South Park nearly doubled its ratings for the follow-up to the season premiere that centered Trump’s “teeny-tiny” manhood, drawing far more TV viewers for its parody of “ICE Barbie” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and her Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
Just before the show’s roasting of Noem, during which she was portrayed as a glam-obsessed ICE agent who loves arresting Hispanic people, killing puppies, and using botox, the DHS used the series to promote its ICE recruitment efforts, posting a photo from the episode’s teaser with a link to join the agency.
A statement from a spokesperson read, “We want to thank South Park for drawing attention to ICE law enforcement recruitment: We are calling on patriotic Americans to help us remove murderers, gang members, pedophiles, and other violent criminals from our country.”
That tune changed drastically after Noem got a look at South Park’s version of her on Thursday and responded to the parody, though she claimed she hadn’t seen the episode because she’d been busy “going over budget numbers and stuff.”
“It’s so lazy to make fun of women for how they look,” she said on The Glenn Beck Podcast, before incredulously claiming that “Only the liberals and the extremists do that.” She added, “If they want to criticize my job, go ahead and do that, but clearly they can’t. They just picked something petty like that.” She did not mention the portions of the episode in which could be seen shooting dogs or telling ICE agents, “Remember, only detain the brown ones.”
That “pettiness” paid off in droves for the show, however, as The Hollywood Reporter notes the episode drew 838,000 viewers when it aired Wednesday on Comedy Central. In comparison, the season premiere, in which the show depicted a naked Trump, drew 430,000 viewers when it first aired on the network. That episode, titled “Sermon on the ‘Mount,” ultimately drew nearly six million viewers across Comedy Central and the Paramount+ streaming service. Streaming numbers for Episode 2 are still pending.
But the Kristi Noem-focused episode is also the third highest episode premiere for the show ever. The heightened anticipation when the show took a sudden one-week hiatus following the season premiere, as well as direct attacks from the White House, likely helped increase viewership.
