South Park airs brutal spoof of FCC chair Brendan Carr after Charlie Kirk killing, fueling network fallout
Episode targets Carr in the post-Kimmel suspension era as ABC lifts its ban while affiliates push back; Kirk episode pulled, release date nudges, and industry ownership concerns loom
South Park aired a brutal spoof of Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr in its first episode after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, delivering a sharp, satirical beat that aligns with the show's political sensibility. The episode, titled Conflict of Interest, follows Carr through a string of misfortunes: he slides down greased stairs, consumes a stew laced with an unseen substance that leaves him unable to control himself, and ends up in the hospital with toxoplasmosis. A doctor warns that if the parasite reaches his brain, he may lose his freedom of speech. In the cartoon, Vice President JD Vance hails Carr’s condition and signals that removing him as a political obstacle would be preferable, telling him on a hospital bed: “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.” The segment arrives amid a broader national debate over the public-interest obligations of networks that hold TV licenses and the heated political climate surrounding media appearances by Jimmy Kimmel, whose suspension from ABC followed Carr’s calls for action over remarks about Charlie Kirk.
ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel Live! within hours of Carr’s remarks, a move that sparked wide commentary and drew comparisons to heavy-handed threats by political actors in media discourse. The network has since lifted the suspension, and Kimmel returned to the air on Tuesday, though he did not offer an apology for his on-air comments. Nexstar and Sinclair, which own ABC affiliates, have not lifted their bans on the late-night host in many markets, choosing instead to replace the program with news programming. The corporate actions come as Nexstar seeks regulatory approval for its roughly $6.2 billion acquisition of Tegna, a deal that would require changes to rules governing how many stations a single company may own. The episode also features a subplot in which Kyle discovers classmates betting on whether his mom will “strike Gaza and destroy a Palestinian hospital” via a prediction-markets app, a device the show uses to mirror the current climate of online bets and political outrage.
Comedy Central pulled an older Kirk-focused episode from its schedule after the activist’s death, a decision that drew swift public commentary. Kirk’s longtime producer, Andrew Colvet, said the pull was a mistake and that Charlie Kirk loved being featured on the show. The Kirk episode remains available to stream on Paramount+. In the lead-up to the latest installment, co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone announced on X that the episode had not been ready for release and would be pushed back from Sept. 17 to Sept. 24, a schedule change reflective of their week-to-week production process and their tendency to weave recent events into the show before airing.
Carr has said he did not link his urging that ABC and Disney discipline Kimmel to his and the Trump administration’s politics. He argued that networks with TV licenses have an obligation to serve the public interest and that Kimmel appeared to mislead the American public. The satire in South Park underscores a broader conversation about media accountability, satire, and the boundaries of political critique in a landscape where entertainment and news increasingly collide. The episode marks the first new South Park installment since the Kirk-dominated moment, continuing the show’s long-running pattern of lampooning political figures while reacting to ongoing events in a rapid-fire, week-to-week production cycle.
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