The Governor of Colorado Honored ‘South Park’ With This Perfect April Fool’s Joke
Nothing says “state pride” quite like hiring beloved local artists to paint the governor’s portrait – plus, as it turns out, Denver’s top creatives have plenty of experience sketching public figures.
Despite the fact that the show itself has spent the last 27 years trying to piss off all 50 states in the union and every other country in the world, over in the Colorado political landscape, South Park is a bipartisan institution with unilateral support from the political elite. While there may have been a time when the conservative Christian mothers’ groups of The Centennial State pulled enough water to turn some local politicians against the iconic comedy series, today, South Park is a mega-franchise valued at more than $1 billion, and nobody in the Colorado political machine is ever going to put themselves against that much cultural and commercial influence.
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As such, it’s only proper for the governor of Colorado to pay tribute to Trey Parker, Matt Stone and the South Park media empire that propelled Colorado to the forefront of international comedy culture. Yesterday morning, Governor Jared Polis announced that his official portrait would honor “the fabric of Colorado history," as well as its construction paper:
Now, of course, Polis’ festive prank wasn’t just an homage to South Park — it was also a pointed parody of President Donald Trump who threw a fit when he saw that the portrait of him that previously hung in the Colorado capitol building in Denver wasn’t as obsequiously flattering as he demands of his subjects. “Nobody likes a bad picture or painting of themselves, but the one in Colorado, in the state Capitol, put up by the Governor, along with all other Presidents, was purposefully distorted to a level that even I, perhaps, have never seen before," Trump railed on Truth Social last month.
Despite the fact that it was Colorado Republicans who raised over $10,000 to commission the oil painting back in 2019, the Denver capitol quickly acquiesced to Trump’s demands that they take down the offending portrait. Then, days later, the Democratic Governor Polis trolled Trump with this homage to South Park that surely triggered the touchy Commander-in-Chief.
It’s unclear if Denver officials plan on repainting the President following Trump’s social media meltdown, but, if they want to save a few bucks, there is a stunning portrait of President Garrison in the South Park archives that they could probably frame for a small licensing fee.
