IF THE SUIT FITS
‘South Park’ creators on the litigious history of their classic series
‘SOUTH PARK” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have broken their silence amid the show’s recent mocking of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. The Comedy Central writers appeared on Wednesday’s “Basic!” podcast to discuss the cartoon’s legacy and many uproars over the years, just a week after bashing the ex-royals.
The showrunners ignited a firestorm of controversy after parodying a privacyseeking ex-royal couple from Canada in the Feb. 15 episode entitled “The Worldwide Privacy Tour.” The cartoon characters — who claim to want to stay out of the spotlight, but instead go on various talk shows — bore a likeness to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who are famously non-private as demonstrated by their Netflix series and Harry’s memoir, “Spare.”
Markle, 41, was said to be “upset and overwhelmed” by the show amid reports she and Harry, 38, could sue “South Park” over the characters who resembled them.
However, a source told the Spectator that despite being hurt, the couple was “annoyed by ‘South Park’ and refuses to watch it all.”
Their rep told The Post on Tuesday that Harry and Meghan thought the episode was “all frankly nonsense … totally baseless and boring” and denied they would be suing the comedy series.
But the royal racket was just a blip on the radar for Stone, 51, and
Parker, 53, who have been known to ruffle feathers.
While the pair didn’t address Meghan and Harry directly, the animators said on Wednesday that much of their work has led to them “getting sued” over the course of the animated show’s run.
The Post has reached out to Stone and Parker for comment.
In the podcast, they spoke directly about the various lawsuits that had been brought down upon them by celebs they teased.
Stone and Parker told the podcast’s hosts Doug Herzog and Jen Chaney that “there are so many [moments] we can’t even remember” when it came to criticism of their animated series. “It was all coming from the right, we were considered counterculture,” the animators said. “The Catholic League are always on our a-s — it kind of always came from that side.” The duo — who are the highest-paid entertainers in Hollywood, according to Forbes — also discussed one of their most famous “South Park” parodies, the 2005 episode “Trapped in the Closet and Coming Out of the Closet,” about Tom Cruise and his association with Scientology. “Everyone knew Scientology was so litigious. People in Hollywood were scared of Scientology at the time because they would just sue you,” Parker and Stone recounted. “I think that got us going. The Tom Cruise episode was really about getting sued,” they added. “I mean, poking openly litigious people and seeing where the line is and what you can say. They picked a fight with us and we just went with it.”
The two continued: “That episode is what that is about — they bullied Hollywood and scared people into [fearing] saying the word ‘Scientology.’ ”