Four foul-mouthed kids, a ton of oblivious townspeople, and a whole lot of hidden aliens:
During its two decades on TV, South Park has become a cultural institution.
But how did the unlikely, raunchy, irreverent cartoon make it to air in the first place?
Born of boredom
Music major Trey Parker and math major Matt Stone met in film class at the University
of Colorado in 1992.
They found themselves stuck on other classmates' film sets, working the lighting and sound,
and generally feeling pretty bored.
Parker and Stone started doing silly voices to amuse each other and found they had the
same sense of humor.
Parker told Entertainment Weekly,
"We would always talk like these little kids and make each other laugh."
They messed around with their characters for a full year before they ever thought to commit
anything to film.
A school presentation
Before Parker and Stone decided to turn their characters into pop culture icons, Parker
made his own cartoon debut with a satirical school presentation called "American History,"
which used the same construction paper animation style that the duo eventually adapted for
South Park.
It was the amatuer effort that would launch a thousand f-bombs.
The cartoon won a student prize at the University of Colorado in 1992, inspiring parker and
Stone to take it further.
Knowing that the film department had a short film showcase at the end of the year, they
decided to do something holiday-appropriate for their December debut.
So, they made The Spirit of Christmas, also known as Jesus vs. Frosty.
Which is exactly what it sounds like.
Though they didn't all have names, kids that looked and sounded pretty similar to Kyle,
Kenny, Stan, and Cartman are all there.
It even has some pretty familiar lines.
"Oh my God, Frosty killed Kenny!"
At the first screening, the audience went nuts.
People were shocked at seeing cute cartoon kids swear up a blue streak and having Christmas
icons try to murder one another, but since it was a college crowd, most of the people
loved it.
Cannibal!
The Musical
After Jesus vs. Frosty, Parker and Stone didn't go right to work on more animated shorts.
Instead, they made a trailer for a musical comedy about Alferd Packer, a man famous for
survival cannibalism in Colorado.
The University of Colorado, which hilariously named its own cafeteria after Packer, liked
the trailer so much, that it gave the duo $125,000 to shoot a full length feature.
They weren't completely ready to leave snowmen behind, though.
"Let's build a snowman."
The resulting Cannibal!
The Musical was a glimpse into Parker and Stone's future, with hints of the demented
comedy and budding musical genius that would find its way into their professional projects
years later.
And believe it or not, they even hid a few aliens throughout the film, like they would
later would in South Park.
Troma Productions picked up the film for distribution three years after it was made.
Brian Graden at the Fox Broadcasting company happened to see it, and he immediately wanted
to work with Parker and Stone.
Though he couldn't get any major studio to take a liking to Cannibal!, Graden was determined
to make something happen with the pair.
The Christmas card and Clooney
As Graden, Parker, and Stone were trying to get something off the ground, including a
failed children's TV show pilot called Time Warped, Parker and Stone were hurting for
cash.
Graden gave them $1,200 to make a video Christmas card based on the original Jesus vs. Frosty
short, thinking it would only be seen by a few of his friends.
Parker and Stone were excited to get money to do anything, so they made a new five-minute
short and figured it would be the last time they'd visit the quiet little mountain town.
The Spirit of Christmas, also known as Jesus vs. Santa, was even more similar to the soon-to-be
South Park than the original.
Though the short had many future South Park staples, Parker and Stone didn't even put
their names on the film because they figured it was just a little project for fun.
Graden ended up sending the tape around to about 35 friends, but he purposely didn't
send it to any studio heads, assuming the material would offend them.
But the people who actually saw Jesus vs. Santa loved the short so much, they copied
it, sent it to friends, and showed it at parties.
One of the biggest fans of the short was George Clooney.
South Park executive producer Anne Garefino told Hollywood Reporter,
"Before we even began working on the series, the fact that George Clooney had made hundreds
of VHS copies of The Spirit of Christmas and sent them out to all his friends was already
the stuff of Hollywood history."
Without Clooney sharing hundreds of bootleg VHS tapes, South Park might never have happened.
Rejection
Despite other people claiming to have created the popular, but anonymous, short, Parker
and Stone eventually got the credit they deserved, and offers began coming their way…
including the chance to direct Barney's Great Adventure.
Which, obviously, they did not take.
Graden, Parker, and Stone got meetings everywhere, but nearly all the studios were afraid of
putting something so edgy on the air.
And there was also the assumption that every show needed to go the Simpsons route and depict
a family — not a bunch of nasty kids.
They were turned down by MTV, and Graden was even turned down by his own network, Fox.
So, Graden left the company to go wherever South Park landed.
Comedy Central they messed afraid of the potty-mouthed tots and signed them on to make a pilot.
The crashed pilot
When Parker and Stone got to bring South Park to life, they didn't pull any punches.
The first episode, "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe," was shown to focus groups, where people would
rate the show on a scale of 1 to 10.
The show hardly got anything over a three.
And there were lots of ones.
Three people actually cried because they were so disturbed over the things the children
said or did.
Comedy Central didn't pull the plug on the series altogether, though.
They were a struggling network at the time, and aired a slightly modified pilot mostly
because they knew it would get them attention.
South Park debuted in August 1997 after minimal promotion.
Graden thought they'd be lucky to get 200,000 people to tune in, but the premiere got 889,000
viewers, and the show was pulling in over 5 million by the end of the season.
It was an instant, insane hit.
Before long, the show was on the cover of Rolling Stone and Newsweek.
Cartman eternal
Despite the remarkable success, Parker and Stone didn't think they'd be working on it
for very long at all.
Parker recalled to The Hollywood Reporter,
"We thought: 'It's not going to last.
Take it while you can.'
We really had the attitude of, 'Let's do this as long as we can, then we will go back to
Colorado.'"
He went on to say that it wasn't until around season 15 of the show that he realized they'd
probably never need to go back home.
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