The creators of South Park revisited and apologized for their 2006 episode mocking climate change in a two-part Season 22 storyline. The original episode featured Al Gore promoting awareness of the fictional ManBearPig as an allegory for global warming. Gore later praised the show's acknowledgment of how poorly the satire aged.
South Park, the long-running animated series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, debuted on Comedy Central in 1997 and has satirized American society, including politicians and public figures, across multiple U.S. presidencies from Bill Clinton to Donald Trump. In Season 10, Episode 6 titled "ManBearPig," which aired in 2006 during George W. Bush's second term, former Vice President Al Gore visits South Park Elementary to warn about an imaginary monster called ManBearPig, serving as an allegory for climate change. The episode personifies climate change denial, portraying Gore's activism—promoted through his documentary "An Inconvenient Truth"—as a bid for attention.
The creature reappeared in the "Imaginationland" trilogy but returned more prominently in Season 22's two-parter, "Time to Get Cereal" and "Nobody Got Cereal?" Here, ManBearPig wreaks havoc on Tegridy Farms and the South Park community, prompting protagonists Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny to seek help from the Gore they once mocked. Parker and Stone used this arc to walk back their original stance, disowning the denialist sentiment while continuing to skewer Gore.
Al Gore addressed the episodes on "The Daily Show with Trevor Noah," calling the acknowledgment a "hell of a statement" given modern evidence on climate change. Most recently, ManBearPig featured in the Paramount+ special "South Park: The Streaming Wars," taking a heroic role toward the end. This evolution reflects the series' history of political controversy, including recent Season 27 episodes targeting Trump and the Paramount-Skydance merger.
