Top 20 Times South Park Made Fun of Disney

Robert Redford decides to move the Sundance Film Festival to South Park after deciding that the festival’s site in Utah has become too commercialized. Unfortunately, this influx of people into the town has disrupted the sewer environment where Mr. Hankey lives. He petitions the boys to get everyone to leave but they end selling the story rights to movie producers. Mr. Hankey takes matters into his own hands and dons a wizard hat and robe, similar to Mickey Mouse in Fantasia, and drives all the festival folk out of town with sewer water.

PC Principal and Strong Woman are training for a competition when their children, the PC Babies, begin crying. They come to find that the babies are upset because the film “Mulan” is playing on Disney+. In it the titular character disguises herself as a man in order to fight in the Chinese army against Hun invaders. According to Strong Woman, the babies don’t like the fact that the movie doesn’t take the time to address real trans issues. PC Principal assures the kids that he knows that “Mulan” is outdated and turns it off.

In order to solve the problem of people protesting the national anthem, Congress approaches J.J. Abrams to reboot the American national anthem. They note that he saved “Star Wars” because he’s really good at introducing new things but also at the same time reminding you of the things you love. When the new anthem is unveiled, it delivers exactly on that promise with the addition that you can stand, sit or kneel thereby fixing America. At the same time Randy is introduced to member berries, a superfruit that reminds you of the good times. They remind him of Chewbacca before pivoting to right wing talking points.

After getting his bike impounded for unpaid fines, Stan becomes the coach of the Park County pee-wee hockey team as a way to get his bike back. The team is a ragtag group of kids who can barely skate and has a rival team from Adams County with a hot shot coach. To make matters worse, one of the kids, Nelson, on Stan’s team has cancer. As his condition worsens, he asks Stan to win their game against Denver County at the Pepsi Center. Stan believes they’re going to win because that’s what he learned watching feel good sports movies like “The Mighty Ducks”. They end up playing the Detroit Red Wings and get absolutely crushed in one of the saddest endings ever.

Randy is determined to see Stan win the pinewood derby. To ensure victory, he adds a superconductive magnet to the rear of the car. Stan reminds him that it's against the rules to add anything to the car that’s not part of the approved kit but Randy insists he’s just leveling the playing field. It turns out that he went all the way to the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland to get the magnet. Parodying the opening of “A New Hope”, Randy is dressed as Princess Leia as he commits the theft. The disguise worked as Princess Leia is now a wanted criminal.

While at Wall Mart Kyle shames Cartman for his weight and points out that he will need a mobility scooter to get around. Later, a seemingly remorseful Cartman indicates he’s going to change his ways and, of course, that involves getting a mobility scooter. He doesn’t need the scooter but it does give him some advantages such as not having to participate in gym class and getting a big booth at Denny’s. In voice over, he talks about the shame he feels about being obese, so to cheer himself up, he goes to Disneyland on weekends. It’s all tongue in cheek as he becomes irate that there’s a line for Rascals, concluding that all those suffering from obesity are ignored.

Randy buys a Blockbuster video rental store, which is not the brightest idea. On Halloween, the boys are going dressed as the Avengers but, unfortunately, Stan can’t join them because Randy thinks it’s going to be super busy at the Blockbuster and has to stay and help. Kyle comes up with a solution where Stan joins them through FaceTime. Cartman is the Hulk but he keeps being misidentified. They witness a group of thieves robbing a convenience store and as the Avengers they go to stop them but then nope right out of there once they realize the robbers killed the store clerk.

Imagine having the opportunity to be in a “Star Wars” movie. It would be cool, right? That’s Cartman’s plan when steals a bunch of election ballots during the 2012 American presidential election. He does this so Obama will win and negotiate a deal to hand over the “Star Wars” IP to the Chinese government. In exchange for the ballots, Cartman wants to be Luke Skywalker’s son in future films. The Chinese want to protect the integrity of “Star Wars” because they think Disney will ruin it. Mickey Mouse shows up and as the head of Disney, he’s not ready to hand over his recent acquisition. He’s as rude as ever and teams up with Cartman to get the ballots.

The pandemic has taken its toll on South Park. For Randy Marsh, it’s actually helped him out quite a bit as sales for Tegridy weed has exploded. He even introduces a pandemic special involving a 10% discount as a way to promote community. Things change for Randy when it’s announced that scientists are close to discovering the origins of COVID saying that they’ve pinpointed it to a bat in Wuhan. Worried, Randy has a flashback to his time in China with Mickey Mouse where they get with a bat. Later, when it’s discovered that the virus actually came from a pangolin and yeah, there’s another flashback of Mickey and Randy. We’re better off without that knowledge.

There’s been a lot of outrage from certain fans of “Star Wars” over the direction the franchise has taken since being acquired by Disney and headed by Kathleen Kennedy. Cartman has nightmares that he’s been replaced by a diverse woman and he fears that Disney executives will end up replacing everyone with diverse women complaining about patriarchy. Of course, he’s not wrong as there is a universe where a version of Kathleen Kennedy is trying to replace everyone. This version is completely off the rails as when she orders a dish she requests that a chick be put in it and made gay, highlighting how far she’s willing to go with diversity casting.

