South Park Wins Emmy After 13 Years With Donald Trump Satire and Historic Jab at the President

More than two and a half decades after exploding as a subversive phenomenon of global television, South Park proved its satirical pen remains sharper — and more decorated — than ever. The acclaimed adult animation created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone ended a long 13-year drought and won the coveted Best Animated Program (Outstanding Animated Program) trophy at the Creative Arts Emmy in Los Angeles.

The award honored the incendiary episode “Sermon on the ‘Mount”, the Season 27 premiere originally aired in July 2025. In the story, the creators spared absolutely no one: they placed former United States president Donald Trump in an abusive romantic relationship with Satan himself, mocked billion-dollar lawsuits against the press, and fired merciless friendly fire at their own corporate home, the giant Paramount.

A Landslide Win Against Heavyweight Rivals

South Park’s win at the 78th Primetime Emmy Awards carries monumental weight because of the caliber of the competitors it beat. To lift the golden statuette, Parker and Stone’s creation had to defeat true industry giants that had dominated the category in recent years:

1. Rick and Morty (Adult Swim)
2. The Simpsons (Fox)
3. Bob’s Burgers (Fox)
4. Smiling Friends (Adult Swim)
5. Star Wars: Visions (Disney+)

The last time the series had won American TV’s top animation prize was in 2013, with the classic episode “Raising the Bar” (the one in which James Cameron dives to the deepest ocean to rescue society’s moral standards while Honey Boo Boo rides a motorized scooter). Since then, although regularly nominated, the show had piled up consecutive defeats.

“Sermon on the ‘Mount”: Anatomy of the Episode That Shocked Pop Culture

Aired at a moment of political turmoil and fierce debate in the United States, “Sermon on the ‘Mount” revived one of the most iconic visual lineages in the show’s history. Donald Trump was animated in photo-realistic cut-out style with an articulated mouth — the very same graphic device immortalized by the classic version of Saddam Hussein in the feature film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999).

In the story, Trump and Satan share a bed in a toxic, dysfunctional romance, full of unsettling dialogue about male insecurity and a running gag about the political leader’s “tiny penis,” accompanied by a deepfake of the fully nude president that instantly went viral on X (formerly Twitter) and TikTok.

Beyond the personal caricature, the episode targeted Trump’s litigious streak, portraying the Republican as threatening to sue the small Colorado mountain town for an unbelievable US$ 5 billion unless its citizens submitted to explicit public adulation campaigns in the town square.

Friendly Fire: When South Park Aimed at Its Own Paramount

What lifted the episode to satirical-masterpiece status was Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s audacity in attacking their own channel’s parent company. The very title “Sermon on the ‘Mount” is a double bilingual pun: it alludes to the biblical Sermon on the Mount, but the term “Mount” deliberately refers to the famous star-capped mountain in the Paramount Pictures logo.

At the time of production, Paramount was facing behind-the-scenes turbulence to secure federal approval for its sale merger with Skydance. To avoid political retaliation or regulatory hurdles, executives struck a controversial US$ 16 million deal to settle a lawsuit filed by Trump over an investigative report on 60 Minutes on CBS (a network in the same conglomerate).

In the episode, the town of South Park is forced to film fawning ads praising Trump precisely to pay off its superiors’ debts and cowardly settlements, mirroring with millimeter precision the creators’ fury at the company’s corporate concessions.

White House Fury vs. Record Audience

The reaction from the former president’s political circle was immediate and aggressive. Hours after the original broadcast, official White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers issued a public statement attempting to downplay the impact:

“South Park hasn’t been relevant in over twenty years. Its creators are resorting to weak, uninspired ideas solely in a desperate attempt to get attention.”

The official audience numbers, however, categorically debunked the government narrative. In its first three days across Comedy Central and the Paramount+ streaming service, “Sermon on the ‘Mount” reached an impressive 5.9 million viewers. It was the highest audience share for a South Park season premiere on linear TV since 1999, making the cartoon the most-watched program on all of American cable television that night.

The Final Joke: “You Finally Won Your Emmy”

Unable to let the celebration pass without one last mocking blow, Trey Parker and Matt Stone used South Park’s official social channels to revive one of the greatest sore spots in Donald Trump’s television vanity.

Before entering partisan politics, the businessman spent years hosting the reality show The Apprentice (The Apprentice) on NBC. In 2004 and 2005, the show was nominated for the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program, losing both times to The Amazing Race. Never accepting defeat, Trump spent years firing furious attacks at the awards, calling the Emmy “a rigged, fraudulent and corrupt scheme.”

By posting the image of Trump with his pants around his ankles holding the Emmy statuette, captioned “You finally won your Emmy”, the creators perfectly closed a narrative spanning two decades of American entertainment culture.

“Politics Became Pop Culture”: Trey Parker’s Reflection

Asked by The New York Times about the decision to center the show’s recent arc on the Washington machine, Trey Parker categorically rejected the notion that South Park had become a partisan manifesto:

“We didn’t suddenly decide we should be a show about politics. What happened is that American politics became our pop culture. It swallowed everyday conversations, spectacle and day-to-day madness. We just kept portraying what the world became.”

Funnier, sharper and more dangerous than at its 1990s birth, South Park remains the cruelest, funniest and most essential compass of Western satire. Stay tuned to O Santuário Geek and check our full coverage in Series & TV to follow the Season 29 episodes!