In an age where streaming was once heralded as the pinnacle of modern convenience, collectors of physical media have been vindicated, and the South Park saga proves it.
As South Park prepares to migrate from Max (formerly HBO Max) to Paramount+ on July 1, a troubling undercurrent has emerged: censorship. A number of episodes—around 15 by some reports—may not make the jump due to their controversial content. Topics like depictions of Muhammad, Saddam Hussein, LGBTQ+ issues, and other politically charged themes are reportedly on the chopping block. While Paramount hasn’t confirmed the episode purge, historical patterns strongly suggest it’s coming.
Remember that early streaming utopia? All your favorite shows at your fingertips—no discs, no shelves, just “convenience.” But convenience comes with a cost, and we’re paying it now.
Stan, Kyle, Cartman & Kenny survived the pandemic but things will never be the same. SOUTH PARK: POST COVID is now streaming!
— Paramount+ (@paramountplus) November 29, 2021
Licensing disputes, corporate lawsuits, and ideological sanitization have made streaming libraries unstable and unreliable. The legal spat between Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount over South Park is a classic example. One sues for breach of contract, the other counter-sues for unpaid licensing fees, and meanwhile, the viewers lose access.
In the digital realm, you don’t own your media. You rent it, and what you rented yesterday might be gone tomorrow—especially if it’s deemed too edgy for modern sensibilities.
Let’s be honest: physical media is no longer just about nostalgia or aesthetics. It’s about preservation. It’s about having the unaltered, original version of a film, album, or show that can’t be quietly edited or yanked from the cloud.
When you own the DVD, the Blu-ray, or the cartridge, you own the content. No one can patch it, censor it, or pull it offline. And that ownership matters even more now that studios and platforms are increasingly eager to sanitize history for modern tastes.
When South Park finally arrives on Paramount Plus in the US on July 1, the following episodes will be banned from the streaming service:
– Season 1 Episode 4: “Big Gay Al’s Big Boat Ride”
– Season 2 Episode 1: “Terrance And Phillip In Not Without My Anus”
– Season 4 Episode 14:… pic.twitter.com/f0jU0S3kob— ArtieRaccoonReviews (@ArtieReviews) May 17, 2025
Disney+ has added disclaimers to dozens of older films. Hulu removed episodes of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Paramount+ and others are walking a fine line between curating content and outright erasing it.
At what point does this evolve from content moderation into cultural revisionism?
South Park was never subtle. It has skewered, mocked, and offended virtually every group under the sun—that’s its entire brand. Pulling episodes now to avoid controversy is not just hypocritical, it’s historically revisionist.
If viewers can’t access episodes because they’ve been labeled offensive, do those episodes still exist in the cultural canon? And if not, have we begun sliding toward Orwell’s infamous memory hole, where media is quietly scrubbed from the record?
