The future of Comedy Central animation appears to lie on the Paramount+ streaming service.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Comedy Central’s planned revival of Mike Judge’s MTV animated series Beavis and Butt-Head is skipping the cable network and heading straight to Paramount+. Meanwhile, Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s South Park will continue to air new episodes on Comedy Central, though is set to move its sizeable streaming library from HBO Max to Paramount+ in 2025. Additionally, new episodes of South Park will have their streaming debuts on Paramount+ starting with season 27 in 2024.
It was first announced in mid-2020 that Comedy Central was reviving the 1990s MTV series Beavis and Butt-Head for two new seasons, with plans for spinoffs. It was later announced that the revival would kick off with a new feature-length film, titled Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe, on Paramount+. With new episodes of Beavis and Butt-Head expected to arrive sometime this year, it’s now clear that the whole revival will take place on Paramount+, eschewing Comedy Central entirely.
Judge’s Beavis and Butt-Head began life as a duology of shorts that aired as part of MTV’s Liquid Television animation showcase in 1992. Beavis and Butt-Head then became a full series, which aired on MTV for seven seasons from 1993 to 1997. Beavis and Butt-Head Do America, a feature-length film directed and co-written by Judge, hit theaters in late 1996. After over a decade off the air, Beavis and Butt-Head was revived for an eighth season on MTV in 2011.
Beavis and Butt-Head already spawned one spinoff in the form of Glenn Eichler and Susie Lewis Lynn’s Daria, which ran on MTV for five seasons and two television films from 1997 to 2002. Daria is itself headed for a spinoff in the form of Grace Edwards’ Jodie, which — at this time — is still expected to debut on Comedy Central. Meanwhile, Judge hopes the Beavis and Butt-Head revival will spawn a slew of new spinoffs in a manner similar to Norman Lear’s All in the Family.
Meanwhile, Parker and Stone’s South Park initially premiered on Comedy Central in 1997 and has been a staple of the network ever since. In late 2019, Viacom inked a deal with WarnerMedia to make South Park available to stream on HBO Max. That deal is set to expire in 2025. Hence, the show’s planned move to the re-merged ViacomCBS’ own Paramount+ service. However, despite HBO Max being South Park‘s current streaming home, Parker and Stone recently signed a deal to produce numerous hour-long South Park specials exclusively for Paramount+, the first two of which have already dropped.
South Park Season 24 is viewed as consisting of the four specials that were released from Sept. 30, 2020 to Dec. 16, 2021. The first two specials — “The Pandemic Special” and “South ParQ Vaccination Special” — aired on Comedy Central and can currently be streamed on HBO Max. The latter two — South Park: Post Covid and South Park: Post Covid: The Return of Covid — were the aforementioned Paramount+ exclusive releases. South Park‘s regular 25th season premiered on Comedy Central earlier this month on Feb. 2.
As far as South Park‘s streaming future is concerned, THR explains that the show’s complete 310-episode library will launch on Paramount+ internationally (i.e. outside the States) sometime this year. As previously mentioned, new episodes will then have their United States and global streaming premieres on Paramount+ starting with Season 27 in 2024. Finally, South Park‘s entire catalog will move from HBO Max to Paramount+ in the U.S. in 2025, thus making Paramount+ “the global exclusive SVOD home to the franchise.”
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
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