Every Banned South Park Episode Explained

At this point, the ability for “South Park” to generate controversy so intense that it threatens the series’ own existence has become something of an urban legend. When the show’s library was announced to be moving to Paramount+, an unsubstantiated list of 17 episodes that would be banned from the platform went viral online, and was even picked up by a few entertainment news outlets.

In reality, only five episodes are absent from the show’s new streaming home, and any longtime “South Park” fan knows exactly which five those are. That said, those aren’t the only episodes that earned such a punishment over the years, whether due to protests from religious groups, (alleged) pressure from certain Hollywood stars, or a shocking tragedy no one could’ve seen coming. 

We’ve combed through nearly three decades of news reports, interviews, and dead links from that bygone era of the internet that existed when this little program of paper and profanity sprang immediately and provocatively to the center of pop-culture fascination. In doing so, we found the episodes of “South Park” that Comedy Central once wanted you not to watch.

By Season 5, “South Park” had skyrocketed to unprecedented popularity, thanks in large part to its controversial reputation. It had even satirized its own rise with a revamped intro (now overloaded with unnecessary graphics, “special effects,” explosions, and not-so-subliminal messaging). Still, it’s hard to imagine Trey Parker and Matt Stone knew that, just three episodes into hopefully their biggest season yet, they would cross a line that would come back to haunt them more than any slur, political jab, or insensitive parody.

Season 5, Episode 3, “Super Best Friends,” is all about religion — specifically, the budding new religion of Blaintology, founded and promoted by popular real-life street magician David Blaine, who just so happens to be visiting South Park. A thinly-veiled mockery of Scientology, Blaintology is depicted as an openly cynical new-age cult that preys upon the weak-minded (in the case of “South Park,” literal children) and brainwashes them into evangelical servitude through coercion and trickery. Stan is the first of South Park’s citizens to realize the dangerous hold Blaintology has on his community, compelling him to seek the help of Jesus.

Though Stan is successful in summoning the all-powerful Christian deity, even Jesus is no match for David Blaine. Thus, Jesus himself summons backup in the form of the “Super Best Friends,” a parody of Hanna-Barbera’s “Super Friends” that includes representatives from every major religion, such as Moses, the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith, the Buddha, and the Islamic prophet Muhammad. 

Years after “Super Best Friends” aired in 2001, the volatile conversations around the ethics of depicting Muhammad (considered an act of blasphemy by certain sects of Islam) caused Comedy Central to censor all depictions of Muhammad on “South Park.” After further, more provocative attempts by the series to depict Muhammad resulted in death threats directed at the creators and the network, all episodes including depictions of the prophet Muhammad were banned. As of this writing, “Super Best Friends” is still unavailable to stream on Paramount+.

It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone familiar with “South Park” that the show would ruffle a few feathers trying to wade into the debate surrounding sexual education. As Americans were (and, to a certain degree, still are) going back and forth over the proper age and manner with which to teach kids about the birds and the bees, “South Park” ripped the bandage off for its young characters in such a graphic way that multiple governments felt they needed to protect their citizens from the episode’s content.

Season 5, Episode 7, “Proper Condom Use” begins with the boys of South Park doing unspeakable things to dogs multiple times within the first two minutes of the opening credits. Disturbed that the children could be so uneducated to do something so obviously wrong, their parents rally to force the school’s hilariously ill-equipped and uneducated teachers to conduct emergency sex-ed classes. Each session features a wide range of shocking imagery, including relatively tame but detailed diagrams of reproductive anatomy, condom-application demonstrations, footage of childbirth, and images of sexually transmitted diseases. Various characters also perform lewd acts, with a particularly haunting sex scene featuring Mr. Mackey and Ms. Choksondik.

If this wasn’t too much already, the classes stoked so much fear of STD transmission amongst the children that the episode ends with an ultra-violent, “Mad Max”-inspired battle. Between the graphic gore and sexual content, both the United Kingdom Kingdom and Taiwan opted to have the episode banned countrywide at the time.

Though “Super Best Friends” is mostly remembered in this context as having transgressed against an Islamic belief, it also marked an early point of contention between “South Park” and a frequent cultural adversary — the Church of Scientology. And as passionate as Trey Parker and Matt Stone were about their right to make fun of any religion they wanted to, their feud with Scientology had a far more personal bend to it.

