Trey Parker Wishes He Could Erase the First Three Seasons of ‘South Park’ From Existence

Trey Parker wants to destroy the first three years of South Park and scrub them from the zeitgeist — it’s probably the only thing that he and Barbra Streisand have in common.

Like any TV show that’s been on for a quarter century, today’s South Park has some significant differences from the original product. For starters, the animation quality has improved from “intentionally shitty” to “masterfully shitty,” many O.G. characters have been phased out (rest in peace, Chef), the episodes don’t close with the boys learning a lesson and Kenny dies a lot less than he used to. Today’s South Park is more mature, but not certainly not too mature, just like the show’s creative heads, Trey Parker and Matt Stone. And, just like many of us look at pictures from our teen years and cringe at our frosted tips and JNCO jeans, Parker wishes he could erase some of the mistakes he made in the late 1990s.

Back in 2021, Parker and Stone spoke to Entertainment Weekly about the immense library of South Park content, and during the conversation, Parker admitted that, should he ever have the opportunity to make cuts to the catalog and destroy episodes from existence, his target “would basically be anything before Season Four.” Hopefully, that doesn’t include South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut.

“It’s just embarrassing to watch,” Parker said of the first three seasons, chalking up the poor quality (in his opinion) of the early episodes to his and Stone’s inexperience. He continued, “Okay, we were, like, 26, 27. But it’s like, ‘Really? We thought that was funny? We thought that was well-written? Oh my God, this is terrible.’”

Though any master artist is likely to be more critical of their work than those who are lucky enough to enjoy the fruits of their labor, Parker’s evaluation of his early work feels especially harsh considering how many truly classic episodes came out of those first three South Park seasons. “Mecha-Streisand” is still a banger. “Gnomes” holds up. And many of us are still just a couple piano keys away from having the “Sexual Harassment Panda” song stuck in our heads for the rest of the day.