South Park - Season 1 Link

It is hard to describe the precise feeling of watching the pilot episode of South Park air on August 13, 1997, if you weren’t there. To understand the impact, you have to remember the media landscape of the late 90s.

Without Season 1, there is no Family Guy . There is no Rick and Morty . There is no Robot Chicken . They broke the gate, kicked the guard dog, and burned down the guard shack. South Park - Season 1

The boys get a starving Ethiopian kid via a mis-sent mail order. It’s the most politically incorrect thing you can imagine, yet it somehow manages to raise awareness about world hunger while making you laugh at Sally Struthers eating a whole turkey. It is hard to describe the precise feeling

This episode satirized celebrity culture, Oprah, and infomercials. Mr. Garrison (voice: Trey Parker) falls in love with a gun. Kathie Lee Gifford gets assassinated (off-screen). It set the tone: No celebrity is safe. There is no Rick and Morty

We were fresh off the sanitized, hug-boxy era of Full House and Family Matters . Adult animation meant The Simpsons —a brilliant, safe, suburban satire. Then, out of the static of Comedy Central, came four crude construction paper cutouts from Hell, Colorado.