South Park fans will have to wait a little longer for the next new episode.
Comedy Central confirmed on Wednesday, September 17, that the long-running animated series would not be airing its scheduled episode that night. Instead, the show will return next week.
This time, the delay came with a rare message from creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, who admitted the holdup was on them.
“Apparently when you do everything at the last minute sometimes you don’t get it done. This one’s on us. We didn’t get it done in time. Thanks to Comedy Central and South Park fans for being so understanding. Tune in next week!” they said, per NME.
When are the next episodes of South Park going to air?
The show has already shifted from a weekly to a biweekly release schedule in its 27th season, which has been drawing record ratings.
Comedy Central says the remaining six episodes are now slated to air on September 24, October 15, October 29, November 12, November 26, and December 10, though the dates are subject to change.
The postponed episode was highly anticipated, arriving in the wake of conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
South Park has taken sharp aim at Donald Trump and the MAGA movement this season, and an earlier episode even parodied Kirk directly.
That installment, titled Got a Nut, featured Eric Cartman reinventing himself as a right-wing podcaster, complete with Kirk’s hairstyle.
At one point he quipped, “Who wants to debate the master debater?” before attending a ceremony for “The Charlie Kirk Award for Young Masterdebaters.”
How Charlie Kirk reacted to his South Park parody
While the jokes were milder than some of South Park’s other political spoofs, Kirk himself reacted positively.
After the episode aired, he posted a TikTok calling it “hilarious” and added: “South Park gets this right. We have a good spirit about being made fun of. This is all a win. We as conservatives have thick skin, not thin skin, and you can make fun of us and it doesn’t matter.”
Comedy Central later pulled the episode from a planned cable repeat but kept it available to stream on Paramount+.
According to industry insiders, the decision was partly about context: streaming requires viewers to intentionally click on an episode, while a cable re-air could expose casual viewers to the content without warning.
For now, South Park fans will just have to wait another week to see what the creators do next.