And you know, Jimmy Kimmel’s great, and I’m glad he is back on TV,” he added, referring to the late night talk show host, who was briefly suspended this month for his comments relating to the murder of Charlie Kirk, before being recently reinstated.
“Censorship sucks. What can I say? Censorship sucks,” Selman continued. “But it’s not our mission statement to respond to the crisis of the moment. It’s more about a town of good-natured dum-dums dealing with a changing world, yet our characters never really change. The world changes around them.”
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South Park is currently in its 27th season and has been mocking Donald Trump consistently in the new episodes. It initially portrayed him as being in a relationship with Satan and having a micro-penis, prompting the White House to attack the show for “not having been relevant for over 20 years”.
The show has since continued the Trump-Satan relationship, with Satan now pregnant with the president’s child and Trump attempting to trap Satan into getting rid of the pregnancy.
They have also attacked the relationship between Trump and the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) and its head Brendan Carr, which many perceive to have been the reason for Kimmel’s suspension and for Stephen Colbert’s show being brought to an end.
Despite The Simpsons saying it will not pursue similar storylines, the show’s creator Matt Groening did say this summer that the show will not end until Trump dies. “When you-know-who dies, The Simpsons predicts the there will be dancing in the streets,” he said “Except President [J.D.] Vance will ban dancing”.
The Simpsons famously predicted that Trump would become U.S. President in a 2000 episode, and also later predicted he would get re-elected in a 2015 episode. The show also appears to have forecasted some other major events over the years.
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