LOS ANGELES, Nov 10 — It's taken them 12 years, but South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker have apologised to Al Gore for mocking his climate change views in an episode.

Their apology came, of course, in the form of another episode. In Time to Get Cereal, the South Park kids seek help from Al Gore who they had previously derided for warning them of ManBearPig.

ManBearPig had been a stand-in for climate change in the episode, and in the latest episode the kids realise that ManBearPig was real after all.

In the previous episode (aired in 2006), ManBearPig had been 'unmasked' as fictional - implying that the so-called threat Gore was expounding in real life was fictional as well.

It's good to know Stone and Parker have finally caught up with the science of climate change, though maybe they could have done that before lampooning Gore in the first place? Still, an apology is still an apology. No word how Gore has reacted to this latest South Park episode.

South Park is known for its often offensive, sometimes racy, themes and the creators have made vicious fun of real-life figures such as Celine DIon, Tom Cruise and Ben Affleck, among others.