'South Park' blows deadline for first time ever

Oh my god, they blew a deadline!

For 13 years, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have famously delivered episodes to Comedy Central just before their deadline. Unlike pretty much every animated show on television — many of which are written several months in advance — South Park has remained topical by creating a show from scratch starting six days before air.

But Comedy Central says South Park Studios lost power for three hours on Tuesday (images below). “From animation to rendering to editing and sound, all of their computers were down for hours and they were unable to finish episode 1704 ‘Goth Kids 3: Dawn of the Posers’ in time for air tonight,” the network said in a statement. This is the first time in South Park‘s 240-episode history that a show has not aired as planned due to a blown deadline.

Trey Parker said in a statement: “It sucks to miss an air date but after all these years of tempting fate by delivering the show last minute, I guess it was bound to happen.”

The new episode will air next Wednesday. Tonight, Comedy Central will re-run the classic episode “Scott Tenorman Must Die.” Here are images of Parker and Stone in the studio yesterday, and below that is a 60 Minutes segment showing the team’s behind-the-scenes deadline-driven process. During the clip, executive producer Anne Garefino explains, “I think one of the reasons they do South Park at the last minute … is they always think they’re going to find something funnier if they don’t put it down until the very last minute.”