South Park is pretty awesome. A lot of people claim it's gone downhill since the first few seasons, but in reality at that point it was just going over the top with crass, offensive humor and gratuitous swearing for its laughs.
But it has grown into a satire that is on point and far more relevant than any other fictional show... largely made possible by a production schedule that literally BEGINS work on the concept for an episode only one week before airing. Virtually any other scripted show is looking at the better part of a year from concept to airing, at which point the satire is no longer relevant and "fresh" - especially in the age of the Internet and the 24-hour news cycle, where most topics tend to almost immediately become "old news", and quickly lose any relevance for South Park's newer (more educated, informed, and dare I say... more "high-brow") main demographic. As opposed to their initial target audience who didn't rely on
typically-long production schedules either, as they responded very predictably and reliably well to "fuçk you's" and fart jokes, anal probes, offensiveness for its own sake, and a total lack of any necessity to engage any real part of your brain.
One could perhaps make the argument that the show peaked several years ago rather than steadily going downhill since the first few seasons, and while I don't know if I'd agree, I could at the very least accept and respect such an argument. But to argue that its glory began right with its inception is absolute bananas, as it steadily transformed over the years from gratuitously offensive toilet humor to quite possibly the most intelligent, insightful, and (again) relevant satire that the entire television medium has to offer.
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