How South Park Used ChatGPT to Help Write an Episode
The show that changes with the times
South Park is a show like no other. Where so many shows and cartoons seem almost to exist outside of time, South Park stays rooted in the moment. That’s not to say, of course, that the children have actually aged. Apart from graduating from third to fourth grade, they’ve remained 10-year-olds as they’ve confronted everything from climate change to religion, to politics, to a giant mechanized Barbara Streisand.
In their near-perpetual commitment to the issues of the moment, the writers of the show have essentially boxed themselves in. To work within those restrictions, though, grants the show an ability to speak to current day issues in a way few non-news shows have even attempted.
The latest episode addressed ChatGPT, and it stands as a crowning example of what makes South Park so very brilliant. When COVID happened, South Park was there with an episode to make light of one of humanity’s darkest years in a century. When 9/11 happened, they were the first cartoon to comedically address the events of the day. To see South Park’s takes on some of the most momentous events of the last two and a half decades has always been entertaining, if nothing else. But at best, the long-running satire is able to offer something quasi-therapeutic.
This latest episode nearly rose to that level. As a writer, the proliferation of ChatGPT has been a near-constant concern these past few months. There are moments when I’m hopeful about the ways it could help humanity, but there are moments, too, when I fear for this writing career I’ve only just started. I hadn’t realized how badly I needed South Park to downplay those fears.
The episode opens to one of the female students, Bebe, bragging about her boyfriend’s amazing texting skills. Minutes later, though, it’s revealed that Bebe’s boyfriend, Clyde, is simply using ChatGPT to come up with replies to her messages so that he has time to do other things.
Throughout the episode, more and more people begin digging themselves into hilarious holes with the AI writing assistant. At one point, as I assume must be happening in high schools across the world right now, the unsuspecting teacher hands back ChatGPT-written essays to the class as the students begin exchanging suspicious sidelong glances with one another.
Later, as the school catches on to the growing trend, a falcon-clad tribesman, “the ChatGPT detector,” arrives at the school to root out essay-cheaters. Things go increasingly off the rails as the episode unfolds until the plot’s protagonist, Stan, wonders to himself how he can possibly resolve things. “I’m not creative enough to think my way out of this!” he laments before suddenly exclaiming, “Wait. That’s it!”
In a fourth wall-breaking stunt, Stan simply prompts ChatGPT to resolve the situation in the plot. The episode then transitions into a comically AI-written chain of events, before culminating in a monologue that fixes everything in one fell swoop. The conclusion lacks all of South Park’s staple personality, but in its lazily-written resolution, only manages to further drive home the comedy of the situation.
At the end of the episode, “Written by Trey Parker & ChatGPT” flashes on the screen. I could hardly believe my eyes or contain my laughter at the reveal. It might be saying a lot, but, out of its 26-season run, this stands out to me as one of the most conceptually creative episodes they’ve released yet. South Park’s ability to poignantly offer its take on the entire AI situation, satirize it, and skillfully hit viewers over the head with the fact that ChatGPT had actually helped write the episode, felt absolutely masterful.
Though ChatGPT assisted with the episode, it didn’t make the point that all episodes could simply be written in this way, but rather, that if they even tried to, each episode would be as contrived and lifeless as this episode’s conclusion. It was a brilliant way to prove that, while ChatGPT can help in our creative projects, it takes humans to truly breathe life into them.