South Park, being the button-pushing and topical show that it is, is bound to have a few gags that become far more confronting than intended when History Repeats.
- In the episode "Big Gay Al’s Big Gay Boat Ride", a sympathetic portrayal of Stan's homosexual dog Sparky actually shows him as a rapist who forces himself on straight male dogs. They even whimper and cry as they run away. Given the many stereotypes and fears of homosexual men that view them as insatiable sex monsters who will rape any man or child that gets in their way, this intended Very Special Episode can actually feel like part of the problem now, due to more awareness of the oppression of gay men.
- In a similar vein there's "An Elephant Makes Love To A Pig". Chef tells the boys that whenever he's seducing a woman he always starts by getting them "good and drunk" and that the next morning they'd usually regret it. It would only be a few years later that this method of courtship would be recognized as date-rape.
- It's possible the writers may have had this in mind when creating "The Return of Chef", where Chef starts coming onto the children in the same way he flirts with women.
- Also from the same episode, a scene was cut by executives before broadcasts out of fear of any real-life imitations, depicting Shelley repeatedly setting Stan on fire before throwing water over him. 24 years later, in South Park: Post Covid, it's revealed that, in the Bad Future, Stan unintentionally burned Shelley to death when he set fire to Tegridy Farms.
- Knowing Trey Parker would later undergo two divorces makes it awkward to see Stan talk about how much divorce sucks in "Clubhouses".
- In the Season 2 episode "Summer Sucks", Mr. Garrison daydreams about cutting Lamb Chop off Shari Lewis' arm and throwing her on a barbecue. This became much less funny when Lewis passed away less than two months after the episode aired.
- In "City on the Edge of Forever", Cartman having a false flashback of the events of "Cartman’s Mom is a Dirty Slut", where his father is John Elway, is a bit more depressing after Season 14 when it turns out his father really was one of the Denver Broncos. He was Scott Tenorman's father, whom Cartman got killed in Season 5.
- The entire episode "The Jeffersons" (and the lines from the black man on "The Mexican Staring Frog of Southern Sri Lanka" who kept telling Jesus that Michael Jackson is still a beloved entertainer, despite being branded as a Memetic Molester), which brutally spoofed Jackson, considering the death of the pop idol and how all the jokes about him being a child molester fell out of favor when he was acquitted in 2005 and when he died in 2009. Considering all the crap he got for his alleged crimes, both in real life and on other TV shows, that make jokes about Jackson being a child molester, South Park actually had a shocking amount of sympathy for him in the episode "The Jeffersons" as a Manchild who acted this way to make up for the childhood he never had (and Kyle calls "Mr. Jefferson" out on acting like a kid when really he should be caring for the child he has).
- The Season 5 episode "Proper Condom Use" has parents pushing for sex ed to be taught to the younger grades. How young? Try "kindergarten".note It was just a joke about how insane the need for teaching sex ed to younger children can be pushed. That is until some schools actually proposed having sex ed classes for 1st and 2nd graders. However, this was more centered on child molestation and what to do if you or someone you know is being sexually molested.
- One of the last scenes of "Butters' Very Own Episode" has Gary Condit, JonBenet Ramsey's parents, and O. J. Simpson being called out quite viciously and angrily for being murderers who lie through their teeth while playing the victim card. Though it was basically conventional wisdom at the time that Condit and the Ramseys were guilty liars, it has since then been confirmed that, unlike O.J. Simpson, the Ramseys and Condit were innocent victims who were Convicted by Public Opinion, making their call-outs in the episode not nearly as funny and biting when viewed today. This revelation came too late for Patsy Ramsey, having died of ovarian cancer five years after the episode premiered. Matt Stone and Trey Parker have gone on record saying that they deeply regret this.
- In "Jared Has Aides", after a misunderstanding, Jared Fogle is fired from his position as a Subway spokesman because people think he wants to give people AIDS, including children. Several lines of this episode become cringe-worthy after Subway cut ties with Jared after he had his home searched by the FBI under suspicion of possessing child pornography. He was subsequently charged and pled guilty of it and having sex with minors:Subway Rep: The opinions expressed by Mr. Fogle are not necessarily those of the Subway company.Tuong Lu Kim: I'm no having Jared in my City Wok! Don't you know? Everyone hates him now that he want to give AIDS to children!
- Naturally, the next times Jared showed up (in Season 19's "Stunning and Brave" and South Park: The Fractured but Whole, with a redesign putting an uncanny emphasis on his lips too), his pedophilia was the main joke.
- In "The Passion of the Jew", Mel Gibson is shown as a deranged man who goes after Stan and Kenny for hating The Passion of the Christ and ends up making a fool of himself in front of everyone in town (even going so far as to act like Daffy Duck, back when he was a screwball). In 2006, Gibson was pulled over for drunk driving, and while being arrested, he made anti-Semitic remarks and insulted a female officer by calling her a misogynistic name. In 2010, he's taped making racial and sexist slurs and screamed at his wife while threatening her, in a way that is scarily similar to his insane depiction.
