Work Text:
I've always felt like different seasons of south park have there own distinctive different vibes so because why not here's in my opinion on the different eras of South Park
Classic south park seasons one
through three. If there's one way to describe these seasons it's tame at least in comparison to what the show would later become. Things that stick out about these seasons would be chef being a prominent character as well as being the boy's mentor in so many episodes. Kenny dying in every episode and so many iconic lines including but not limited to,
“Oh my god they killed Kenny!”
“You bastards!’
“Screw you guys, I'm going home.”
“Sweet”
And many many more, another thing that I feel is such classic south park is the boys behavior in these seasons despite going on wacky misadventures the boys still act their age and that makes the show so much more funny.
I know calling the movie the ending of this era and also saying season three is the ending of this era is contradictory because season 3 still had 12 episodes air after the movie released however they have the same vibe as episode that aired before the movie for the most part so I'm counting them, episodes 6 through 17 of season three are in this weird Gray area.
The golden era seasons
four through eight this is when south park was at its peak in my opinion, while classic south park has its charm and has so many episodes I love I believe the golden era took what was so good about classic south park and made it better they added so many classic characters during this time that are so weird to think about being added in so late into the series such as Timmy,Jimmy and even the goth kids. Another huge change happened to Cartman. I'm of course talking about the fact he went from a stupid spoiled kid to someone that would murder your parents and feed them to you over sixteen dollars and twelve cents.
And now into the reason for my major bias for these seasons Timmy I think Timmy was one of the best additions to south park he is such a fun character and he adds so much to the series that I love so much, make an episode focusing on Timmy and it will instantly becomes one of my favorite and this era had so many great Timmy episodes (S4E3 Timmy 2000,S4E13 Helen Keller! The Musical and so many more), another reason Timmy is such a great character is the fact if it wasn't for him we wouldn't have Jimmy.
The show also wasn't afraid to take risk during this time killing off Kenny for real (or it least for almost 2 seasons),
This led to the show introducing butters or rather taking him from a one note background character to everyone's favorite silly little guy. It's so weird to think about South park without butters in it since he would become such a prominent character after season 5.
As we reach the end of this era there starts to be a decline in quality resulting in episode that I personally can't stand such as (S8E2 ∙ Up the Down Steroid, and S8E4 You Got F'd in the A).
And now we reach the era defined by one “joke” that I can't express enough how much I hate I am of course talking about the transphobia era season 9 episode one to season 12 episode 5 if you are somehow reading this and don't know what I'm talking about in the season 9 premiere
Mr. Garrison's Fancy New Vagina, exactly what you think happens Garrison gets gender reassignment surgery and how do Matt and Trey tray portray this (not that I would expect them to do it in a respectful way in the first place). But these episodes focusing on Garrison can be summed up in one way: trans fem character is trans fem isn't that just hilarious (Matt and trey seem to think so at least).
that isn't to say all episodes in these seasons are bad there are actually some really good episodes that came out at in this era that I love S9E9
Marjorine,S9E12 Trapped in the Closet are just two examples.
Next we have what I would personally consider a south park Renaissance era of sorts while I 100% can understand why someone wouldn't like these seasons I however I love them love the goth kid episodes and this era includes the introduction of one of the most underrated minor characters in the series Vampir but that's besides the point. Episodes like
S12E14 The Ungroundable or S13E1
The Ring are hilarious.
As much I love these seasons unfortunately all good things must come to an end in this case the end came with something I don't think anyone would have expected south park to do have continuity between episode and that big change marked the most recent south park era seasons eighteen to season twenty-six (as of writing this). Modern South Park And confession time I haven't watched all of these episodes. I find a lot of episodes in this era boring so I tend to just stick to pre continuity episodes.