Comedy Central has yanked South Park’s “Got a Nut” from its lineup in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination at Utah Valley University. It’s a decision that reeks of fear, not respect. Kirk himself laughed at the parody, even changed his Twitter avatar to Cartman-as-Kirk because he thought it was hilarious. He could take a joke. Comedy Central apparently cannot.
The episode didn’t cause Tyler Robinson to pull the trigger. That part is clear. Investigators say Robinson, 22, told his family weeks earlier that he disliked Kirk, calling him “full of hate” and accusing him of spreading hatred. His grandmother described him as getting more political in recent years. His father recognized him in surveillance images and helped authorities after the shooting. Bullet casings at the scene were found with memes etched into them—symbols tied to far-right online subcultures. Nothing about this points leftward, despite Donald Trump’s declaration that Kirk was killed by “the left.” Robinson’s ideology, if anything, came from a place even further right than Kirk himself.
Which makes Comedy Central’s retreat all the more cowardly. Pulling the episode isn’t about sensitivity or avoiding trauma. It’s about self-preservation. The network doesn’t want to tangle with Trump’s narrative. They don’t want to risk the political blowback, especially with their parent company angling for a Warner Bros. buyout that will need a green light from regulators. So instead of standing by their creators, instead of defending satire, they pulled the episode to protect a balance sheet. That’s not respect. That’s not moral caution. That’s business cowardice, dressed up like virtue.
And that’s the rub: in trying to look responsible, Comedy Central proved it doesn’t understand American comedy at all. This country has always dealt with tragedy through laughter, even the darkest kind. After 9/11, gallows humor spread underground and then mainstream. After every mass shooting, memes pour out within hours—not because the events are funny, but because humor is the only way people can process the chaos. In 2023, when Japanese Twitter users lashed out at Warner Bros.’ Barbenheimer campaign by posting 9/11 memes, Americans responded by going even darker with 9/11 memes of their own. That’s how we cope: we laugh at the abyss, louder and meaner than anyone else.
South Park has always thrived in that space, skewering everything, refusing to hold back. That’s why people tune in. That’s why it still matters after nearly three decades. Pulling an episode because its target became the victim of a crime doesn’t honor the dead—it cheapens the satire. It signals that comedy is allowed only when it’s convenient, only when it doesn’t brush up against reality. And that’s not how satire works. Satire is supposed to sting.
Charlie Kirk, for all his faults, understood that. He didn’t demand censorship, didn’t rage against being lampooned. He leaned into it. He laughed. He posted it. He got the joke. Comedy Central didn’t. And by erasing the episode, they erased a moment that actually showed Kirk could take the heat. They replaced humor with silence, and silence with corporate self-interest.
Satire survives precisely because it doesn’t bow to tragedy, politics, or the fear of backlash. Comedy Central’s decision wasn’t about Kirk’s legacy. It was about not angering Trump, not jeopardizing a merger, not rocking the boat. That may protect their business, but it betrays their brand. They’ve built decades of irreverence only to fold the minute the stakes got real.
The sad truth is this: Charlie Kirk could take a joke. Comedy Central couldn’t. And that says everything.
Hollywood After Dark 