It didn’t start that way, though. “Super Best Friends” seemed to take most of its pleasure in skewering David Blaine and imagining a confrontation between his viral street magic and a team of actual deities. “Trapped in the Closet” (Season 9, Episode 12) takes things several steps further by outright naming Scientology as Parker and Stone’s target, making fun of certain sacred practices within the religion, and not-so-subtly implying that Tom Cruise — one of the church’s most prominent members — is secretly hiding “in the closet” regarding his sexuality. (They also throw lighter jabs against R. Kelly and John Travolta.) Broadcasters in the U.K. were especially concerned about that last part, and chose to hold off airing the episode over fears that Cruise would attempt to sue.

While Cruise took no legal action, longtime “South Park” cast member Isaac Hayes ostensibly quit over the episode’s content, citing its supposed offense to religious freedom. He was a Scientologist, but said his issue was with the series disrespecting any religious belief. Hayes had recently suffered a debilitating stroke at the time, and it would later be alleged by his son that Scientologists in Hayes’ social orbit had essentially quit the show on his behalf. 

Two days after Hayes’ departure, Comedy Central swapped a scheduled re-airing of “Trapped in the Closet” with “Chef’s Chocolate Salty Balls,” which the network said was done in tribute to the actor. It was alleged by fans and even the show’s creators themselves that Cruise and/or the church had made a call to the network, using Cruise’s relationship with Paramount as leverage, but Cruise refused to dignify the rumors with a full response. The ensuing controversy went viral, ultimately leading to the episode’s return to Comedy Central — and, potentially, the disappointing box office results of “Mission: Impossible III”. It’s currently available to stream on Paramount+.

When “South Park” draws fire for taking aim at Islam or Scientology, Trey Parker and Matt Stone often defend themselves by asserting that they make fun of all religions and ideologies equally. This became a point of contention, particularly when Isaac Hayes first quit the show, with the creators pointing out that the actor had continued to profit from the series when it was making fun of Christianity (and other religions like Islam and Mormonism). 

It’s a bold claim, the limits of which “South Park” has surely tested against a remarkably wide range of targets that includes Christianity and the Catholic Church. Just two episodes after “Trapped in the Closet” in Season 9, Episode 14, “Bloody Mary,” the show depicted a statue of the Virgin Mary (a sacred religious image within the Catholic Church) “miraculously” excreting blood in a manner that explicitly suggests menstruation. Combined with the intentionally gross discussion surrounding the miracle and the nature of the Catholic God’s absence in people’s lives, the episode was rebuked by the Catholic League and a prominent bishop. But while Comedy Central chose not to pull the episode, it was fully banned in Australia for a decade. It is currently available to stream on Paramount+.

When “South Park” began its 10th season in 2006, it did so with the episode “The Return of Chef,” in which Isaac Hayes’ character is depicted as a brainwashed sex criminal, then violently killed off and humiliated by a (potentially scientifically accurate) posthumous bowel evacuation. At the character’s funeral, Kyle says, “We shouldn’t be mad at Chef for leaving us, we should be mad at that fruity little club for scrambling his brains.” Suffice it to say, the theme of freedom of expression with regard to religion was top of mind for Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

They were also further activated in the discourse surrounding depictions of the Prophet Muhammad in the aftermath of an international controversy that followed a Danish magazine’s decision to publish a dozen cartoons of the religious figure. This incident inspired “Cartoon Wars,” a two-part epic that is largely remembered for its blistering takedown of “Family Guy,” a show which Parker and Stone openly despised at the time. This animosity was merely meant to be a backdrop for what the creators had hoped would have been a story about double standards in religious censorship. 

The episode was itself censored by Comedy Central before it aired, with Muhammad being covered by a black bar in every scene he appeared in. Parker and Stone publicly criticized Viacom president Doug Herzog for the censoring, after which Herzog himself stated the decision was a tough but sound one that he believed and hoped would be considered an overreaction. In some ways, history would prove him wrong.

Following the “Trapped in the Closet,” “Bloody Mary,” and “Cartoon Wars” controversies, all of which occurred over the span of a few months in 2006, “South Park” pumped the brakes on pushing the envelope. There were still the odd episodes here and there that would cause a stir either domestically or abroad, but there were no further bans or instances of censorship on the same level as those in the past. One would hope that this had come as a result of the network and the show’s creators coming to a mutual understanding, as opposed to the creators themselves blunting their voice in the face of constant pushback.