- This one goes to South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut; in light of the cyber-attacks on Sony Pictures allegedly by North Korea over the film The Interview, the plot about going to war over a movie doesn't seem too farfetched anymore. In a related note, the "Cartoon Wars" two-parter features an episode of Family Guy getting pulled after it receives terrorist threats due to its depiction of Muhammad. The Interview ended up getting pulled from theaters due to terrorist threats over its depiction of Kim Jong-un.
- In the commentaries, Trey Parker and Matt Stone noted that of all the early episodes, the only one that's more edgy nowadays and which they probably wouldn't be able to get away with now is "Volcano" because it features children pointing guns and threatening to shoot each other...Though, since Season 19 concluded with whole families point guns at each other, they presumably changed their minds about that.
- In "Clubhouses", Randy and Sharon briefly separate after a series of arguments. They get back together at the end of the episode. The episode itself is funny... but then along comes "You're Getting Old", which is "Clubhouses," only more dramatic (and a two-part episode).
- At the end of "Super Best Friends," the announcer declares that "Their return is assured, for there will always be a need for the Super Best Friends!" After the "200/201" two-parter created a huge controversy over the show's depictions of Muhammad, the network decided "Super Best Friends" would not return to reruns.
- The entire plot of "Cartoon Wars" (about people panicking over Family Guy broadcasting an episode that has Muhammad on it) became this thanks to the "201" debacle. In fact, this and the line about the truck driver liking Family Guy because it's not preachy and up its own ass in morals aren't so funny anymore now that South Park and Family Guy have had their Seasonal Rot blamed on being heavy on the morals. Also Hilarious in Hindsight as the show predicted that Family Guy would do an episode that has to do with Peter and Islam ("Turban Cowboy"). It didn't have any reference to Muhammad in it, but it is a very happy coincidence (or possibly intentional as Seth MacFarlane has joked about the episode's jabs at him before).
- The cancellation of the release of The Interview due to potential terrorist threats disturbingly mirrors the reasons for the conflict of this episode, just replace Osama bin Laden with Kim Jong Un.
- This becomes even less funny after the Charlie Hebdo massacre. And even less funny after that following the November 2015 Paris tragedy.
- At the end of "Professor Chaos", we are abruptly asked, "Which of these six South Park residents was killed, and will never be seen again?" Since this is a parody of cliffhanger endings, the answer is immediately given as Ms. Choksondik. Besides her, the suspects were the Mayor, Officer Barbrady, Jimbo, Mr. Garrison, and... Chef, which wouldn't be true until four years later.
- As gross as the "stick food up your butt and shit out your mouth" concept in "Red Hot Catholic Love" was, it was at least ridiculous enough to be seen as impossible — until a video on Tosh.0 proved that vomiting up feces is physically possible.
- In "Trapper Keeper", a man under the alias Bill Cosby comes to South Park pretends to want to be Cartman's friend. And Cartman responds "Nah, my mom says I'm not allowed to have male friends over thirty." This line becomes a lot less funny after the rape allegations against and eventual imprisonment of the real Bill Cosby.note
- More "Heartwarming in Hindsight", but remember all of those adorable scenes in Season 20 focusing on the blooming romance between Cartman and Heidi, and how dedicated he was to her? Try watching them after "Sons a Witches" or "Doubling Down", when we see just how badly the relationship has fallen apart, especially as he gets worse every episode.
- One specific example is when they start the "Let's Come Together as a School" campaign which has Heidi mimicking Cartman's voice, pronouncing school like "skew." This is sort of horrible to think of in the context of Heidi essentially transforming into Cartman the latter half of season 21 and hating herself over it.
- In "A Very Crappy Christmas", Stan pokes fun at Cartman during his impersonation of the latter with Kyle by making fat jokes for a recording project, one of the lines being "I don't need to take that kind of shit from a Jew!". This was rather hilarious until the season 19 episode "Truth and Advertising" where Stan yells Fuck You Kyle!!! in a voice way too similar to Cartman without trying to impersonate him this time and actually showing genuine hostility towards Kyle, then getting into a fistfight.
- A Running Gag in season 20 was the Audience Reactions to Star Wars: The Force Awakens varying wildly, with many wondering if the film was really as good as when they first saw it. This gag has lost much of its humor as of the release of the sequel, The Last Jedi, which has gotten a major case of Critical Dissonance; becoming the lowest-ranked installment by audiences on Rotten Tomatoes and highlighting many issues with the series' Broken Base. This reception being inverted as of the release of The Rise of Skywalker can double as this and Hilarious in Hindsight.
