The upcoming one-hour South Park special about the global coronavirus pandemic is set to be fast-tracked to Australian screens just hours after it debuts in the US.
Following the news that SBS would no longer be airing South Park after 23 years of the raunchy animation calling the free-to-air channel home, 10’s new channel, 10 Shake, has revealed they’ll be taking on the hugely popular comedy as well as fast-tracking the highly-anticipated coronavirus special to Oz screens.
According to TV Blackbox, the South Park special will air “just hours after it’s broadcast in the US” this week, with the official synopsis for this episode revealing that the special will revolve around Randy Marsh acknowledging his role in the “COVID-19 outbreak as the pandemic presents continued challenges to the folks of South Park.”
The 10 Shake synopsis also reads: “Randy comes to terms with the part he played in the outbreak, and the solution isn’t as simple as knocking out that wall to make a more ‘open concept’. We follow the residents of Park County as they face the challenges of the pandemic, and head back to skewwwwl with the gang as they face the new normal.”
Following the news that SBS would no longer be airing Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s long-running comedy, the network released a statement that said:
“After 23 years, SBS made the decision to let South Park go, mmkay,” it began.
“The edgy, irreverent and often controversial series broke new ground when SBS premiered the cult phenomenon in the late nineties, opening Australian audiences up to a type of humour we’d never experienced before. We look forward to breaking new ground with some original content propositions for SBS VICELAND.”
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At the time of acquiring the show, SBS Commissioning Editor of the time, Mark Atkin, said that no other networks except SBS were willing to take on the groundbreaking and foul-mouthed show, which would later prove to be wildly popular.
“Comedy Central couldn’t get meetings with 10, with Seven, nobody would return their calls. It’s not like a lot of people were putting their hands up,” he explained.
“After that when all the other networks started knocking and they could have sold the program on to someone else, probably for more money, they decided to stick with SBS because we’d worked with them when nobody else would take their calls.”
He continued, “Everybody was talking about it and all these people who had never watched SBS before started tuning in, and through that finding out what else was on the network.”
South Park: The Pandemic Special premieres Thursday, October 1st at 8.30 pm on 10 Shake.
