‘South Park’ Season 22 Trailer Teases Cancellation

South Park is beginning to advertise its upcoming 22nd season the most South Park way possible: Pretending to announce its own cancellation.

On Wednesday morning, the South Park Twitter account released a 15 second teaser for Season 22, though it didn’t feature any of the popular animated characters or typical brand of brash and off-color humor. Nope, instead of all that, the video simply teased that South Park would be cancelled.

“America has reached a crossroads,” the video states. “What will we do next?”

Following the two-sentence voice-over from the narrator, one single hashtag appears on the black screen: #cancelsouthpark.

While some fans on the internet are already losing their minds over the teaser, it’s worth pointing out that this is likely nothing more than a marketing gag. After all, Comedy Central has already renewed the show for a 23rd season next year, so South Park isn’t going anywhere.

So what’s with the cancellation joke? South Park has always been fairly current in the topics that it covers, and what bigger topic was there in TV this past year than the calls for various shows to be cancelled? Think of Roseanne, which was cancelled by ABC after star and producer Roseanne Barr shared a variety of racist messages on Twitter. The same has happened for shows like House of Cards, when star Kevin Spacey was outed as a sexual predator.

There was no way South Park was going to go an entire season without addressing this issue, especially since people have been calling for the animated series’ cancellation from the time it first aired. However, rather than simply making a couple of jokes, South Park is using this topic to fuel an entire marketing campaign.

Well done, Trey Park and Matt Stone, well done.

Are you excited for the new season of South Park to arrive? Did you think the show had been cancelled? Let us know in the comments!