- The fourth season episode "Something You Can Do With Your Finger" has a joke about the girls of South Park saying that they would be much more excited about meeting Matt Lauer than the new boy band that the boys are trying to start. Then in 2017, Lauer was fired from his position at NBC due to his long history of sexual harassment towards his female coworkers. More concerning is the girls' mouth animations make their screams look more frightened than excited, and the screaming also sounded like they were horrified, too.
- Also in the fourth season in the episode "Cherokee Hair Tampons" when Mr. Garrison is given leave from his job as 3rd grade teacher. He goes to turns in his badge and gun [puts revolver on table], but he's told that "most teachers do not carry a gun!", demonstrating what a Cloudcuckoolander he is. As of 2013, some groups are pushing for teachers to be allowed to carry guns in the wake of school shooting tragedies.
- In the season 15 episode "The Poor Kid", Kenny, his brother, and sister and Cartman are all placed in a group home run by exaggeratedly abusive and strict foster parents who punish them by spraying Dr. Pepper in their basement and force them to clean the house extremely spotless from top to bottom. It was (mostly) funny to watch but in light of the news of a California couple who systematically abused 12 of their 13 kids in an almost similar fashion, the episode would been seen as hard to watch.
- "Sexual Harassment Panda", while already dealing with touchy subject matter, becomes even harder to watch in light of the #MeToo movement, where sexual harassment accusations, particularly against public figures, have become even more prominent in the news. Particularly troubling is the show's insinuation that victims are exaggerating or inventing their claims, possibly at the instigation of money hungry lawyers. This is a real life argument often used to silence victims and protect the powerful and famous from facing the consequences of their actions.
- "Manbearpig" manages to be this both in a meta sense and in-universe through the power of Real Life Writes the Plot. The titular cryptid is a metaphor for climate change, which wasn't as widely supported in 2006 as it was in later years. Thus, environmentalist Al Gore was portrayed as a friendless Cloudcuckoolander making things up so people would give him attention. While the theory of global warming is still heavily debated, more science has come out in recent years in support of the Earth warming up, with some people noticing more drastic weather changes. To reflect these changing politics, the episode "Time to Get Cereal" released in 2018 confirmed that Manbearpig is real and is a greater threat than the boys ever predicted, murdering South Park residents and apparently even being a demon straight from Hell. With Al Gore having given up the fight, the boys now have to convince the town that Manbearpig is real... which, of course, many people don't still believe.
- This can also apply to the episode "Two Days Before The Day After Tomorrow", where various characters mistakenly believe that a massive climate shift is coming on and start crying out "We didn't listen!" in fits of self-pity.
- Any early episode with anti-environmentalist, global warming skeptic sentiment could probably fall into this, given how reports of species extinction and drastic weather changes are making that sentiment less acceptable.
- The Video game, South Park: The Stick of Truth, has Princess Kenny, who served as a parody of Daenerys Targaryen of Game of Thrones during the "Black Friday" trilogy, pull a Face–Heel Turn for no reason other than a outrageous backstory she made up in the last second and becomes the Final Boss leading to many hilarious moments. This can become very uncomfortable after watching Daenerys Targaryen, the character Kenny is parodying, pull a Face–Heel Turn in "The Bells" and slaughter thousands of innocent people with her dragon.
- A Running Gag from the show's early days was Mr. Garrison asking the mayor if they can "kill all the Mexicans". Decades later, Mr. Garrison would become a parody of Donald Trump, and one of the most horrific things to come out of the Trump Administration would be the displacement and detainment of countless Mexican children in inhumane internment camps at the US / Mexico border. It became even less funny in 2019 after a white supremacist carried out a mass shooting at El Paso, Texas with the explicit goal of killing Latinos. The anti-Mexican racism of the administration's internment camps would later be tackled in the Season 23 premiere.
- "Band in China"
- Less than a week after the episode mocked how easily American media gives in to Chinese censorship came the boycott of Blizzard Entertainment for banning a player for supporting Hong Kong's protests against the Chinese government.
- Randy's already-unsettling journey to China becomes more cringeworthy after "Pandemic Special," which revealed that Randy became Patient Zero for the COVID-19 virus after a drug-induced spree with Mickey Mouse. It also makes it harder to watch the subsequent episodes that feature Randy in close contact with people, particularly "Shots!!!", the episode immediately following "Band In China" where he throws a parade during a period when he would be contagious.
- Less than a week after the episode mocked how easily American media gives in to Chinese censorship came the boycott of Blizzard Entertainment for banning a player for supporting Hong Kong's protests against the Chinese government.
