Top 10 South Park Predictions That Came True
Written by Caitlin Johnson
#10: Carnival Cruise Poop Disaster
“Crème Fraîche” When the Carnival Cruise Line’s ship Triumph set off in early 2013, nobody on board knew the infamy it would achieve. But when a fire broke out on board and disabled the toilets and electricity, its over 3000 passengers and crew were left on what was nicknamed “the poop cruise”, spending four days without working toilets stranded in the Gulf of Mexico. Just three years earlier, in 2010, a news show on South Park reported that “passengers said that the Carnival Cruise Line smelled like poop.” Maybe people should have taken it as a warning against booking cruises with Carnival.
#9: Underground KFC Market
“Medicinal Fried Chicken” In February 2018, disaster struck KFC, one of the biggest fast food chains in the world, when a change in delivery supplier led to up to 700 of its 900 UK branches to be temporarily closed due to a lack of... chicken. Because of this shortage, people were able to sell buckets of chicken on eBay to desperate customers for as much as $140 USD. This black market for chicken was mirrored in a 2010 episode of South Park when all the KFCs close down and the town’s outlet becomes a medicinal marijuana dispensary, which leads to Colonel Sanders becoming a crime boss of a chicken-smuggling empire, and Cartman a Scarface-type hotshot dealer.
#8: Miley Cyrus’ Fame
“Britney’s New Look” In this 2008 episode, the four boys try to help Britney Spears escape the torment of the paparazzi and general public who are obsessed with taking her photo - even more so after she shoots herself in the head and somehow survives. At the end of the episode, Britney dies surrounded by South Park citizens taking her picture, and soon after, a news anchor reports that Miley Cyrus – who was just 16 when this episode aired and still starring in Hannah Montana–will become the next big thing, a la Britney. Considering Miley Cyrus’ controversial phase in the early 2010s, it seems that the folks in the South Park writers’ room got it right again.
#7: Jared Fogle’s Fall from Grace
“Jared Has Aides” In 2015, Subway Guy Jared Fogle was convicted as a child molester and sent to prison; however, his ruining Subway’s public image was first predicted in 2002 by South Park. In the episode in question, he tells everybody his weight loss success is actually due to his having “aides”, spelled a-i-d-e-s, which everyone mistakes as him saying he has Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome. For his promise to give everyone aides, he is fired from Subway, though he makes a reappearance in the 2017 video game South Park: The Fractured But Whole as a boss hell-bent on molesting the boys. In retrospect, the original episode is very creepy.
#6: Chipotle Food Contamination
“Dead Celebrities” The main plot of this episode centers around Ike Broflovski being tormented by dead celebrities, but a subplot involves Billy Mays advertising a product called “ChipotlAway” - which is able to remove the bloodstains people get in their pants after eating food from Chipotle. Six years after it aired, E-Coli in Chipotle products caused more than 50 people to get sick. The 2015 outbreak meant the chain was forced to close 43 restaurants in Oregon and Washington alone. Unfortunately for the customers affected by the outbreak, no such “Chipotlaway” type quick fix exists in the real world.
#5: Elon Musk & Mars
“Members Only” Seeking to escape a world of internet trolls and social media, Cartman and his girlfriend Heidi Turner seek refuge at the SpaceX building in the hopes that they can get on a rocket and go to Mars because it has “shitty WiFi.” Elon Musk shows up and tells them they still haven’t solved all the science problems involved with going to Mars, but Cartman – along with Butters and musical icon Cher – stay waiting. This episode is from 2016, but it was just a year later that Musk began to publicly outline his plan to send a rocket to Mars as early as 2019.
#4: Mel Gibson Goes Insane
Top 20 South Park Predictions That Came True
“The Passion of the Jew” An episode from season 8 details the various responses to Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ. While Kyle’s Jewish faith is shaken and Cartman opts to go a neo-Nazi route with his “Mel Gibson Fan Club”, Stan and Kenny simply think the movie sucked and go to get their money back. When they get to Gibson’s mansion, they find he is a religious extremist and that he’s obsessed with forcing people to torture him. Eerily, two years later in 2006 when Gibson was arrested for DUI, he told the police that “the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world,” echoing the ideas parodied in the episode.
#3: The Death of Osama bin Laden
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“It’s a Jersey Thing” When the popularity of reality show Jersey Shore threatens to take over America, Randy Marsh knows there is only one course of action: sending a video tape to Osama bin Laden and begging al-Qaeda for help. Al-Qaeda oblige and kill the Jerseyites by crashing hijacked planes into them. At the end of the episode while bin Laden is being honored for his work, a Special Forces commando descends from the ceiling and shoots him in the head. Sure enough, SEALs actually killed bin Laden on May 2nd, 2011, just about seven months after this episode aired.
#2: Donald Trump Becoming President
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“Where My Country Gone?” In the 19th season of South Park, America becomes overrun with Canadian immigrants, all trying to escape the Canadian version of Donald Trump who has built a wall between the US and Canada. One Canadian describes how they thought his candidacy was a joke, but before they realised what had happened, he’d been voted into power. This leads to Mr. Garrison’s ultimately successful political campaign, (again, parodying Trump) in which he vows to “f- the Canadians” – along with everyone else he doesn’t like – “to death,” with Caitlyn Jenner as his running mate.
#1: Changing Racist Flags
“Chef Goes Nanners” The premise of this 2000 episode centered on a debate about changing the South Park town flag, which depicted four white stick people standing around a black stick person hanging from a noose. Chef says the flag is clearly racist and must be changed, while Jimbo says the flag is traditional and must stay the same to preserve their heritage. Fifteen years later, a major dialogue began in real life about the place of the Confederate flag in modern America. Many major retailers began banning Confederate flags from being sold in their stores, while various states chose to remove the flag from any official government property or product. South Park… it’s always a step ahead.
