South Park pulls no punches; all it took was an investigation into Apple and Google.
The satirical comedy show shared an announcement from its creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, on Instagram on Tuesday, ahead of the September 16 release of the 29th season.
“Inspired by the courage and patriotism of Apple and Google, we are changing the name South Park to SOUTH AMERICA,” the creators wrote in the statement.
The post was accompanied by a photo of the South Park logo, featuring a license plate with the text “AMERICA” spelled out over the word “Park.” A glowing American flag was added in the corner for extra flair.
Parker and Stone’s reference to Apple and Google was a thinly veiled mockery of the companies that changed the name Lake Ontario to Lake America on their mapping platforms.
On August 27, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to rename the body of water that straddles the U.S. and Canadian border. The order directed the U.S. government to change the lake’s name on federal maps, contracts and documents. It happened amid rising trade tensions between the two neighboring countries.
Days after Trump’s order, Google said it did updated Google Maps such that US users would see ‘Lake America’, Canadian users would see ‘Lake Ontario’, and users outside these two countries would see ‘Lake Ontario (Lake America)’.
The tech giant said it is updating Google Maps to reflect name changes in official government sources, which in the US is the US Geographic Names Information System. Last year, it made similar changes regarding the Gulf of Mexico, which Trump renamed the Gulf of America.
Apple cards followed suit the following week and renamed Lake Ontario to Lake America for US users.
Debuting on Comedy Central in 1997, South Park is a satirical animated comedy about four elementary school children living in the fictional town of South Park, Colorado. Throughout its nearly three-decade existence, it has a history of defrauding major figures in politics, technology and media. including TrumpCBS, and Tim Cook.
In their Instagram statement, Parker and Stone also took a quick swipe at South Park’s parent company, Paramount Skydance, which was founded after Skydance Media’s David Ellison. bought out Decisive by 2025.
“We would especially like to thank our parent company Paramount – a Skydance Capitulation,” they wrote.