- "Holiday Special" has Randy protesting Columbus Day and invoking the destruction of Columbus' statues, before being revealed as a fanboy of the Italian navigator. Flash forward to June 2020 and the rage against Columbus becomes relevant again as the aftermath of the protests for the death of George Floyd: they resulted in the vandalizing or toppling of many monuments of several historical figures, not only Columbus but many others including Winston Churchill and Mahatma Gandhi.
- In "My Future Self n Me" parents, including Randy, went to ridiculous extremes to get their kids to not use drugs such as teaching them drugs will make you a terrorist. Come Season 23, Randy becomes a terrorist to profit off his weed farm.
- In "Where My Country Gone?", Canada builds a wall to keep the Americans out. While not a literal wall, the Trump administration's botched initial COVID-19 Pandemic response and its long-term effects throughout the year of 2020 has led to the Canadians closing down the US-Canadian Border.
- In "Cherokee Hair Tampons," whenever Stan worries about Kyle dying, Kenny gets mad, claiming (through his muffled voice), "You never seem to care when I die!" When he gets fed up and leaves, he gets killed by a falling piano. A funny gag at the time, but becomes sadder given the context from two later episodes. First, "Kenny Dies" takes Kenny's death seriously, and Stan is the one who gets the most upset over it, feeling immense guilt when he doesn't visit Kenny at the hospital and Kenny's last words are, "Where's Stan?" Second, "Mysterion Rises" and "Coon vs. Coon and Friends" retcon Kenny's immortality to be the result of a demonic curse, and reveals that not only does Kenny remember every painful death he's experienced, he's extremely pissed that his friends never remember, to the point he would rather kill himself than keep living with such a curse.
- In "The Red Badge of Gayness", Cartman tries to win a bet with Stan and Kyle by turning the town's Civil War reenactment into a real Civil War, which includes leading his troops to storm Washington, D.C. and make President Clinton surrender to the Confederacy. Not so funny 22 years later, when supporters of President Trump, which include neo-Confederates, violently stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempted coup.
- The attack on the Federal Express store in "T.M.I." has become far less amusing after a former employee attacked a Federal Express facility in Indianapolis in April 2021.
- The campaign against distracted driving in "Put It Down". The episode already show a bunch of children being run over, but it's even sadder after Jason White died by being run over in "Season Finale".
- "Tsst"'s ending becomes a lot harder to watch when find out what happens to Cartman in his adulthood: In "Return of COVID", after Bad Future!Cartman sacrifices his current life to save his friends from being cynical and miserable, Good Future!Cartman is revealed to be a homeless shell of his former self, abusing alcohol and shouting obscenities on the street. Cesar helped avert that future for him only for Liane to selfishly revert Cartman back to his original self, putting him back on the path towards his bleak adulthood, all because Cesar rejected Liane's advances.
- In A Nightmare On Face Time, Randy is treated like an idiot for wanting to run a movie rental store in the age of streaming. While Netflix was far more convenient than Blockbuster in 2012, ten years later Netflix is starting to show a noticeable decline in popularity, not helped by the rise of various other competitors which are now necessary to all subscribe to in order to have access to all the content that was on Netflix in 2012. So for those who don't want to pay for Disney+, HBO Max, Peacock, Paramount+, etc. alongside Netflix, a video rental store might be necessary in The New '20s.
- In "Return of COVID", Cartman performs an Heroic Sacrifice so his friends can live better lives in the new timeline, at the cost of him being homeless, losing his family, and his friends forgetting everything he did for them. In Spider-Man: No Way Home, released a mere day after the special, Peter Parker essentially goes through the same thing at the end of the movie.
- On the subject of "The Return of COVID", Cartman's awful fate at the end of the special puts several previous episodes in a more negative light:
- After getting kicked out of the group in "Bebe's Boobs Destroy Society", Cartman flips off Stan and Kyle (and Tweek) and shouts "Fuck you!" to each of them. In this episode, it was Played for Laughs. When something similar happens in "The Return of COVID" it's not played for laughs at all, and hearing a now-friendless Cartman flip the boys off while yelling "Fuck you!" is downright tragic when you take into account the ending of said episode.
- The ending of "My Future Self and Me" has a Ridiculously Successful Future Self version of Cartman travel back in time to meet himself in the present in an attempt to ensure that he stays on the path to a good future, only for Cartman to end up becoming a Future Loser instead due to Cartman thinking his "future self" is just a paid actor, like the other "future self" characters seen earlier in the episode. Let's just say that after the "Return Of COVID" special, Cartman's new future self at the end of this episode seems successful by comparison, and like this episode, he caused it due to time travel.
- Eric Cartman mocks the homeless throughout one episode, as well as jumping over them with his skateboard and exaggerating his feat, to the point it becomes a hobby of his by the end of the episode. After watching the "Return of COVID" special when Cartman himself becomes homeless, once again, something that was Played for Laughs won't be so funny to watch anymore.
