15 pieces of pop culture that may have been influenced by South Park

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Sunny is a black comedy about four friends who own a pub in, you guessed it, Philadelphia. The series follows “The Gang” as they shuffle through life as depraved, shallow underachievers. Each member of this hapless squad shows more contemptible qualities than the next, and the entire show is an exercise in inappropriate and shocking humor.

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia has taken on South Park’s willingness to mine anything and everything for humor. Nothing is off-limits as these characters cheat, lie, betray, and do egregious harm to one another on a regular basis. They also, without fail, maintain insanely high opinions of themselves, while doing absolutely nothing at all to deserve it. While you could draw parallels between the two groups of friends on the shows, The Gang in Sunny have far less affection for one another than the friends in South Park. And that’s really saying something, compared to a show that routinely kills off one of its characters.

Sunny’s humor and wit come from a willingness to cannibalize anything and everything.  The writers take on taboo topics using absurd satire to make audiences laugh at the grossest of subject matter. It’s nothing for the show to tackle blackface, smoking crack, impersonating a disabled person to obtain welfare, or huffing paint. Often considered too dark for the faint of heart, Sunny democratically mocks pretty much everything, without ever flinching over political correctness.

Best of: “Chardee MacDennis: The Game of Games” (season 7, episode 7) and “The Nightman Cometh” (season 4, episode 13)