I would say by Season 6
-Pip and Mr. Hat are retired as characters
-Ms. Choksondik is gone forever
-Ms. Crabtree barely appears by now
-Chef’s prominence as a character starts slowing down
-Terrence & Philip are barely seen from here on
When they stopped using celebrity pics
I’ve always weirdly thought the episodes where they introduce new police characters outside of Barbrady was sort of a change in the show. Not necessarily for the worse or anything but around then is when I started to realize things had changed a bit
2003-2004
Hers how I see it
First short films: Origins
Seasons 1-3: Early South Park
Seasons 4-6: Classic era
Seasons 7-12: Early Golden Age
Seasons 13-18: Late Golden Age
Seasons 19-21: Serialization era
Seasons 22-23: Tegridy farms era
Season 24-Present: Exclusive event era
That’s almost exactly how I would divide it.
Scott Tenorman Must Die is the end of the classic era.
Shortly after Matt and Trey started leaning into the social commentary era with Osama Bin Laden Has Farty Pants.
If the classic era means the height of the show’s influence on pop culture, like the “oh my god they killed Kenny” and “screw you guys I’m going home” stuff, that was over by season 4. I also think the show generally gets a lot better at that point
Classic era ended with Scott Tenorman eating his parents. Cartman’s character development reflects the “eras”
Pretty much agree. Need the early cartoon madness back or it may as well be a live action sitcom.
Scott Tenorman Must Die is like first moment I feel the old South Park started to change. Went from silly stories of 4 boys to insane diabolical since then.
Other than that, the official end has to be Chef’s death and ofc Issac Hayes. It is not the same without Chef.
For me, it’s -
Season 1-5: Classic era
Season 6-15: Golden age
Season 16-22: noticeable decline
Season 23-present: back on the upswing
Newer seasons and the recent specials have been amazing, but for awhile there it was just okay
People really can’t admit the show started to decline around seasons 15-16 but it’s so true. South Park is my favourite show ever but the decline is real and its just such a different show now compared to the peak years.
After Mr Garrison becomes president
the last classic south park season was 13
when they started adding pc principal and all sorts of other stuff like that, that’s when it got to be there were maybe 1 or 2 good episodes per season, if that
that’s when it truly died
i’ve seen some of the later episodes, and apparently it came back after a while of being shit, but i don’t wanna go back and suffer through it, trying to figure out exactly when that was
it could’ve only been bad for the few seasons i knew were bad before i gave up (14-16), or it could’ve been bad up until the last couple seasons, but i’m probably not gonna find out
Chef dying was the end of classic South Park.
Agree , nothing can top the first 6 seasons
I think it ended around season 10. The early seasons had a charm the newer ones lack.