Despite many shows parodying The Simpsons remade an obscure indie horror in one of the show’s season 33 episodes, the animated sitcom is not the only adult cartoon to spoof the horror genre on occasion. Since its inception, South Park has parodied horror movies in many of the show’s classic episodes.
Over the course of its run, South Park has expertly skewered dozens of different TV shows, movies and books. Some of the show's most high-profile targets include the likes of The Lord of the Rings, Red Dragon and Game of Thrones. However, one of South Park’s best successful spoofs took aim at an adaptation of horror author Stephen King’s short story, Children of the Corn. The resulting parody remains one of South Park’s most well-liked episodes ever thanks to the show’s canny decision to take satirical aim at a lesser-known King story.
Voted one of South Park’s best episodes by the show's fans in 2o13, “The Wacky Molestation Adventure” (season 4, episode 16) spoofed Children of the Corn despite the movie’s relative obscurity. Although the show later spoofed King again with a The Simpsons famously parodied another Stephen King adaptation made the gag even riskier—and the episode’s eventual success all the more impressive.
South Park’s Stephen King Spoof Explained
The episode sees South Park spoof Mad Max-esque anarchy comes to an end when the out-of-towners can help the kids see sense and facilitate the return of their parents.
Why South Park's Stephen King Parody Was Risky
Like a lot of South Park episodes, the premise of “The Wacky Molestation Adventure” courted controversy by mocking a subject as sensitive as molestation. However, this was not all that worked against the South Park outing’s chances of critical success. Not only was Children of the Corn largely forgotten by the time the episode aired, but “The Wacky Molestation Adventure” also wasn’t the first time an animated comedy had spoofed King's oeuvre. So well-known that it has been screened alongside Kubrick’s original movie in university courses, The Simpsons "Treehouse of Horror" segment "The Shinning" was phenomenally popular with fans and critics upon its release a few years earlier.
Everything from the fact that centering on a Children of the Corn parody.
Why South Park’s Stephen King Spoof Worked
Likely aware of the inevitable comparisons that would be made between "The Shinning" and “The Wacky Molestation Adventure,” the creators of South Park took the opposite approach when parodying Stephen King. Where The Simpsons opted to replicate King’s most famous movie adaptation, South Park chose a much more obscure title to spoof. Similarly, while The Simpsons relied on recreating specific scenes from the movie in question, South Park took the tone and story of Children of the Corn as its inspiration and built a new, original plot from there. Like The Langoliers, South Park’s King spoof works because the episode highlights a largely forgotten work of his and hones in on what made it unintentionally funny, rather than The Simpsons approach of spoofing an endlessly-quoted, iconic adaptation.
Which Stephen King Spoof Is Better, South Park or The Simpsons?
The question of which Stephen King parody is better is impossible to answer since South Park’s approach to creating a Stephen King homage is so different from that of The Simpsons. The Simpsons' spoof of The Shining is almost as widely quoted as the original movie, but South Park’s Children of the Corn parody likely introduced a whole new generation to the otherwise forgotten movie. The Simpsons spoof has a truncated runtime that it manages to pack an incredible number of jokes into, but South Park’s King spoof unspools at a leisurely enough pace for some of the atmospheric early scenes to be surprisingly reminiscent of King’s real-life horror short stories.
Neither parodies can be compared to the other, much like Rick & Morty’s Stephen King spoof can't be compared to either of them.“The Wacky Molestation Adventure” remains one of South Park’s strongest outings because of its ability to marry an absurd concept with a familiar plot, reminding Stephen King fans of a lesser hit that even they have likely forgotten. There is no denying that The Simpsons Halloween special segment is a classic cartoon comedy, but South Park’s King spoof plays into what makes the show unique. Obscene, absurd, and surprisingly affectionate in its homage to Stephen King’s Children of the Corn, South Park’s “The Wacky Molestation Adventure” is both a love letter to the horror author’s work and a hilariously silly spoof on its own .