The latest season of the outspoken animated show South Park continues to set records with its brutal mockery of Donald Trump’s administration.
The Comedy Central series doubled down on skewering Trump and his officials in its second episode, which savaged Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and ICE.
This proved fruitful for South Park, with Comedy Central announcing that the episode drew 6.2 million viewers across cable and streaming in its first three days.
Newly released ratings report that this was the “highest rated episode since 2018 and biggest share in series history”.
The stats show that the episode experienced a 15.61 share, meaning that 16 per cent of cable viewers on 6 August watched the episode that evening.
Shares, which are determined by Nielsen Media Research, measure how many TV sets were tuned into a particular channel when an episode is being broadcast.
Comedy Central also noted in its press release that the episode was the single most-watched telecast on 6 August.
It comes after the first episode of the season recorded the show's biggest share of a cable audience for a season premiere since 1999, after attracting 5.9 million viewers.
In the second episode of the long-running show’s 27th season, Noem was depicted repeatedly shooting dogs, a reference to the fact that she once confessed to killing her own puppy because it was “untrainable”. The show also mocked allegations that she has had plastic surgery.
In an unaired post-credits scene, shared earlier this week, Noem is shown entering a pet store and opening fire on the unsuspecting animals inside. One tiny dog manages to escape the massacre, but Noem chases it down and kills it.
After the episode aired on 7 August, Noem told The Glenn Beck Program podcast that, although she hadn’t seen the episode, she thought the cartoon was “petty” and “lazy”.
“I didn't get to see it. I was going over budget numbers and stuff. But you know, I just think it's... yeah, it never ends,” the 53-year-old said. “But it's so lazy to just constantly make fun of women for how they look. Only the liberals and the extremists do that.”
Trump has appeared in both episodes of the new season so far, and was reportedly left “seething” when he was shown in a relationship with Satan. In response, the White House said: “This show hasn’t been relevant for over 20 years and is hanging on by a thread with uninspired ideas in a desperate attempt for attention.”
Vice President JD Vance was also mocked in episode two, where he was depicted as a miniature version of himself waiting on Trump’s every demand.
South Park’s next episode is due to arrive on Wednesday, 20 August.
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