South Park continues to atone for mocking climate change

Esquire

In last week's "Time to Get Cereal" episode, the long-running Comedy Central series seemed to apologize for mocking Al Gore's warning about climate change in 2006's "ManBearPig" episode. Last night, amid the California wildfires, South Park took it up a notch. "South Park continued the apology into this week, as ManBearPig (AKA climate change) continues to ravage the small Colorado town," says Matt Miller. "Most people in South Park are too busy playing Red Dead Redemption 2 to worry about the murder and destruction—and even the school shootings that continue to happen in the background. Others are busy attending group meetings that pose the question: Should I Start to Worry? One man says that he's pretty sure ManBearPig killed his family and destroyed his house. Should he start to worry?" Miller adds: "In this two-episode arc, (Trey) Parker and (Matt) Stone go back even further than 2006, to place the blame on another generation. At the end of last week's episode, Stan's grandpa reveals that ManBearPig is terrorizing South Park because of a deal he made with the beast many years ago. This week, they go into depth about what exactly happened. He tells Stan that he didn't think he'd live to see the consequences of his actions. Of course, Stan's grandpa is a proxy for an older generation which traded the environment for cool cars and a comfortable life."