When Disney + was announced, people everywhere went nuts - including South Park’s Scott Malkinson. He’ll do anything to get his hands on it - including selling his insulin to a street dealer. Meanwhile, his pleas for a Disney+ subscription have driven his dad over the edge, to the point where he decides to take the streaming service down. The episode shines a light on how Disney jumped on the streaming bandwagon, and how streaming services are ruling our lives. And we even get a cameo from Grogu - clearly put in to highlight Disney’s clever tactic for making “The Mandalorian” a must-watch.

In the world of “South Park”, Mickey Mouse isn't just a mascot for Disney, he’s the boss. And when an employee steps out of line, he’s not above getting personally involved. In this episode, someone has been bad mouthing the Chinese government. To get to the bottom of it, Mickey rallies all Disney characters and interrogates them to try and find out who the traitor is. And it’s pretty full on, playing on the perception that Disney is super strict with its stars. The writers also throw a dig in at Mickey being unsure whether his company owns “South Park” - ya know, cause Disney owns everything.

This next entry isn't an episode, but instead an entire video game. Released in 2017, this “South Park” RPG plays on the superhero ensemble format in the vein of “The Avengers”. Starring popular characters from the “South Park” series - including Professor Chaos, the Coon, Mosquito and the Human Kite, the entire thing is absolutely ridiculous, inappropriate and brilliant. Playing to the popularity of superhero flicks and subsequently ridiculing them in a way that only South park can pull off, the game heavily references the superhero movie genre. In fact, the game’s theme songs took direct inspiration from 2012 “The Avengers”, among other iconic superhero scores.

When Disney released the Marvel movie “Black Panther” in 2018, it represented a significant cultural moment in the movie business. It not only featured an almost entirely black cast, but also received universal praise from fans and critics. So, of course, “South Park” had to say something about it. In this episode from season 22, Cartman is afraid that people will think he’s racist for not liking the movie. At the same time, he becomes baffled after discovering that his friend, Tolkien, has not seen the movie. A commentary on the cultural significance of “Black Panther” - and ignorance when it comes to matters of race - Cartman’s attempts to avoid offending anyone prove hilariously offensive.

Okay, so this next entry is basically one big long rant about the “Star Wars” sequel trilogy, specifically “The Force Awakens”. In the midst of a rousing speech, Randy Marsh makes a point of how recycling old ideas is a bad idea. And it doesn’t take long for his crosshairs to land on “Star Wars”. Criticizing “The Force Awakens” for its lack of originality, Randy rants about how looking back to the past isn’t necessarily the way to go - sending out a big “wink, wink” to Disney and director J. J. Abrams. It’s clear that “South Park” creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker wanted to vent a little here, and boy oh boy did they ever tell us how they feel.

This next entry takes us all the way back to season one of the show - and a now-legendary character, Big Gay Al. When Stan is upset that his dog Sparky is gay, Sparky runs away - only to be taken in by Big Gay Al at his gay animal sanctuary. For fans of the Jungle Cruise ride in Walt Disney World, Florida, Al’s Big Gay Boat Ride will be very familiar. According to animation director Eric Stough, much of what Al says while showing Stan around the boat tour and animal sanctuary, were variations of things Eric himself said when he was Jungle Cruise director at the theme park.

We’re venturing away from the usual Disney suspects with this one, and into the world of “Tron” - which for the record, is a Walt Disney Studios movie. This episode aligns the world of “Tron” and Facebook, with Stan trying to delete the latter before finding himself sucked into his computer. There’s tons of criticism throughout, with the writers taking aim at the points system dynamic of Facebook friends, while using a parody of the iconic movie “Tron” to do it. And you know what, all its snarkiness aside, the episode is great to look at!

When the “High School Musical” franchise launched in 2006, kids everywhere went wild, imitating the song and dance numbers from the films. Following the release of the third installment, something similar happened in South Park, with everyone being caught up in the musical fad - except for Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny. Highlighting how weird it would actually be if everyone sporadically burst into song, the episode ends with the boys joining in to fit in, just as the fad passes. Trends come and go, but as the “South Park” creators remind us, during the height of craze, the peer pressure to conform can feel overwhelming - especially when Disney is involved!

For this entry, we’re back with Mickey Mouse and his totalitarian way of running Disney - at least within the world of “South Park”. Harking back to when boyband The Jonas Brothers wore purity rings, the episode suggests that Mickey Mouse made the boys wear them in a sneaky plot to sell sex to young audiences. And when the band refuses to play along, he beats one of them violently. We’ve already mentioned how “South Park” likes to play on the apparent ruthlessness of Disney and its treatment of its stars, but this scene is particularly hard-hitting. And that laugh Mickey keeps doing - oh man.

And you thought we were done with Mickey Mouse mercilessness - of course not! When Mickey blames Winnie the Pooh for jeopardizing a deal with China, Randy is sent to take Pooh out! The brutal scene consists of Randy luring Pooh down an alley with some honey, and then graphically strangling him. Again, this is another moment targeting the lengths that Disney allegedly goes to in order to keep business running as usual. But ... why did it have to be Pooh? South Park has never shied away from shocking imagery, but this really pushed the envelope!