If I had a nickel every time the cultural reconsolidation after the backlash against ‘70s social liberalism played out but before the seeds of '10s style showed fruit took the form of socially cynical TV animation by creators in love with the historic American cultural form of the musical I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t much, but it’s weird that it happened twice.

By season 5, South Park was clearly within the editorial page comic tradition of “hey here’s a live issue from the last week, presented through farcical metaphor”, except it’d also be a little foreshadowing Family Guy, cause instead of current releases the movie references would be from like 1978 and you could be all “I get that!”