The show did experience another curious instance of international censorship in 2009, with the airing of Season 13, Episode 6, “Pinewood Derby.” In the episode, Stan wins his local Pinewood Derby by imbuing it with warp-speed capabilities, which subsequently and unintentionally attracts the attention of an alien and, eventually, impacts the global community — including Mexico. The episode was initially blocked from airing in the country, with the network claiming it simply didn’t obtain the necessary permit to depict the Mexican flag. However, it was alleged that the episode was actually pulled for depicting Mexican President Felipe Calderón in an unflattering light (he is seen misusing ill-gotten alien riches) at a politically vulnerable time in his career. The episode was ultimately aired at a later date with approval from the Mexican government and is available to stream on Paramount+.

By the time Season 14 of “South Park” rolled around in 2010, Trey Parker and Matt Stone were ready to test the waters once more with some of their most inflammatory targets — or, actually, all of their most inflammatory targets. In celebration of their 200th overall episode, Parker wrote another two-part episode that brought back nearly every major figure or organization that had ever publicly quarreled with the series. Not surprisingly, they were part of a fictional lawsuit against the entire town of South Park. Hillary Clinton was there. Kanye West was there. And, of course, Tom Cruise led the charge. His principal demand? An audience with Muhammad.

The mere whiff of the prophet’s inclusion on “South Park” went about as well as you’d expect at this point — maybe worse, actually, as the episodes were not only heavily censored by Comedy Central once again, but also drew veiled death threats and doxxing from a group of radicals. (It’s worth noting that this group was represented in this endeavor by an American “Muslim convert” who had only claimed the Islamic religion for about two years at the time. He is currently in jail.) 

Not long after the episodes aired, “South Park” fans discovered that no episode featuring Muhammad, censored or otherwise, was available on the show’s website. Both parts of “Cartoon Wars” and even “Super Best Friends” had been scrubbed from the site as well. As of writing, all five episodes remain banned and cannot be streamed on Paramount+.

Following the fallout of “200” and “201” and indefinite censorship of some of the most beloved episodes of the series, “South Park” managed to avoid controversy of that kind for over a decade. In fact, they wouldn’t receive another domestic ban until 2025, when the show crossed a line its creators didn’t know existed. Before that, however, Trey Parker and Matt Stone did manage to earn another international retaliatory ban — as well as arguably the grandest, harshest act of censorship they’d ever received. If you’ve been shouting at your screen thus far that the show’s creators have been all but begging for the majority of the consequences they’ve received, then you’ll be absolutely shocked to find out that Season 23, Episode 2, “Band in China,” got “South Park” banned in China.

In a half-hour of television that lacks the personal stakes of their years-long fight for free expression, Parker spins a story that’s so bitterly antagonistic toward the Chinese government (and the growing trend of Hollywood censoring its output for the Chinese market) that it often feels like it was made after the ban as a kind of impotent retort. It’s hard not to wonder if they expected to revive the buzzy back-and-forth they’d had with Comedy Central over religious content; based on how overstuffed the episode is with content meant to offend the Chinese government, it doesn’t seem like the network was ever too worried about preserving the show’s appeal in the region. Nevertheless, the series as a whole was banned in China, generating international headlines while giving Parker and Stone a platform to plug their upcoming 300th episode.

In 2025, “South Park” entered Season 27 under the shadow of a highly controversial merger between Paramount and Skydance. The former company, needing the approval of the Trump administration to finalize the deal, made moves (such as canceling the late-night program of liberal pundit and comedian Stephen Colbert) that were seen as attempts to get in the president’s good graces. As a result, despite abstaining entirely from the 2024 election, “South Park” returned with an episode meant to antagonize Donald Trump and its parent network as he allowed the Paramount Skydance merger to go through.

Season 27 continued to satirize Trump and those in his orbit with Season 27, Episode 2, “Got a Nut,” specifically Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and conservative pundit Charlie Kirk. While Noem released a statement characterizing her portrayal as sexist, Kirk welcomed the attention. He referred to his depiction as a “badge of honor” in an interview with Fox News and urged other conservatives to learn to laugh at themselves. 

On Sept. 10, 2025, Kirk was shot dead at a college campus event in Utah. Comedy Central decided to pull a scheduled re-airing of “Got a Nut” the following day, presumably out of respect for his family. As of writing, the profile picture on the official Instagram account “The Charlie Kirk Show” remains an image of Cartman dressed as Kirk, speaking at a campus event.