South Park is still just as vital and relevant as was when it premiered in 1997.
Creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have since become a comedy brand unto themselves with
movies like 2004's Team America: World Police and the hit Broadway musical The Book of Mormon.
Let's take a look at the little cartoon that started it all and discover the untold truth
of South Park.
Viral VHS
When Parker and Stone were film students in 1992, they used construction paper and an
old 8 millimeter camera to create a crude, animated short called The Spirit of Christmas.
Featuring a group of foul-mouthed Colorado kids, it was a massive hit at campus screenings.
“Dude, I told you not to put the F***ing hat on frosty’s F***ing head.”
Parker and Stone didn't think about it much until they moved to Los Angeles in 1993 and
their indie movie Cannibal!
The Musical caught the attention of FOX executive Brian Graden.
He loved The Spirit of Christmas so much that he made 100 VHS copies and sent them as holiday
cards.
Two years later, Graden gave the pair $2,000 to make another, and they delivered Jesus
vs. Santa, which he sent to 40 people and was widely bootlegged around town.
“I began to think it was going to take off when I went to parties and people kept trying
to put it in and show me my own christmas card unaware that it was my christmas card.”
George Clooney reportedly distributed 300 copies to his friends, and within a year,
multiple TV networks asked Parker and Stone to pitch a show.
Based On Real People
Parker and Stone drew inspiration from their own lives to create many of the citizens of
South Park.
Cartman's promiscuous mom Liane is named after Parker's ex-fiancée; Butters is based on
the duo's childhood friend and South Park animation director Eric Stough; and Cartman
is named after their high school friend Matt Karpman.
Even Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo, comes from Parker's childhood.
When he'd forget to flush the toilet, his dad would warn him that Mr. Hankey would crawl
out of the toilet and eat him.
Fast Turnaround
Most animated series can take up to a year to produce a single episode, but an average
South Park episode has a production schedule of just six days.
That means the show can comment on breaking news almost as fast as live-action shows,
but the process can be grueling.
Parker and Stone lead a team that writes, records, and animates using a program called
Maya, often turning in completed episodes the same day they're scheduled to air.
And unlike many other long-running shows, South Park's creators remain extremely involved
in the day-to-day operations.
They've only missed a deadline once: in 2013, when their studios lost power.
Teamwork
Most episodes credit only Trey Parker and Matt Stone as writers, but South Park employs
a large staff of writers and consultants.
Lots of famous names have popped into the writers room, including SNL’s Bill Hader.
Kristen Schaal wrote for a dozen episodes in 2007; and sitcom legend Norman Lear, creator
of All in the Family and Good Times, even dropped by at age 81.
Lear served as a creative consultant on the episode where the boys learn Earth is just
the set of a reality show created by aliens, so the man who created Archie Bunker also
brought us the ice cream-pooping taco.
Fishsticks
One of the things South Park does best is tear down celebrities.
While most celebrities the show has skewered have taken it in stride, Kanye West, unsurprisingly,
did not.
“Alright, that does it.
I am going to kick your mother f***ing ass.”
In an infamous episode, Kanye doesn't understand a joke about fish sticks.
Real-life Kanye was also pretty upset, and dissed South Park in his 2010 song "Gorgeous,"
citing his intention to, well...
“Choke a south park writer with a fishstick.”
...oooookay then.
Poor Kenny
“Oh my god, they killed Kenny.”
“You bastards.”
South Park's concept of killing off Kenny in every single episode, only to have him
return for the next episode, is funny and innovative, but not entirely original.
Parker and Stone got the idea from MTV's '90s sci-fi cartoon Aeon Flux, in which the main
character frequently died.
Parker and Stone also drew inspiration from one of their childhood friends, also named
Kenny, who skipped school so often that rumors spread that he'd died.
“My friend Kenny who at the bus stop he had the little orange coat.
He would always say **** we couldn’t understand.
And were like, we can’t ****ing understand you, ya know.
And ah but he, and he was the poorest kid in the neighborhood and that’s why ya know
it was always like, that’s why we were always like he would always like disap, what happened
to Kenny, is he dead?
The cartoon Kenny doesn't always die in later seasons, although he was semi-permanently
killed off for a while in season 5 until Parker decided to bring him back.
Timmy!
Confined to a wheelchair and afflicted with an unspecified condition that only allows
him to say his own name, Comedy Central reportedly didn't want Timmy on South Park.
“Timmy”
Executives were worried Parker and Stone would make fun of people with disabilities, but
the duo countered that the other kids would treat him as just one of the gang.
Fans immediately took to the character, and Parker claimed people began shouting "Timmy!"
at him on the street instead of the usual...
“Oh my god, they killed Kenny.”
“You bastards.”
Many critics praised South Park for including Timmy, and later another physically disabled
character, Jimmy, for raising awareness of issues facing the handicapped.
Disabled viewers voted Timmy the "Greatest Disabled TV Character" in the 2008 RADAR People
of the Year Awards.
“Timmy, Ti, Ti, TImmy.”
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