All 5 South Park Episodes Are Missing From HBO Max (And Why)

For decades, South Park has been known for its controversy, which resulted in five episodes not being added to HBO Max.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone's South Park has a reputation for raunchiness and controversy, with five episodes missing from the HBO Max lineup. South Park started in 1997, and despite being outright banned in several countries, the series is now in its 25th season and isn't slowing down anytime soon. Controversy aside, the adult animated show has been critically acclaimed, earning five Primetime Emmy Awards and even a Peabody Award. There's no doubt that Parker and Stone's irreverent comedy defied all expectations and was a huge success.

South Park still airs on its original home station, Comedy Central, but a significant number of episodes of the series are also coming to HBO Max in 2019, though South Park will eventually move to Paramount+ in 2025. However, viewers noticed that five episodes were missing from the HBO Max series: "Super Best Friends," "Cartoon Wars Part I & II," and "200 & 201." Not only are they missing from the streaming service, but the episodes also don't appear on the South Park Studios website, with each episode stamped as "currently unavailable."

Super Best Friends

South Park Season 5, Episode 3, "Super Best Friends" airs on Comedy Central 2001, and basically flew under the radar for a long time. In this episode, famous magician David Bryan arrives in a small Colorado town and starts a cult called "The Brianite Cult," which is a very obvious dig at Scientology, causing Chef to leave South Park . After Stan, Kyle, Kenny, and Cartman join the rest of the "Blaynets", Stan begins to realize that the cult is not what it's made out to be.

After unsuccessfully trying to convince his friends that they've been brainwashed, Stan calls on the Justice League to impersonate superheroes, dubbed "Super Best Friends", to help rid the town of Bryan's planned mass suicide. What's more, Super Best Friends is just the leader of the world's most popular religion (and Aquaman, or rather "sea people"). The team consisted of Jesus, Buddha, Moses, Krishna, Joseph Smith, Lao Tzu and the Islamic Prophet Muhammad.

When the episode aired, the South Park creators surprisingly received little to no opposition. However, until episodes "200" and "201" came out. One of HBO Max's many deleted properties, the episode was absent because of its portrayal of Muhammad. Although nothing in the Qur'an expressly states that the Prophet could not be placed Entering the image, the supplementary hadith text forbids drawing his image. Therefore, most Muslims just stay away from depicting the prophet. Although "Super Best Friends" escaped death in the early 2000s, the series has been retroactively pulled from streaming.

Cartoon Wars Part I & II

An important event in 2005 brought more attention to South Park. In South Park Season 10 Episodes 3 and 4, "Cartoon Wars Parts 1 and 2," the town is thrown into a panic after Family Guy announces that they will be featuring the Prophet Muhammad in the series. Cartman thinks that playing Muhammad as a character is offensive to the Muslims, and goes to Hollywood to stop them, continuing South Park's long-running feud with Family Guy. Kyle followed him and tried to press the heads of Fox to air the Family Guy episode as a free speech event.

"Cartoon Wars Part I & II" was inspired by the Jyllands-Posten Muhammed cartoon controversy, in which a Danish newspaper published a cartoon featuring Muhammad in 2005, sparking global protests and even violence and riots in places like Benghazi riot. The series aired in 2006 and was originally slated to be the first episode of the season. However, South The Park creators had a feud with Comedy Central over their portrayal of Muhammad, so they delayed the episode.

While one of South Park's many controversial episodes is in production, Comedy Central has yet to approve major parts of "Cartoon Wars Parts 1 and 2". So, upon release, Comedy Central played the episode with a black title card on the Muhammad sequence. The series was subsequently pulled from the streamer after the show moved to HBO Max. "Cartoon Wars Parts 1 and 2" have been in the spotlight for their censorship. That being said, it's known for its satire on Family Guy. Parker and Stone were unhappy with the censorship, claiming the network was hypocritical because most other religions are considered fair game, but Islam is not.

200 & 201

After South Park episodes 200 and 201 aired, Stone and Parker found themselves in a whirlwind of trouble, and they did not appear on HBO Max. Season 14's "200" and "201," like the other three episodes, are still airing on Comedy Central, but under heavy scrutiny. "200" and "201" saw celebrities the show teased before return to town, including Tom Cruise, Rob Reiner, Steven Spielberg, Kanye West, Paris Hilton, George Lucas, Mel Gibson and Barbra Streisand.

Cruise enlists 200 celebrities to file defamation class action against South Park. Cruise agreed to drop the lawsuit, but only if he could meet the Prophet Muhammad. The two-part arc sees Super Best Friends, Mecha-Streisand, and Cartman's Mickey Conner again, as well as another portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad. One of South Park's biggest mistakes was deciding to vent all the controversy they'd had over the years working together as a duo, and it had repercussions.

Kyle's closing speech is cut out by a long beep, Muhammad is covered by a large black box, and Muhammad's name is obscured by the beep, the episodes are not available on HBO Max. On top of all this censorship, the episodes also received attention from several extremist groups who sent very real death threats to the South Park creators and Comedy Central. After "201" aired, the New York State Police even stepped up security around the studio because they feared attacks from extremists. "201," in particular, was never rerun in the US.

Where Can You Watch The Missing South Park Episodes

Nowhere. Not only did HBO Max pull Stone and Parker's five South Park episodes, they were absent too From the South Park Studios website. Whenever an episode is uploaded through illegal means, it is deleted almost immediately. There is no way to watch these five episodes of "banned".

Season DVD box sets are available for purchase, but episodes will still receive the same censorship as they aired. Trey Parker and Matt Stone may be used to threats by this point, but the outcry over "200" and "201" in particular was too much for Comedy Central to deal with. Therefore, these five episodes of Trey Parker and Matt Stone's South Park never made it to the streaming service due to public safety concerns.