By Joshua Tyler
| Published
South Park has released the second episode of its 27th season, and it’s yet another attempt to take on Trump. This time, they used a TV show reference so dated that most of the animated series’ viewers probably didn’t get it. Somehow, that makes it more hilarious.
The Trump portions of the episode take place at Mar-A-Lago, in a segment meant to be a direct parody of the classic TV show Fantasy Island.
Fantasy Island was a drama-fantasy series airing on ABC from 1977 to 1984, starring Ricardo Montalbán as the mysterious Mr. Roarke and Hervé Villechaize as his assistant Tattoo. In the South Park satire version, Trump Roark and mini-me sized J.D. Vance is Tattoo.
Set on a tropical island, each episode of Fantasy Island featured guests arriving to live out elaborate fantasies, often with ironic or moral twists. The show blended adventure, romance, and light supernatural elements. Known for its iconic catchphrase, “The plane! The plane!” Fantasy Island became a cultural staple.
Thirty years ago, all you had to do was point and shout, “The plane, the plane!” in a gravelly voice, and everyone would laugh and say, “Oh yeah, Fantasy Island!”
Those days are gone, but here’s South Park with a hilarious deep pull reference anyway. It’s a far more creative way to satirize America’s 47th president than the previous episode, which seemed mostly focused on trying to find reasons to get Trump naked.
