Opinion: And The Critics Choice Award For Animated Series Goes To… ‘South Park’?

Last night, Netflix and Sony Pictures Animation’s KPop Demon Hunters scored a Critics Choice Awards double, winning best animated feature and best song, while South Park took home the best animated series prize.

In the best feature category, Netflix’s viral musical beat out high-caliber competition, including Arco, Elio, In Your Dreams, Little Amélie or the Character of Rain, and Zootopia 2. For Best Song, it topped tracks from F1, Sinners, The Testament of Ann, Train Dreams, and Wicked for Good. Both wins bode well for a film that has maintained remarkable momentum for six months now. Released in June, KPop Demon Hunters has not left Netflix’s Top 10 at any point and was still holding strong in third place over the Christmas holiday week.

KPHD taking both awards could hardly be called a surprise. What was far more unexpected, however, was the Critics Choice Awards’ decision to honor South Park as the year’s Best Animated Series.

The show unquestionably had one of its most talked-about seasons in years, maybe decades, in 2025, but placing it among the very best animated series of the season feels like a stretch. Beating fandom-driven comic book series like Harley Quinn, Marvel Zombies, and Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is understandable; superhero fatigue has clearly taken its toll, and while there is impressive work across those shows, little of it feels truly groundbreaking. The same can largely be said for fellow nominee Bob’s Burgers, at least in a technical sense.

But “groundbreaking” is precisely how anyone paying attention would describe the other two finalists: Netflix’s exceptional sitcom Long Story Short, created and showrun by BoJack Horseman creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg, and Common Side Effects, one of the most exciting new animated series of the past decade from the team behind the tragically short-lived Scavengers Reign.

I am a South Park fan and have been for decades. But I struggle to think of a compelling reason the show should be singled out for major awards recognition in its 27th season. Aesthetically and technically, it doesn’t hold a candle to the work done on some of the other nominees. And while it remains sharp and topical, its satire often targets obvious, well-worn subjects, saying less and saying it more plainly than Common Side Effects or Long Story Short, both of which tackled contemporary themes in a far more subtle and thought-provoking manner.

I realize I may be coming off harsher than intended. As I said, I love South Park and just about everything that its creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, have ever done. When I was a senior in high school, my friends and I ripped the South Park movie onto a MiniDisc and listened to it on road trips. I still know every line from BASEketball and regularly quote Orgazmo, Cannibal! The Musical, and, of course, The Book of Mormon, with longtime friends.

But being funny and topical should not, on its own, be enough to justify a major awards win, especially in a year when animation on TV demonstrated just how expansive, ambitious, and culturally relevant the art form can be. Honoring South Park here feels out of touch and like a missed opportunity to recognize work that pushed animation forward and entertained at the same time.